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December 17, 2004
Reminder: Watch 'Now' Later
Tonight PBS will broadcast the final episode of Now with Bill Moyers as the host. A reknown author and prestigious television journalist, Moyers is seizing the opportunity to retire from television at age 70 with his journalistic integrity intact, but he may be doing so in a blaze of glory. The subject matter for the last broadcast:
Bill Moyers looks inside the right-wing media machine that the conservative NEW YORK TIMES columnist David Brooks called a "dazzlingly efficient ideology delivery system." The program examines how a vast echo chamber that is admittedly partisan and powerfully successful delivers information — and misinformation — with more regard for propaganda than fact.
According to Moyers:
"We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people."
So what does the recent "retirements" of journalism's heavy-hitters mean for American TV news? One view might be that the last bastions of broadcast news media's integrity are falling away as the "old schoolers" pack it up, and newer (read that as "younger, more plastic, and invariably more coachable") personnel funnel into their chairs. Admittedly, once we've seperated the chaff of fact from the "news", any reader will do... so we can put in whatever fabricated face will most appropriately match the fabricated news being delivered, and no one will worry about those times long ago, when journalists researched, verified sources, researched again, and, you know, spoke the truth. Or at least tried to.
Posted By | December 17, 2004 09:24 AM | DIGG ME!
Comments
"When in doubt, leave it out," used to be the rule. Somewhere along the line, it changed to "When in doubt, the more we shout."
Journalism and its rhymes. But all too true.
Posted by: Bob Cesca at December 17, 2004 11:23 AM
