Fun_People Archive
7 Mar
MEDIA TODAY: Polling

Date: Thu, 7 Mar 96 17:01:46 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: MEDIA TODAY: Polling

Forwarded-by: General Journalism Discussion <SPJ-L@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
From: Joe Shea <joeshea@NETCOM.COM>

    Ron Paulson's note really struck home [see below -psl], as we have been
writing about these topics in our daily editorials for the past 11 months.
It is especially trenchant in light of a poll of 10 top political pundits
published in JFK Jr.'s "George" magazine out now.  All of the experts were
captured in print, and every single one of them was wrong about who would
win New Hampshire.  I was too -- I said Dole would eke out a razor-thin win
over Buchanan and Alexander.  Why does "George" not have at least one writer
who got it right -- every one of them picked Dole.  That's a monolithic kind
of thinking, if you ask me, and it advances nothing to publish it except to
suggest they all have their heads up their butts.

Best,

Joe Shea
Editor-in-Chief
The American Reporter
joeshea@netcom.com
http://www.newshare.com/Reporter/today.html


> Ron Paulson
> Free Speech Newspaper
> http://www.FreeSpeechNews.com/callme
> The problem is that Major Media IS Big Business. No need to go into who owns
> it. Even some local News Media is controlled by their major advertisers as
> to content.
>
> I can't say it any better than John Swent:
>
> John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff of the New York Times, called by his
> peers, "The Dean of his profession," was asked in 1953 to give a toast
> before the NY Press Club:
>
> "There is no such thing at this date of the world's history, in America, as
> an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who
> dares to write your honest opinions and if you did, you know beforehand that
> it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest
> opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid
> similar salaries for similar things and any of you who would be so foolish
> as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another
> job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper,
> before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of a
> journalist is to destroy truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to
> fawn at the feet of mammon and to sell his country and his race for his
> daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an
> independent press? We are the tools and vassals for rich men behind the
> scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our
> talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men.
> We are intellectual prostitutes."

© 1996 Peter Langston