This makes me feel somewhat vindicated in my source of TV news – virtually none. I do record BBC news half-hour segments, watch about half of those, & read a little online news from CNN, FOX & occasionally CBS or MSNBC, when I see a headline that catches my attention.

The entire essence of this post could be told (foretold?) through some of Lippmann’s more memorable quotations. To that end, I offer you the following:

“When distant and unfamiliar and complex things are communicated to great masses of people, the truth suffers a considerable and often a radical distortion. The complex is made over into the simple, the hypothetical into the dogmatic, and the relative into an absolute.”

and also

“It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.”

It seems that the Lippmann was optimistic about the direction American media was heading when he said : “The theory of the free press is not that the truth will be presented completely or perfectly in any one instance, but that the truth will emerge from free discussion”

Perhaps he did not realize how political psychology would evolve to a point where people believe their viewpoints are the only correct ones and they should not justify opposing viewpoints with thoughts or discussion.

We will, of course, all be worse off for it in the long run as our democracy is bound to suffer. When dialogue stops, so do new ideas.

And a random note – I’m with you on disliking the phrase “mainstream media”. Perhaps if someone took the initiative to re-define the word “news” the phrase “mainstream media” would be re-defined in the process…

From that experience I developed a very finely tuned ear to bias in news reporting. I find it the height of arrogance that any group would claim to be unbiased. This means I rate CNN about as well as I would rate FOX. In any case, I do not trust any popular news outlets to deliver accurate news about subjects that matter to me.

The bias is usually anti-technological, over-simplified, ignorant twaddle. Journalists want to interpret legislation for the masses and summarize it in to nice sweet little sound bites. And while that is undeniably popular, real life ain’t like that.

The real story is usually far more complex than what a Journalist with barely a high school physics and math background can understand.

I also suspect that many journalists do not understand the philosophical and practical principles behind the political wheeling and dealing. Instead they revert to the old tried and true: making a horse race out of vote counting instead of attempting to shine a more nuanced light on things.

The real problem is not bias. It’s the aim toward the lowest common denominator of societal comprehension.