Thursday, December 18, 2008

Post Journalism: Lessons Learned As Told by Victor Davis Hansen

I have had long discussions with friends who were news junkies long before I awoke from my apathetic stupor who are appalled with what masquerades as journalism these days. Today I read the article below on http://www.illusionorreality.com/ by Victor Davis Hansen and I couldn't agree more with his assessment:

We have seen it all the last two years: Weeping journalists on election night; a
journalist openly promising to help make Obama successful (”Yeah, it is my
job.”); film takes of journalists cheering an Obama speech; the savaging of
Sarah Palin and the hands-off treatment of Biden; soft-ball interviews and long
puff-pieces on Obama as the young cool crusader;comparisons to JFK’s Camelot,
and on and on.

In the 3rd book of his history, Thucydides has some insightful thoughts about destroying institutions in times of zealotry—and then regretting their absence when there is a need for refuge for them. The mainstream press should have learned that lesson, once they blew up their credibility in the past election by morphing into the Team Obama press agency. There will come a time in the year ahead when either Obama’s unexamined past will come back to haunt him, or his inexperience and tentativeness in foreign affairs will be embarrassingly apparent, or his European-socialist agenda for domestic programs simply won’t work. And as public opinion falls, what will MSNBC, the New York Times, the editors of Newsweek, a Chris Matthews or the anchors at the major networks say?
Not much—since they will have one of two non-choices: (1) either they will begin scrambling to offer supposed disinterested criticism, which will be met with the public’s, “Why should we begin believing you now?” or “Why didn’t you tell this before?”, or (2), They can continue as state-sanctioned megaphones of the Obama administration in the manner that they did during the campaign. They will lose either way and remain without credibility. In short, we live now in the Age of Post-Journalism. All that was before is now over, as this generation of journalists voluntarily destroyed the hallowed notion of objectivity and they will have no idea quite how to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again.


This article has quite a prophetic tone so it will be interesting to see how the media responds when there is egg on it's face.

6 comments:

uglyblackjohn said...

We have PhotoShop these days. What egg could there be?
This is no different than the propaganda of MSM during WWII. America needed to believe.

Conservative Black Woman said...

Rightklik~It's true some American's don't care but most of them just have faith that the media will report the whole story unbiasedly.

UBJ~Does America "need" to believe that Barack Obama isn't an empty suit Who was placed in power to do the biddings of liberal left? Does America need to believe that he is a natural born citizen? Does America need to believe that he isn't a usurper and an egomaniacal fraud?

uglyblackjohn said...

@CBW -Yes.
Most Americans vote based on their emotions. (Look how the election turned out.)
So the best way to govern is by controling those emotions. (Make people think that they WANT to do what needs to be done.)
Kennedy and Reagan were effective or cited as great leaders because they had charisma.
Using what motivates people to motivate them isn't always bad.

ecom said...

nice article

Smile said...

UBJ is correct in that the MSM has been attempting to dupe the American people for a long time. The rest of what he says is pure ear tickling. Just a cursory look will tell you part of the reason why. The people and the educational system were more pure and people had a better grasp on information the further back you go. Research that and you'll see that's true. Also, there's a big difference in using the bully pulpit and being a great communicator and outright lies and deception. There are other reasons too, but research student/school performance. Ask why there are different versions of history now that we're all dumbed down and foolish enough to believe our feelings rather then facts.

household6 said...

Obama got elected because Blacks wanted to vote for a black person and because whites were either mad at the economy and wanted something different, or they continued to buy into the 60's mindset that they still owe us that 40 acres and a mule. Either way is irrelevant, the media has become nothing more than a sounding post for whatever their leadership wants it to be-there are no more journalists, no more news, just more stuff bent on telling people what they need to believe. But, the chickens are starting to come home to roost-have you seen the media coverage of the insanity in IL and the flack coming down because of his choice of Warren? My how the tide changes when your "change" actually wants to make a few that aren't ones you agree with.

At any rate, Obama is just like bush, just younger and a democrat. He has no experience, will fill his cabinent with folks who only have marginal experience and agendas, and he will have neither the strength nor the knowledge to do anything about it until they have further decimated this country.

Although the mainstream media is totally hornswaggled, any american with a computer and a modicum of common sense could have made an educated choice and pushed through the bull, and gone online. Sometimes you have to listen to more than once source to obtain a real view.