Brushfire of Freedom
Ram Rants
A brief trip into the history of yours truly. My very first career, the path I chose as I began work on my undergraduate degree, was (gulp) journalism. I know, the shame. My father often dreamed that I would become a pimp and bring some respect to myself. I tried to explain to him that I would be a different kind of journalist, but he would not listen. I plowed forward, earned my degree, and began work as a “newsman”. When I look back now I realize that my father was right, “pimp” was a more respectful position.
It should be noted that no learning is without value. Such is the case with my journalism training. One of our studies was the basis, definition, and dangers of libel. For those of you who attended Columbia School of Journalism, libel is, “...a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation. A false and malicious statement about a person. A thing or circumstance that brings undeserved discredit on a person by misrepresentation.” To simplify, libel is a lie, and it is unfortunately the standard practice of most of today’s liberal media.
After all, “liberal” is “libel” with an added “RA”.
It would be possible for me to fill my next several blogs with examples to back up my position. There’s the Dan Rather / CBS / Bush false document scandal, where testimony that identified the documents as fake was excluded to perpetuate a lie regarding the President of the United States. This happened right before an election, but there was no effort to influence the electorate (choke). The lie surrounding Bush’s time in the Air National Guard could have damaged his reputation. Thus it constitutes libel. CBS was not held accountable, though the producer and reporter for that particular story did have to answer for their work.
You have the lies surrounding the whole “global warming” hoax. Entire industries have been negatively impacted, as well as the people who work in those industries. There is now little if any evidence supporting the position that we, the people who inhabit this planet, are responsible for its rapid warming. Many now admit that even the projected warming trends are little more than evidence of manipulated data sets. These are lies, they have been in print in many places, including lengthy television news specials on this latest global crisis. The lies have negatively impacted many lives. Need we say more?
You can undoubtedly go back through your memory banks and come up with dozens of examples. The exploding Ford trucks (enhanced video), the lies about Iraq, the lies about nuclear power. Can you imagine where we would be now if we had been allowed to actively pursue nuclear power in the ‘70’s? I could go on, but just thinking about how our lives have changed because of the lies told by the media gives me a headache and a slight case of nausea.
To really see examples of libel we need go no further than just the past few weeks during the Democrat health care “cram down”. The statements made by Democrats don’t count as libelous statements from the media. After all, a reporter who is reporting what someone else says can not be held accountable for libel. The reporter attributes the comments to the source and there is an absence of malice on the part of the reporter. However, when the reporter repeats a lie as fact, without attribution, you move into murky waters. Back in my days in journalism school we were taught two key steps for every story - all stories should be sourced and then verified. I was required to have three named sources for every key fact in a story. If you wanted your story to be accurate, and if you wanted to avoid a potential libel lawsuit, you would ensure it was properly sourced and you would spend the extra time necessary to validate the statement with additional, named sources.
Those of you who have read “All The President’s Men” about the Watergate investigation will know that Woodward and Bernstein were certain they had evidence of malfeasance by President Nixon, but initially could not get enough named sources to run with the story. Contrast that to the deliberate omission of sources from the Bush ANG records story by CBS and you can see how far journalism has fallen.
The libel being committed by the media today is all around the supposed violence on the part of Republicans / Tea Party members / Conservatives. We have unfounded claims from Democrats, some that have been proven completely false, that are simply echoed without validation, by the media. The “spitting incident” turns out to be nothing more than a person guilty of “spraying it” instead of “saying it”. The soon-to-be discredited “N” word incident is another libelous statement actually made by the media. Without attribution or validation they have claimed that the racial slur was hurled at a Democrat member of Congress. There is currently a $10,000 bounty out for anyone who can produce evidence of this event.
The most egregious is the “coffin case” death threat where as member of Congress was claimed to have had a coffin placed on his lawn as a threat to his life. When the story was actually investigated it took all of about 30 minutes to discover that the coffin was never placed on his lawn, that the Congressman had never felt threatened, and that the media had even reported the wrong day of the supposed event. Sloppy reporting, well of course. But there is a responsibility that comes with working for America’s free press. Journalists have the right to report the events that shape our country. That right is protected by our Constitution. Because of their vaunted position, they also have a responsibility to report the facts. You might hear some journalists defend themselves, talking about the accelerated news cycle, the need to be first, etc. Most of the real facts surrounding these recent claims of violence and threats could be verified with a quick search of the web or one short phone call, so that complaint tends to fall on deaf ears.
Reality check for the “mainstream” media. You’ve been losing viewers and readers for one reason only; your sloppy journalism. Every story you report that is discovered to be a bit off the mark (or an outright lie) further deteriorates your credibility. People want accurate information so that they can make good decisions. If you were just 30 minutes later with a story, but the story was valid and accurate, you would see your readers and viewers return. Your advertisers would be right behind them. At the very least, if you spent some time validating before you went to print or on the air, you could avoid the charge of libel.
Contact Ramarious Brushfire Home
Copyright 2010. The published content is the sole property of the author. Any copy, use, or redistribution of any portion of the material without the written consent of the owner is a violation of international copyright laws.