Bias or Just BS?Another blow to CBS News
As bad as it is that CBS’s parent company was extorted by Donald Trump for $16 million, that wasn’t the worst of it. In the final merger deal, New Paramount has agreed to appoint a “bias monitor” who will report directly to Donald Trump, says the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). This person will work with the company’s new president to review “any complaints of bias or other concerns.” In other words, Paramount is installing a censor at CBS News with a direct line to the president. One would think that if a bias monitor is called for, there has been evidence of blatant bias. By definition, bias is unfair prejudice in favoring one side over the other. The far-right defines it as any story they don’t like. Let’s be clear: By any sane or objective measure, CBS News is not a biased organization, no matter what the president and his FCC chair would have you think. In addition to hiring a bias monitor, Paramount has promised that “news and entertainment programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints across the political and ideological spectrum,” while also eliminating all diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Hard to do both, unless what you really mean is embodying only “conservative” (read: Trump’s) viewpoints. CBS has a history of mega-wealthy owners, but no one as rich as Oracle founder Larry Ellison and his son David, whose estimated net worth is $300 billion. Both Ellisons are tight with Trump. One wonders how deep will this go? Does “60 Minutes” now submit scripts for approval by a Trump toady? What about “The CBS Evening News?” Will its reporters have to give equal time to disinformation? And what will be the effect on other news outlets? The intended outcome is to foster fear. Insiders at CBS already have a term for the censor: “hall monitor.” The credibility of the news organization that was my home for more than 40 years is suddenly threatened because of a bogus lawsuit and an FCC that is supposed to be independent but clearly is not. Donald Trump might as well be CEO of CBS. We are now on the slipperiest of slopes. Who will be next? Trump could certainly make similar demands of other news organizations. The White House communications team is doing its damnedest to curve coverage to embellish their boss through lies, intimidation, and extortion. Despite the questionable characterizations from the White House, not every story is left versus right. Most actually deal with the truth, or as near as journalists can get to the truth, versus what Trump & Co. want you to believe is the truth. They have a 10-year history of bald-faced lying. According to The Washington Post, which tracked Trump’s (lack of) truthfulness during his first term, he lied an average of 21 times a day for four years, totalling 30,573 false or misleading claims. Respected historian David Brinkley called him a "serial liar.” The argument that CBS and other legacy media outlets have a left-leaning bias and therefore need monitoring falls apart quickly when you realize the far-right doesn’t want unbiased reporting. They want Trump’s version of the story and his version of the truth. To them, it simply can’t be negative and true. If it goes against their agenda, it’s biased. After all, it was Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway who coined the term “alternate facts.” That is just doublespeak for lies. The network of “alternative facts,” Fox “News,” was formed to combat perceived bias. We all know Fox “News” hits it right down the middle. Trump supporters point to Americans’ declining trust in the news media as a reason for the need for his administration’s “monitoring” of the mass media. Clearly what they intend is not monitoring but censorship, led by a man who eschews the truth and whose constant spewing of propaganda has been a factor in the loss of trust in the media. They are led by the most transparently thin-skinned person imaginable. In the space of a week, the prickly president has officially lashed out at several entertainment programs that have had the temerity to make fun of him. When Joy Behar of the morning talk show “The View” joked that Trump was jealous of President Obama’s swagger, a White House spokesperson told Entertainment Weekly, “Joy Behar is an irrelevant loser suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome” who “should self-reflect on her own jealousy of President Trump’s historic popularity before her show is the next to be pulled off air.” After the animated series “South Park” aired an episode that depicted a naked Trump hanging out with the devil, the White House said “no fourth-rate show can derail President Trump’s hot streak.” Meanwhile the creators of the cartoon just inked a $1.5 billion, five-year deal with Paramount. Yes, that Paramount. One wonders if the bias monitor will be script doctoring new “South Park” shows. This comes after the questionably timed cancellation of “The Late Show,” whose host, Stephen Colbert, is an ardent critic of the president and the most popular host on late-night television. Everyone interprets the world through their own prism. People are influenced by where they grew up, what their parents taught them, where they went to school, and the beliefs of the people they respect. Journalists included. Journalists sometimes make mistakes. But the media is not a monolith driven by a collective desire to elect Democrats. The vast majority of people I worked with throughout my career were dedicated journalists, rock-solid reporters. They believed in objectivity and curiosity and in questioning authority and standing up to power, regardless of whom they voted for. As details of the new deal at CBS News remind us, the need for independent journalism has never been greater — journalism that doesn’t need sign-off from a censor. The good people and proven professionals of CBS News will do their best under their new circumstances. But they, and the rest of us, are left to ponder where this all leads.
No matter how you subscribe, I thank you for reading. Stay Steady, |
Showing posts with label INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM. Show all posts
Thursday, July 31, 2025
Bias or Just BS?
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
COMMON DREAMS: OPINIONS
A personal reflection on the counterrevolution against Black history from a civil rights attorney.
Right-wing harrumphing about the foolishness of raising taxes on the rich rests on a relative handful of high-profile anecdotes that profoundly distort the actual tax-the-rich story.
Dispelling the Illusion of Military-Fueled Prosperity
The opportunity costs of throwing endless trillions of dollars at the military means far less is invested in other crucial American needs, ranging from housing and education to public health and environmental protection.
Reconstituting democratic community requires an affirmative alternative to demagogic recidivism that advances an ethos of equality, diversity, inclusion, fairness, tolerance, commonweal, liberty, rights, lawfulness, nonviolence, and deliberation.
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/reassembling-the-scattered-majority-to-defend-democracy
Campaigns to discredit news are especially dangerous in a changing media landscape—and as threats within our power to resolve continue to increase, from pandemics to climate disruption to authoritarianism.
Locally and nationally, the City by the Bay is being weaponized like a two-pronged pitchfork aimed simultaneously at erasing local progressive change and mobilizing Republican voters motivated by anti-urban fear.
Trump Republicans are committed to abandoning America’s historic embrace of democracy.
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/magas-plan-to-steal-the-2024-election-legally
We need to be equal-opportunity critics and consider not only the most highly reported conflict of the moment but also the chronic ones fought, whether we realize it or not, distinctly in our names.
It is not surprising that politicians in power do not want to encourage whistleblowers and autonomous journalists. Those who rule the world prefer to indulge in their power games in secrecy.
The U.S. needs to prioritize making housing affordable, accessible, and habitable for everyone.
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/housing-human-right-2667353150
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
TOP NEWS: 'Pouring Oil on the Fire': Lavrov Warns Flow of Western Arms to Ukraine Risks Nuclear War - Google and Facebook are killing us
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