Update on the update: Rosen redux
I noticed that Jay Rosen has opened up shop on comments again, which is, IMHO, a good thing.
I am going to be very busy (with non-computer things) until fairly late tonight, and won’t have a chance till then to take a good look and do some thinking about what he’s actually saying. Maybe I’ll respond later, if I have more to say on the subject. But I just wanted to direct the attention of those who are still interested in this subject to the new thread at Jay Rosen’s Pressthink.
Some people (like the up and coming neo-neocon) aren’t too happy that I shut down the comments on the previous post, which was by guest writer Austin Bay: Roll Forward: Why the Bush White House Needs the Press to Win the Big One.
The introduction to the reopened “open thread” is peculiar.
He refers to how “unhappy” people are, like neo-neocon. The problem is, neo-neocon wasn’t a child that had their favorite toy taken, she isn’t a person that has had a personal loss. That is what unhappiness means. No, people who disagreed with the way Rosen closed his thread, and the comments he uttered, disagreed in an “intellectual” way, not in an emotional way.
He ignores and “distorts” that, at his own peril.
And unlike his previous comments in the thread in question, it actually sheds some light on his psychological state of mind.
And here’s my suggestion to participants in the previous thread. The bias discourse, however justified you may find it, is making many of you dumber by the day.
I think someone needs to think more than “once” before they say that debating on the internet between people who disagree over press bias or what not, makes those people “dumber” if they continue to do so.
One of the reasons the people knows more than journalists is that they are more curious than journalists. We communicate, not as an end in itself as journalists do, but as a means to an end. Not to go too philosophically into it.
Maybe if he had provided these “suggestions” as he called it earlier, he might have been more happy. And i’m not being sarcastic. Obviouslly he thinks neo-neocon is unhappy because he is unhappy. Of course, I’m no psychology major, but I am curious enough to learn some of the basics and intelligent enough to see human patterns of thought.
You should be concentrating on getting more of your people into the mainstream media, and making great journalists out of them. And you should be discussing the bias the press should, in your considered view, have.
Look, the old adage everyone knows is “if you can’t beat them, join them”.
So why is Rosen acting defeatist and telling us to join journalism? Does he think we can’t beat journalism or that we shouldn’t beat it? That we need it?
No, we don’t need journalism. We need accurate information, the public needs accurate information and well informed analysis so we can MAKE THE GOVERNMENT WORK. That is the point of a free press, if a free press cannot fullfill that life and death function, obsolescence is the Least they can expect.
“and making great journalists out of them”
“Journalists”? We don’t want journalists, we want well-informed citizens. Perhaps journalism has forgotten their purpose.
It isn’t impossible to have well informed citizens without journalists, btw.
And you should be discussing the bias the press should, in your considered view, have.
“Should have”? Should have… let me think on that a bit. What bias should the press have… maybe a pro-war pro-government Ministry of Truth bias?
No, I don’t think so. The press is never going to be objective, and the purpose of Republicans or common sense people should not be to reform, to join, or to mold the press into ways that agree with us. No, we should seek the Truth, and that means recognizing that we are all human beings, with biases. And that biases do not matter if you recognize it and take it into account.
The most false and deceptive thing journalism has comitted to themselves and to us, is to deceive the American People into thinking that journalists like Walter Cronkite had no individual biases and perceptions of events independent of the reality on the ground.
They need to stop denying the facts, and start reporting them.
Rosen is human, labeling him as an ivory tower/prof is not quite accurate. Assume he is human and acts in all the ways humans act, fallibly, and things make much more consistent sense.
There is nothing that will ever get the Whitehouse press corps or the MSM as a whole to be fair about Bush or about the war. It looks to me like the administration knows this very well and has decided not to waste time and energy trying to make the impossible happen. Austin Bay should be able to see this.
Rosen and the rest of the academics live in an insulated world and look the other way when something doesn’t fit their snug, smug paradigm. When the real world insists on intruding they shut down the comments in a snit. Rosen was “dismissing” the class. And then he opened it up again when he belatedly realized his credibility would suffer. Rosen made the mistake of inviting comment from the other side when he made it a joint venture with Bay. Usually non-libs don’t comment over at Pressthink. Ever notice how Orwellian the name “Pressthink” is? Rosen wanted it to be a safe, controlled classroom discussion where no one speaks their real mind for fear of a low grade and displeasure from the podium. That’s what those professors are used to. But he invited the other side in with the way it was handled. It will never happen again, you can bet on that.
Here’s how I perceive the Bush strategy: Don’t say much — it’ll just get twisted. Choose nominees without much of a track record for the MSM to spin. Keep your speeches bland and repetitive, use “safe” phrases & concepts — otherwise they’ll take them and use them for their own purposes. Never provide a fulcrum for their distortions if you can help it. Never forget they’re out to get you.
It tickles me when the MSM complains that Bush’s speeches are repetitive. It’s like the bratty rock-throwing kid complaining that someone took his favorite stones. “They’re just not there anymore!?? Does anyone know where they are?!! Please, somebody help me find them.” Wah wah. Sniffle sniffle. Boo hoo. “Mooooooommy! Mooooooommy!”
The MSM is perfectly willing to sacrifice entire countries in order to get Bush or merely to create news. They did it before and glory in it, they’ll do it again if they can. Everyone sees it, everyone knows it, but deny, deny, deny is the order of the day for the MSM. I laugh and many laugh with me when I hear protests to the contrary.
Anonymous sources: They get used more and more. And trust in the MSM goes down and down. Maybe there’s a relationship. Ya’ think?
Historically journalists have never been held in high regard but they used to have a small reserve of trust for trade. That’s history and they are dimly realizing that there is no way that will ever be again and it’s soooo funny to see it dawning on them.
The press sees things through The Template: If you’re in The Template you can’t see it or won’t see it, it doesn’t really matter which. If you are outside The Template it’s all too obvious. As Kesey said, “You’re either on the bus or off the bus.”
Rosen brings forward one of his comments from the closed thread:
“And here’s my suggestion to participants in the previous thread. The bias discourse, however justified you may find it, is making many of you dumber by the day. You should be concentrating on getting more of your people into the mainstream media, and making great journalists out of them. And you should be discussing the bias the press should, in your considered view, have.”
Rosen’s answer to the charge of liberal media bias is to blame conservatives for not pursuing careers in journalism.
He then proposes to have a discussion about improving press relations with the White House while simultaneously ignoring media bias and the way it depicts current events to bash the White House.
Am I reading this correctly?
Thanks for noting this, Ms. “up & coming” NNC.
I’ll write, repeat?, my Moral Hazard note there on the Open Thread.
Good luck on your non-computer stuff (what’s that? I hope it’s not electronic, without, like, microprocessor on-board intelligence or I/O ports, or something)