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John Stark | Bellingham Herald Posted to mcclatchydc.com on Tuesday, October 30, 2012

It was an age of mass media news, one audience sharing a common experience," Brown said. "For the most part, the mass audience experienced such things together."

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I picked this up off Drudge this morning and it really struck a nerve with me. What is wrong with lamenting about the divisive results in news and reporting today? Let me count the ways.

1. "Mass audience experience" that Mr. Stark longs for was the vary one who slanted the news so badly to the left that a Conservative principal was never heard. With public funds, the organization that Mr. Stark works for pandered to the Left and all of the Progressive causes.

2. Now, when there is diversity and people can hear the different points of view with the big three no longer controlling the narrative, Mr Stark quotes Israeli novelist David Grossman

"We are now in danger of becoming like a suit of armor, but without the knight inside," Brown recalled Grossman saying.

Excuse me? What made the knight was principals and those of us who didn't have a voice in the media that Mr. Stark glorifies still have those principals. The knight respected women, he didn't patronize them, demean them or use them to his political ends. The knight valued religion, he didn't classify religious people as "bitter clingers". He respected the tools of self-defense, he didn't vilify those who have them or attempted to use them to protect themselves.

What has replaced the knight among those who support the vision of Mr. Stark is scum like Michael Moore. I chuckled to myself at the image of Michael Moore trying to wedge himself in jousting armor.

"Each side sees itself as under siege," Brown said. "Each side sees itself as losing ground. They can't both be right. Or can they?"

Here is something on which Mr. Stark and I agree. I do feel like I'm under siege. PBS is a part of the number of groups that are conducting that siege against me. Mr. Stark sees the other side as besieged. I certainly hope so. I want my siege against them to extend far beyond politics and into entertainment, education and the general public discourse. Twice this year, I've gone out of my way to patronize businesses (Starbucks, Chick-fil-a) who were under siege for upholding their principles. In both cases, fellow citizens who shared my values and I won out over those who originally called for the sieges to diminish those values.

So I'm ready. Trebuchet anyone?

I saw it too, but as some of the commenters noted, the first paragraph had a significant error.

A fragmented nation and a fragmented audience for news is making the country more difficult to govern, PBS News Hour co-anchor Jeffrey Brown said during a weekend talk at Western Washington University.

Mistake in red.....how it should read:

A fragmented nation and a fragmented audience for news is making the country more difficult to control, PBS News Hour co-anchor Jeffrey Brown said during a weekend talk at Western Washington University.

Personally, I not only detest these lying whining liberals, I detest their most prized institution --legacy media. The sooner legacy media like PBS is gone, the better --and NPR too. And I hope that as they sink, the swirling waters suck down the other liberal propaganda sources like The NYT, The LA Times, The Washing Post, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and all the rest.

Just yesterday I was pondering what I would do to make a point with the media if I was a newly-elected Mitt Romney. One the more interesting things I came up with was to revoke WH media access for the likes of ABC, NBC, MSNBC and the NY Times. Those seats could instead be filled by Breitbart, Washington Times, Weekly Standard, etc.

The Fourth Estate needs a reset. I'm not sure how you accomplish that, but, the extreme-left bias cannot go un-admonished.

I would not hit CNN too hard. As much as they lean hard left, they have not reached the depth that NBC, ABC and NYT have reached.

RoyGBiv wrote: I would not hit CNN too hard. As much as they lean hard left, they have not reached the depth that NBC, ABC and NYT have reached.

Unfortunately decay, once started, is rarely contained or reversed. For me there is not such thing as a half rotten apple. I actually detest CNN worse. MSNBC is unabashed in its heavy slant. NBC, to some degree, admits its bias. It is the NYT and CNN, which claim to produce news with a fair representation, that are more egregious. If you are going to slant the news, at least admit it. When I want to read slanted journalism (and it is good to understand what the other side says), I got to the Huffington Post. There, I know what I'm getting. With CNN, it is much more subtle but it still comes from the same "can".

chasfm11 wrote:

RoyGBiv wrote: I would not hit CNN too hard. As much as they lean hard left, they have not reached the depth that NBC, ABC and NYT have reached.

Unfortunately decay, once started, is rarely contained or reversed. For me there is not such thing as a half rotten apple. I actually detest CNN worse. MSNBC is unabashed in its heavy slant. NBC, to some degree, admits its bias. It is the NYT and CNN, which claim to produce news with a fair representation, that are more egregious. If you are going to slant the news, at least admit it. When I want to read slanted journalism (and it is good to understand what the other side says), I got to the Huffington Post. There, I know what I'm getting. With CNN, it is much more subtle but it still comes from the same "can".

I agree. CNN and NYT are more evil because they are not honest about being slanted. Of course, slanting the news is as old as newspapers. When Napoleon escaped from Elba and tried to re-establish his empire, the Paris papers began by calling him "Corsican Monster", "Ogre" and stuff like that. When he got near Paris, the headline said something like, "His Imperial Majesty Will Enter Paris Tomorrow". But, admitting that it is propaganda undercuts the purpose of propaganda.

As for making the country more difficult to govern, as the author cited in the OP mentioned, it actually makes the country more difficult to tyrannize and govern the way the leftist want to govern it. And, that is a good thing.

Of course you're free to disagree with my assessment of CNN, but I still hold some hope and a modicum of journalistic respect for them. YMMV.

One of the biggest mistakes of the Obama campaign, IMO, was to hammer on CNN for its' handling of Ambassador Stevens' journal, found in the rubble of the Benghazi Consulate. CNN turned on Obama and began openly questioning not only their handling of Benghazi, but of other things as well. At the same time Romney was surging in the polls, CNN was hammering away at Obama. Granted, CNN was using it's position in its own self-interest. But their contribution to validating the Red teams claims about Benghazi and (unintentionally) assisting the Romney surge should not be marginalized.

And when it comes to world events, CNN is FAR more capable (more people and assets) at reporting global news (outside of politics) than is Fox. No, I'm not a CNN fanboy. But of all the majors (other than Fox), they are the most tolerable.

Is that like saying I'd rather be shot with a bullet than a mortar?

RoyGBiv wrote: And when it comes to world events, CNN should be FAR more capable (more people and assets) at reporting global news (outside of politics) than is Fox if they didn't tinker with the facts that they collected . No, I'm not a CNN fanboy. But of all the majors (other than Fox), they are the most tolerable.

Is that like saying I'd rather be shot with a bullet than a mortar?

There, I fixed it for you. I actually agree with you that they are the most tolerable of the "other" networks. At least my poor TV set doesn't start to cringe, fearing that I'll throw things at it when CNN is on. With NBC, CBS, etc. not so much.

Imagine how impossible it would have been to create a nation, and maintain it, if all of our ancestors didn't adopt the "American" way of life and culture.

English, Irish, Scots, Germans, French, Scandinavians, Italians, Eastern Europeans, etc, ad nauseum, ALL bickering and moaning and crying about "racism" and "discrimination", and having to learn how to read, write, and speak english.

It never would have happened.

It makes me sick to see "Americans" squabble about stupid things our ancestors dealt with EFFECTIVELY over 200 years ago.

Texas Dan Mosby wrote: It makes me sick to see "Americans" squabble about stupid things our ancestors dealt with EFFECTIVELY over 200 years ago.

I'm a very poor student of history but it is my impression, because of things like the Federalist papers, that our Founding Fathers had their share of squabbles, too. I appears that there was anything but a universal approach to British rule and to the way in which the American Rebels where going about dealing with it.

That said, I think too many of us, myself included, didn't squabble enough, soon enough. For at least 100 years the Federal government proceeded on its merry path, exceeding its Constitutional authority and building a significant bureaucracy based on the Commerce Clause or, in the case of the Department of Education, no Constitutional authority at all. Both parties participated.

The Federal budget needs to be cut significantly. Yet any challenge to expenditures is met with a wail and cry. Cut cowboy poetry support? Oh, the horror! Except that we are borrowing money from China to provide that support. So yeah, I want to squabble - over every stupid thing that the Federal government wants to spend money on. Every line item, every purchase, every convention, etc. To do otherwise will simply allow the ballooning deficit to grow even bigger. And while we are at it, I want to squabble about everything outside of the National Defense that the Federal government does, too. I want to see the Federal government, all branches, contained in its Constitutional limits. I fully agree that our Founding Fathers got it right. I want to see it keep within the boundaries that they set.

The article sees that line of thinking as fragmenting the country. I see the alternative as unanimous consent for the wrong path that we've been on.

RoyGBiv wrote:Just yesterday I was pondering what I would do to make a point with the media if I was a newly-elected Mitt Romney. One the more interesting things I came up with was to revoke WH media access for the likes of ABC, NBC, MSNBC and the NY Times. Those seats could instead be filled by Breitbart, Washington Times, Weekly Standard, etc.

The Fourth Estate needs a reset. I'm not sure how you accomplish that, but, the extreme-left bias cannot go un-admonished.

I would not hit CNN too hard. As much as they lean hard left, they have not reached the depth that NBC, ABC and NYT have reached.

Mitt Romney and every other conservative should do this. The above mentioned media will never say anything good about a conservative, might as well as give them something to complain about that is true. I don't understand pandering to those who publicly tell you that they are your enemy. If they claim they are your enemy don't kiss them and try to change their minds, agree and watch them closely. But don't pander or even play nice. My take only.