In this information age and the very complicated world in which we live today, the need for high-quality reporting is greater than ever. It's not just the journalist's job at risk here. It's American democracy. It is freedom...[As broadcasters cut budgets and air time for news] we're all left with a sound bite culture that turns political campaigns into political theater.Who said it?
A) Sean Hannity
B) Rush Limbaugh
C) Ann Coulter
D) Walter Cronkite
Cronkite said news accuracy has declined because of consolidations and closures that have left many American towns with only one newspaper...Read it again:Michael Copps, a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, later said that looser broadcast regulations -- such as those that had required stations to regularly prove they serve the community interest -- have resulted in less local coverage, less diversity of opinion [bold emphases mine] and fewer jobs for journalists over the past quarter century."
"news accuracy has declined"Less accuracy, less community service responsibility and less diversity of opinion in the news we are given and among the newspeople who give it to us is what (mis)leads millions to believe that the "correct" news is from the "far left of center" CBS, New York Times and LA Times and from the "moderately left" NBC, ABC, NPR, The Washington Post, Newsweek, TIME, U.S. News and World Report and USA Today."less diversity of opinion"
"stations [aren't required anymore] to regularly prove they serve the community interest"
Of 20 news sources assessed objectively in that UCLA Poli.Sci. professor's research, only two were right of center: FOX News and The Washington Times. Fourteen were found "moderately left" and four were "far left of center" in their reporting of the news. More noteworthy is the fact that fourteen were farther left of center than FOX News was right of center, including ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News, New York Times, USA Today, NBC Today Show, TIME Magazine, U.S. News and World Report, NPR Morning Edition, Newsweek, CBS Evening News and Early Show, Washington Post, LA Times and even The Wall Street Journal (I suggest reading the actual study before arguing that they're a conservative bastion).
Is it any wonder that many people revel in questionable "exposes" such as "OutFOXed?" They cannot tolerate "more diversity of opinion" or even more accuracy in their news reporting because they've been fed a steady diet of left-of-center news from so many "majority-rule" sources for so long that they've come to believe it really. is. the. truth.
Talk about drinking the Kool-Aid and never even knowing it's Kool-Aid.
Cross-posted on Abortion Pundit.
