Digital Johnny, Real Johnny

Journalists don't criticize politicians mostly for fear of being cut out of the info loop - media's feeding trough. Without press passes and good relationships with the government's main PR flaks and media relations people, you've got a lot of nothing and another journalist who played the game will scoop you every time. With the way defamation law has been swinging ever since JFK won the presidency by looking better than Nixon on TV, I think there's almost no way a journalist could be seriously sued for criticizing a public official, unless they were to say something they totally know is false or are willing to say about the official despite not knowing either way that seriously hurts the official. The chances of that are slim, slim, slim. If the Swift Boat guys can do what they did to Kerry, a legitimate news personality, program or network can be pretty darn sure pointing out things that are true and that the public really should know shouldn't get you in any hot water to really be worried about. Besides, even if they did get sued, today's big conglomerates can afford the hit.

Another reason journalists don't criticize and just let officials and pundits say what they will without comment, is that they're lazy. Well, that's not fair, since part of the problem is that journalists are very often under a lot of pressure to produce a lot of material very, very quickly. The 24-hour news cycle has changed journalism practices because journalists now have to compete for the headline of the HOUR, not just the headline of the DAY. Not only does this cut down on investigation time and fact-checking time, but it also cuts down on critical thinking and analysis. What we see today is mostly reworked or even verbatim press releases from other news organizations, government agencies, special interest groups, corporations, etc., etc.

So what we're essentially getting are the conflicting viewpoints of, well, Coke and Pepsi, presented to us as news, as what's going on in the world, but it's really the official stance of some organization that's either involved in the issue or has a great interest in the issue. Many journalists like to call this being "objective", since they are presenting the view points of various actors involved in issues of public concern, but by not revealing their sources very often, people are almost tricked into thinking that the information and the slant on it (EVERYTHING has slant; it's impossible to speak without leaving clues about how you think/feel about something) are coming from an independent journalist (not necessarily the presenters) who has viewed all the sides of an issue and is presenting you with her/his opinion about.

Since news basically comes from press releases, it follows that the variety of press releases actually used in the news are limited. Not only can the media not process, approve and present each item it gets, but not every source of good information out there in the world has the power to get a press release in a CNN intern's hands. This means that not only do only certain kinds of groups (usually well organized, funded and staffed) get their opinions to the media, but these are further limited based on the prominence of the source (i.e., the white house v. Greenpeace - who gets their piece on the air?) and its "newsworthiness" - a combo of things like timeliness, surprise/shock, human interest and newness. While this may create the illusion of media being fair to both sides of the issue, it's really hiding that there are probably 50 other sides to the issue coming into the fax machine at the moment, most of which will never be presented, and things happen in the world every day - big, important things - that never ever make it to the air. The net effect of this is that the same kinds of things get over reported (depending on infotainment consumption trends) and the same kinds of viewpoints are all you see. John Stewart is absolutely right; partisanship has become part of the media due to the fact that you are getting direct lines from the Democratic and Republican parties and representatives. When was the last time you heard about the Green Party platform or saw a peaceful protest on CNN? Stuff like that doesn't make the news because it isn't news, at least not to the people who are running the big shows. So, it really bothers me when people say the media is liberal, because it isn't. It is by nature conservative in that it relies on a well-established, "credible", prominent and extremely well funded information feeding trough that everyone takes from without a second thought. This means that they're not doing much to change the status quo (and really wouldn't want to), which is antithetical to the liberal pursuits of study, critical thinking and finding your own answers. When people say media is liberal, they're more likely referring to the fact that the media is comprised of mostly Democrat-type people, as opposed to Republicans. This may or may not be true, but I don't really know anything about media employment statistics by political affiliation.