“…have better things to do than be my own news service…”

One of the two or three streaks of light on our horizon can be perceived in this: that the moral breakdown of these papers has been accompanied by a mental breakdown also. The contemporary official paper, like the “DailyNews” or the “Daily Chronicle” (I mean in so far as it deals with politics), simply cannot argue; and simply does not pretend to argue. It considers the solution which it imagines that wealthy people want, and it signifies the same in the usual manner; which is not by holding up its hand, but by falling on its face. But there is no more curious quality in its degradation than a sort of carelessness, at once of hurry and fatigue, with which it flings down its argument–or rather its refusal to argue.It does not even write sophistry: it writes anything. It does not so much poison the reader’s mind as simply assume that the reader hasn’t got one.” — LIBERALISM – A SAMPLE, Utopia of Userers, et al by Gilbert K. Chesterton – Thanks to Vanderleun, who has more….

The Opinionated Bastard has an awfully good rant up charging the media with utterly abandoning their responsibilities, for mere sensationalism. A few excerpts:

The behavior of both Rodney King and the LAPD was terrible, and the verdict, well, it was the verdict. But I truly don’t think there would have been riots if the media hadn’t intentionally fanned the flames. 50-60 people died in those riots. I lay those deaths to a large extent at the door of the LA media, yes.

Last week, I saw the media chant:

Is there going to be a civil war?
Is there going to be a civil war?

They could have just as easily asked:

So, when are you guys going to work it out?

To quote SpiderMan of all things, with great power comes great responsibility. It matters how you ask the question, and it matters how you tell the story.
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More often then not, it seems to me that they’re either making the news, sexing up the news, or just making shit up.

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There are also moral consequences to cheerleading violence. I see the media cheerleading failure, cheerleading terrorism, and cheerleading civil war. It disgusts me.

That’s how I blame the media. Do they get 100% of the blame? No. What percentage of the blame do they get? Frankly, that question doesn’t interest me. I really don’t want to allocate blame, I want the media to change their actions.
[…]
since the media is no longer fulfilling their basic function, I have to blog, and I have to read blogs. It pisses me off, because I had better things to do this decade than be my own news service. I don’t like having to read transcripts of press conferences because I can’t trust the media to even write down what was said correctly. I don’t like having to spend hours finding real experts on the web to analyze how this or that media expert has distorted the facts. I don’t like having to pore through the blogs of journalists, soldiers and Iraqi citizens so I can get some inkling of how things are really going, without the hype.

Amen, brother, sing it, sing it!

You’ll want to read the whole thing. I have friends in the press – people who are really important to me, personally, who are going to read this and bristle with indignation, and I’m sorry if this hurts them. But the OB is laying it out.

I’m not ascribing some dark malevolance to the media…but they’re not doing a good job, anymore. The stellar work they did on 9/11 and in the immediate days after is all forgotten. These days the awful job they did reporting on Hurricane Katrina and its aftermaths, full of distortion, misinformation, sensationalism, over-emoting and an apparent aversion for actual facts seems to be the standard. And it’s a damn shame.