How Come ‘Fair and Balanced’ Persists in an Unfair and Imbalanced Political Climate?

Thomas Jefferson said, “were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

It seems our choice in these troubled times is to suffer the decline of both

The Fairness Doctrine, enforced by the Federal Communications Council, was rooted in the media world of 1949. Lawmakers became concerned that the monopoly audience control of the three main networks, NBC, ABC and CBS, could misuse their broadcast licenses to set a biased public agenda.

When ‘lawmakers become concerned,’ it’s usually time to reach into your pocket and make sure your billfold is still there. Taken to its extreme, ‘fair and balanced’ has The New York Times reporting the rantings of a convicted felon, serial liar, ex-president as ‘normal political discourse.’

To paraphrase a Waylon Jennings song, I’m not sure old Tom woulda done it thisaway

Jefferson is no longer here to comment. But before we leave him too quickly, remember his warning that “Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.”

In an article from today’s UK Guardian newspaper, correspondent Rebecca Solnit wrote, “The mainstream press is failing America – and people are understandably upset.”

“The first thing to say about the hate and scorn currently directed at the mainstream US media is that they worked hard to earn it. They’ve done so by failing, repeatedly, determinedly, spectacularly to do their job, which is to maintain their independence, inform the electorate, and speak truth to power. While the left has long had reasons to dismiss centrist media, and the right has loathed it most when it did do its job well, the moderates who are furious at it now seem to be something new – and a host of former editors, media experts and independent journalists have been going after them hard this summer.”

The debate between Harris and Trump is tomorrow, the election in fifty-six days and time is short

The NYTimes need not be singled out. This pervasive system of ‘fairness’ in place of any considered opinion at all, crosses nearly all media but that which escapes the FCC Fairness Doctrine. Such ‘independent media’ includes television, newspapers, or Internet-based publications that are free of influence by government or corporate interests. For better or worse, the internet leads the parade, but we have only the weakness of media decline to thank or blame for that.

Longtime journalist James Fallows declares that three institutions – the Republican party, the Supreme Court, and the mainstream political press – “have catastrophically failed to ‘meet the moment’ under pressure of the Trump era”. Centrist political reformer and columnist Norm Ornstein states that these news institutions “have had no reflection, no willingness to think through how irresponsible and reckless so much of our mainstream press and so many of our journalists have been and continue to be.”

Ouch.

Whoever loses this coming election will no doubt blame the media.

It’s so much easier than blaming either your morality or the direction of your leadership.