News Media as The Fourth Estate
Whatever happened to the concept of the news media as "the fourth estate"? The American news media have become so "in bed" with the liberal Democrat Party that it is nearly impossible to get an unbiased account of political events.
Access to factual unbiased information is essential to a healthy democracy. First, it ensures that citizens make responsible, informed choices rather than acting out of ignorance and misinformation. Second, such information serves as a "check" on elected representatives to ensure they uphold their oaths of office and carry out the wishes of those that elected them.
In the United States, the media is often called the fourth branch of government (or "fourth estate"). That's because it monitors the political process in order to ensure that political players don't abuse the democratic process.
Others call the media the fourth branch of government because it plays such an important role in the fortunes of political candidates and issues. This is where the role of the media can become controversial. News reporting is supposed to be objective, but journalists are people, with feelings, opinions and preconceived ideas. The problem in recent history is our schools of journalism are dominated by liberal professors and thought, thus turn out like thinking journalists unable to make objective judgements of any newsworthy political event. This has never been more evident as it has the last six years of the Obama reign as the media fawns over Obama even as he makes obviously dumb statements. Case in point, when Republican vice-president Dan Quayle publicly spelled the plural of potato in an irregular, but acceptable, manner he was eviscerated by the media, but when Obama mispronounced "corpsman" not once, but three times in a prepared speech the press gave him a pass.
The influence of the mass media greatly affects our politics. The public's point of view is changed by the way the news is reported. When the public's views are affected, the voting polls are too, and when votes are changed, different public officials are elected. The mass media has a powerful effect on politics.
Watergate was mostly a media created event. It was about the cover-up of a third rate burglary of the Democrat Party office in the Watergate Hotel. No one was killed or died, but some of those involved did prison time. Fast forward to the Obama reign and there is "Fast and Furious" gun running and a dead border agent. There is "Benghazi" with a dead ambassador and three other Americans dead. There is the Obamacare roll out. There is the "IRS" scandal. Yet, nothing is done by the main line news media to bring anyone in the Obama administration to account.
It is only the past several months that a few in the news media are beginning to break ranks and report the missteps, failures, and lack of leadership by Obama and his administration.
ABOUT TIME!
Access to factual unbiased information is essential to a healthy democracy. First, it ensures that citizens make responsible, informed choices rather than acting out of ignorance and misinformation. Second, such information serves as a "check" on elected representatives to ensure they uphold their oaths of office and carry out the wishes of those that elected them.
In the United States, the media is often called the fourth branch of government (or "fourth estate"). That's because it monitors the political process in order to ensure that political players don't abuse the democratic process.
Others call the media the fourth branch of government because it plays such an important role in the fortunes of political candidates and issues. This is where the role of the media can become controversial. News reporting is supposed to be objective, but journalists are people, with feelings, opinions and preconceived ideas. The problem in recent history is our schools of journalism are dominated by liberal professors and thought, thus turn out like thinking journalists unable to make objective judgements of any newsworthy political event. This has never been more evident as it has the last six years of the Obama reign as the media fawns over Obama even as he makes obviously dumb statements. Case in point, when Republican vice-president Dan Quayle publicly spelled the plural of potato in an irregular, but acceptable, manner he was eviscerated by the media, but when Obama mispronounced "corpsman" not once, but three times in a prepared speech the press gave him a pass.
The influence of the mass media greatly affects our politics. The public's point of view is changed by the way the news is reported. When the public's views are affected, the voting polls are too, and when votes are changed, different public officials are elected. The mass media has a powerful effect on politics.
Watergate was mostly a media created event. It was about the cover-up of a third rate burglary of the Democrat Party office in the Watergate Hotel. No one was killed or died, but some of those involved did prison time. Fast forward to the Obama reign and there is "Fast and Furious" gun running and a dead border agent. There is "Benghazi" with a dead ambassador and three other Americans dead. There is the Obamacare roll out. There is the "IRS" scandal. Yet, nothing is done by the main line news media to bring anyone in the Obama administration to account.
It is only the past several months that a few in the news media are beginning to break ranks and report the missteps, failures, and lack of leadership by Obama and his administration.
ABOUT TIME!
posted by Donald G Davidson at 12:07 AM
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