The first amendment to the Constitution says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I put this up on the sidebar the other day. I just highlighted four words that are very important to me. They refer to the Fourth Estate:
The term Fourth Estate refers to the press. The term goes back at least to Thomas Carlyle in the first half of the 19th century. Thomas Macaulay used it in 1828.In our country the founding fathers felt that it was important enough to list this freedom in the Bill of Rights. We have always made a lot of the freedom of speech aspect of this amendment. Unfortunately, the Fourth Estate has not always lived up to its responsibility. They have been more interested in their own celebrity than they have in telling the truth.
Novelist Jeffrey Archer in his work The Fourth Estate made the observation: "In May 1789, Louis XVI summoned to Versailles a full meeting of the 'Estates General'. The First Estate consisted of three hundred clergy. The Second Estate, three hundred nobles. The Third Estate, six hundred commoners. Some years later, after the French Revolution, Edmund Burke, looking up at the Press Gallery of the House of Commons, said, 'Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all.'"
We have left wing press, and right wing press. We have commentators who aren't really press but are talking heads who supposedly report the news but in actuality they have an agenda which could be theirs or it could be that of their corporate headquarters. In the last administration reporters were rewarded with rides on Air Force One and if they were not complimentary to the President they were punished and in some cases cast into the outer darkness. No more buddy buddy with the pres. They were easily manipulated.
What we have to little of is objective reporters who are interested in finding out the facts of what is happening in our governments and then reporting it to the people so that democratic decisions can be made in an informed manner.
I was listening to someone who had been skewered by Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. He kept saying that Stewart was a "Comedian" - that is true. He is also a member of the Fourth Estate and while I will admit that he is interested on putting out his own "slant" on things and having fun with it while he does. He does put stories out there which can't always be found elsewhere. I admit that I prefer to watch him. I also enjoy watching the Rachel Maddow Show and Countdown. I like them. I also find that they are not afraid to tell stories which make me think.
One of the shows I don't watch is Hardball. I think it is because Chris Matthews yells to much and interrupts his guests. I used to watch Crossfire but found that it was one of the rudest shows on TV and while I liked the differing viewpoints I finally gave up on it because they were so disrespectful towards one another.
There are some reporters out there who I am beginning to enjoy. Katie Couric is one of them. Unfortunately I think most of the others are still more interested in their own celebrity (as I said before) than in reporting news in a measured, fair, balanced manner. Which is something we need more of. Who is your favorite news person and why do you like them.
Addendum
Addendum II
The News They Won't Tell You About - From FireDogLake
Thanks for stopping by. ARTYAL, Huge Hugs, j
2 comments:
I have NO favorite news person. And I don't think I ever will have one. At least not in the sense of the question, which I believe is referring to a television news reporter. And I don't like any of them. I have some least favorite ones, but I will keep quiet since they are probably the favorites of many others. Actually, I find them all to be offensive and ignorant and ... more interested in ratings and pay than truth.
The only place to find real REPORTING and ANALYSIS is in the written media. All the TV and radio stuff is designed to be sensational. If it don't sell, don't talk about it. And unfortunately, most of the print media also tends toward the short concise, quotable, sound-bite like COMMENTARY, as opposed to analysis and reporting. Nobody has time to READ an in depth article anymore. Nobody is interested in learning that they might be wrong about something. Just pick someone who says what you want to hear and have them reassure you every day or so that you are still correct.
The best source of true reporting and analysis that I have seen regularly comes from foreign media. I have had the fortune (or misfortune depending on your point of view) to travel quite a bit to Japan. I have always been amazed at the quality of the English language Japanese newspapers. They are much more likely to explore the how and the why rather than just the who and the what. The who and the what is included, but only to support the how and the why. And this is true, not only for their Japanese news, but for their international material as well. I always found that I learned more about what was actually happening in the US when I was in Japan than when I was at home.
If you want to add at least one non written source, I would recommend the BBC. Of course that is foreign again. I would not recommend PBS, unless you supplement it dramatically with other perspectives.
Actually, for a domestic source of written material, I recommend the Wall Street Journal. You may claim that it will be dominated by conservative viewpoints. But if you read it a lot, I think you will find that to not be true. Yes, it has a lot of articles by business types, but contrary to popular belief, many of them are not the right wing conservatives you might expect. In fact, I was actually surprised when I started reading the WSJ just how balanced most of the coverage really was.
BBC
Sky News
International Herald Tribune
Those are my main sources of objective reporting.
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