Good point! I mean, shouldn't neutrality carry ounce of truth?

Simpler: If some re-puke-lican announces that the Sun is not hot; and the WhiteHouse puts out the scientific facts that it IS - the report should list the facts as they are.

sigh.

Next up on Face The Nation, we look at the shape of the Earth. Is it round or flat? We'll hear discussion from representatives of both sides.

But notice that this does not always happen. The media do not report that some people say that we need single-payer health care, and others do not. Some positions (many of which have plurality support among the American people) are just beyond the pale.

Next New Species
If you wanna get to heaven
Stay outta the way of the
Long tongued liars
Oh good shepherd , ...

When does crushing the economic life out of the middle class (the vast just trying to live , get by , majority conspiracy) become an iceberg ? After we hit bottom it appears in this case .

Limbaugh inferred just yesterday that the sun was not so hot , ipso fatso ergo no global warming

When journalists start taking sides in a debate they stop being journalists.

I want journalists to report. I'll decide.

But, of course, with our media being the petty tyrants that they are, they're just going to double down on the he said/she said stuff.

"Republicans said today that Obama is a blood-sucking alien from Betelgeuse. The White House denies it. We'll have opinions from both sides here in the Situation Room."

"When journalists start taking sides in a debate they stop being journalists.

I want journalists to report. I'll decide."

Posted by: Al

Explaining that something is a lie is reporting.

Two comments. Stating that something is a lie could be construed as "opinion" in this new, postmodernist world where everyone seems to believe that their opinion is indeed truth. It is a really sticky world that way.

Second, however, and probably way more important is that the news corporations are being run for entertainment value and profits. For the same reason that there perhaps should be no profit-making companies running health care systems, there probably should be no profit-making companies running businesses that purport to deliver "news."

The sad fact of the matter is that SteveT is right. If (when is more likely) Republicans start to claim the earth to be flat (just as they claim evolution isn't science fact) the media will present their side as if it is legitimate to doubt the roundness of the planet. It is really stunning and pathetic and THE major reason why our country is about to implode. Seriously, think about it: The same people who enthusiastically voted for Bush and Cheney, twice, and the largest deficits and debt increases in our history, are now the people rejecting health care for their sick children ... because, they say, it will increase the debt too much. I mean, wow! How far down the path of disinformation does one have to be led in order to be able to ignore a cognitive chasm that wide? One would think that, perhaps, it might be a journalists job to uncover and highlight the obvious discrepencies within any given debate. Sadly, though, one would be wrong.

I want journalists to report. I'll decide."
Posted by: Al

That's the problem, Al: you're too stupid to make an intelligent decision.

Limbaugh inferred just yesterday that the sun was not so hot , ipso fatso ergo no global warming - FRP @ 10:50

This just in; Limbaugh isn't so hot either.

Q: Does this lone/solitary blob go home at night or do they just cover him up with his microphone?

If you KNOW where the lies arecoming from TELL US WHERE

WUSS !!

If you know who's smearing HCR, why not TELL US ??
SISSY !!
Still trying to be President Good Vibes

WE'VE ELECTED MICHAEL DUKAKIS !!

Obama is Letting down his supporters
Obama is Betraying the Democratic Party
Obama is a School Yard SISSY
Too scard to fight back

For those who don't know, commenter "Al" is a parody.

Reporters/journalists have both a professional and a moral responsibility to provide the "truth" in what they write/say when there is a consensus or an obviousness as to what the "truth" is. (I realize that "truth" is a slippery concept, but there are some clear truths: The earth is round. Killing innocents is wrong. Gravity exists. There are no "death panels" in the current health insurance reform proposals.) Not doing this, they become mouthpieces for the liars. Savvy politicians -- Hitler, Rove -- know full well how to take advantage of the faux objectivity of reporters.

"Usually, it's bloggers saying things like this. It was nice to hear a president making the same argument."

It's nice to hear ANY public figure say that much less one with as high of a profile as Obama's.

We need the media to do their jobs more than ever right now. Because of idiots like Palin and Betsy McCaughy and Sen. Grassley, etc... there is so much raw, contradictory information floating around out there it's very difficult for a civilian to sort out the truth and the lies. We need smart reporters with informed contacts and good editors to take this stuff in and filter out the crap for us. There needs to be regular push back from the media about misinformation like the death panels bunk. I would think that they'd relish that sort of thing. Repeating statements without challenging their veracity just make the media look like puppets for the people trying to steer the debate. Putting that kind of crap to bed makes them look tough and sensible which certainly couldn't be bag for ratings and circulation, right?

Journalists are supposed to be the public watch dogs. If this push for health care reform fails, it will be because the media allowed themselves to be used to spread lies like Palin's death panel fabrications.

I'm with you sjw. There are some things that are just true, and it doesn't matter who's saying them. I think it's an important story that elected officials are out there lying to the American public, simply to scare them. Of course "to scare them" is my opinion, "officials are lying" is the truth. I just wonder when the media will get tired of being played for fools by people who want to spread misinformation.

Something that the media has apparently failed to realize--"being objective" doesn't mean "presenting all sides." It means reporting the truth, whether you like it or not.

The press is known as "the Fourth Estate" because it has this weighty public responsibility to do more than "report" and parrot what's said. Forfeit that responsibility, and it just becomes a business ... Oh yeah, that's what it is right now: what was I thinking?

I don't doubt many reporters heard this and cringed -- Obama is trying to tell them how to do their jobs?

I disagree. If any reporters cringed at all, it's at Obama pointing out how habitually badly they do their jobs.

But I don't think many reporters recognize even that much.

Just keep pushing those buttons.

Every time Obama criticizes Fox, he makes 100 porky, red-faced old surgeons without friends or useful activities get online and raise the tone of the leftist echo chambers by adding substantive commentary.

All the foaming at the mouth regarding 'The Media' will not change the reality:

'The Media' is a BUSINESS. And, if you keep calling the bald faced liars just that, to their face, they won't come back on your show, and your ratings will go down. Hence all the euphemisms for 'lie'- misspoke, misrepresented, misinterpreted. Remember this one from the Nixon Years? "That statement is no longer operative."

Remember: Ratings are to networks as re-election is to politicians. . .

"....how to do their jobs?

I do not think this means what you think it means.

The reporters ARE doing their jobs, if by that we mean "what they are being paid to do." You are mistaken thinking that their "job" is to inform us of the truth. Their job is to protect corporate interests, and that is a job they are doing spectacularly well.

When I speak, I have no control over the volume of my voice. Sometimes it gets really loud for no reason. Other times it's like I'm whispering. It makes it very hard for people to understand me or appreciate what I'm trying to say.

If I were to type in the same way, it would look like this:

Hi, my name IS CHRENSON!
I'm GLAD TO MEET you.
I'm GLAD TO MEET EVERYONE.
Why are LOOKING AT ME like I'm CRAZY???
WHERE are you goING???

chrenson, you crack me up.

This cannot be emphasized often enough:

In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. At the time, Ben Bagdikian was called "alarmist" for pointing this out in his book, The Media Monopoly.

In his 4th edition, published in 1992, he wrote "in the U.S., fewer than two dozen of these extraordinary creatures own and operate 90% of the mass media" -- controlling almost all of America's newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, books, records, movies, videos, wire services and photo agencies. He predicted then that eventually this number would fall to about half a dozen companies. This was greeted with skepticism at the time.

When the 6th edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 2000, the number had fallen to six. Since then, there have been more mergers and the scope has expanded to include new media like the Internet market. More than 1 in 4 Internet users in the U.S. now log in with AOL Time-Warner, the world's largest media corporation.

In 2004, Bagdikian's revised and expanded book, The New Media Monopoly, shows that only 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC is a close sixth.

The corporate-owned, so-called "news media" does not exist to impartially inform and educate the American people about facts and issues, in the public interest.

The corporate-owned, so-called "news media" exists to propagandize the American people in furtherance of the relentless, ruthless, rapacious class warfare by the ultra-rich corporate oligarchy against everyone else.

DAY@11:32: Remember: Ratings are to networks as re-election is to politicians. . .

... and as Healthcare is to American citizens, and a strong national defense is to the homeland. Some things are simply too critical to a society to leave to the whims of soulless markets.

Shorter WaPo, NYT, ABC, NBC, CBS, etc.:

"Shape of Earth: Views Differ."

Shorter FOX: "It's Flat!"

Yeah, it's good to see the President pointing this out. Does that mean he's shrill? ;-)

chrenson@11:54: When I speak, I have no control over the volume of my voice. Sometimes it gets really loud for no reason. Other times it's like I'm whispering. It makes it very hard for people to understand me or appreciate what I'm trying to say.

If I were to type in the same way, it would look like this:

Hi, my name IS CHRENSON!
I'm GLAD TO MEET you.
I'm GLAD TO MEET EVERYONE.
Why are LOOKING AT ME like I'm CRAZY???
WHERE are you goING???

Glad I equipped my monitor with the new wiper-retrofit kit from Belkin!

Seriously though, I believe very strongly that the frantic use of CAPS is a clue to the poster's real political inclinations. Having said that, I did notice 'MSierra, SF' used less CAPS than in her previous posts.

But the insistence on continuing to use it says to me that this is no Obama supporter, no Democrat and certainly not a "progressive" in any sense of the word. She simply cannot help herself and the continued use of CAPS is her (consciously/unconsciously) raised finger at the very idea of intellectual decorum.

Journalists, like many non-journalists, get grotesquely lost when they envelop themselves in a misguided orthodoxy. When such misguidedness is pointed out by the non-orthodox, the affected soul rejects such perspective as merely an attack upon themselves personally rather than realizing the relevant criticism. Then, the vicious cycle gets a life of its own!

The trend I've witnessed over my lifetime is the individual involved in pure orthodoxy - misguided or not - usually ends up practicing prejudicial stupidity! Wake up American media, we can't afford to be stupid any more when it comes to real economic reform. Up to now the too few have been fleecing the too many here in our beloved America! -Kevo

JTK writes: "... and as Healthcare is to American citizens, and a strong national defense is to the homeland. Some things are simply too critical to a society to leave to the whims of soulless markets."

-That is why some of us like to get alternate viewpoints from places like LINK and FSTV, Democracy Now, and The Washington Monthly. . .

Having said that, I did notice 'MSierra, SF' used less [sic] CAPS than in her previous posts.

Pretty sure MSierra's a he.

For those who don't know, commenter "Al" is a parody.
There are days I miss real Al. Few and far between, but weapons-grade stupid is fascinating sometimes.