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From: plunkett@rlgvax.UUCP (S. Plunkett)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Media Irresponsibility
Message-ID: <500@rlgvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 18-Feb-85 13:30:58 EST
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.500
Posted: Mon Feb 18 13:30:58 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 19-Feb-85 05:52:24 EST
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> From robertsb@ttidcb.UUCP (Robin Roberts)
> > I am once again confronted with the fact that the news media do a great deal
> > of harm by their distortion of priority in news issues. Its long past time
> > for them to clean up their act.
> 
> From Bob Kaplan	{ucbvax,ihnp4,decvax}!trwrb!trwrba!cadovax!bob
> You seem to be under the impression that the function of the news media is
> to report the news.  This is a fairly common misconception ...
> We do not have a 'free' press.  It costs money to publish a newspaper or
> operate a radio station.  In order to survive, a news organ must be
> financially successful.  Thus, most newspapers, magazines, radio and
> television networks have the primary interest of making a profit.

"Free press" is generally understood to mean freedom from government
oversight, censorship, and regulation.  It does not mean "freedom from
any interest whatsoever"--a point I suppose you are making sarcastically.
The primary business of the press-ownership is to turn a profit; we
may assume here that everyone needs to earn a living.  However, there
is the press profession which supports ideals more suitable to the
individuals who actually do the reportage.  Ideals such as fairness,
comprehensiveness, quality, and so on.  It is these ideals that Robin
Roberts and many others see lacking today; reporting the facts is
more and more subsumed to airing tendentious opinions.

> I hope this doesn't sound too much like another conspiracy theory, but I get
> really worried about people like Rupert Murdoch or companies like Warner
> Bros. Communications, who try to buy up newspapers and other media, and then
> publish only the news that they see fit, and only in a way that they see fit.

Quite so.  We note the concern of liberals suddenly alarmed at prominent
conservatives buying up newspapers.  We also note they are not so alarmed
at the entrenched liberalism throughout medialand that has been largely
responsible for the cynical use of the media which the above writer seems
so disgusted about.  Maybe a little diversity and some healthy
competition of *ideas* will help the situation.

Scott Plunkett,
..{ihnp4,seismo}!rlgvax!plunkett