THE WAYWARD PRESS – AT 1:44 P.M. ET:  That was the term the late press critic A.J. Liebling used to describe the condition of the media.   But Liebling died in 1963, more than half a century ago, so we know that problems in the media are not new, not recent.  They've just gotten worse over time.  Liebling also said, "People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news."  Right again. 

Bed Bradlee used to say that journalism is history's rough first draft.  Problem is, there is rarely a second draft.

A century ago a whopping error in a local newspaper was just that, a local error with minimum effect.  Today an error by a major television network can change a presidential election, or America's attitude toward a war. 

The press requires major improvement.  It must win back the trust of the American people, half of whom probably tune out organizations like CNN because they can't stand the bias.  From The Washington Times: 

Reporting the news is difficult and expensive. Grandstanding is more fun and everyone has an opinion. That’s why reporters were once taught, often by a stern taskmaster, to leave opining to the columnists and the editorial page, and save their opinions for after work in the bar across the street.

This particular affliction — grandstanding rather than reporting, advocacy rather than observing and distilling those observations before passing them on to press and tube, is the affliction of the modern media. And why not? Talking is cheaper than reporting.

The symptoms have exacted a considerable long-term cost. The Pew Research Center finds that a mere 21 percent of Americans have “a lot of trust” in the national newspapers and television networks, 49 percent have only “some trust” and 29 have “not too much” or “none at all.” A startling 68 percent say the national media reports the news with a bias.

This has been a complaint of conservatives for a long time, a complaint usually dismissed by the mainstream media, so called, as the lament of cranks and churls. This enables President Trump to lay out a persuasive case that the mainstream media is obsessed with destroying his presidency and are using opinion disguised as news. “Fake news,” he calls it. Things have turned so grim in the news trade that some old gray heads who are no particular friends of Donald Trump are beginning to speak up about it.

Ted Koppel, who made ABC News’ “Nightline” a must-watch late-night program an eon ago, mocked CNN’s obsession with President Trump at a panel at the National Press Club, telling a CNN panelist that his network “would be in the toilet without Donald Trump. You can’t do without Donald Trump. You would be lost without Donald Trump.” Ted Turner, who invented CNN, said not long ago that “I think they’re sticking with politics a little too much. They’d do better to have a more balanced agenda.” Bob Woodward of The Washington Post says emotion drives the news coverage. “In the news media there has been an emotional reaction to Trump,” he says. “Too many people for Trump, or against Trump, have become emotionally unhinged about this.” Larry King, who hosted a late-night talk show on CNN for years, says “CNN stopped doing news a long time ago. They do Trump.”

COMMENT:  Please read the whole thing.  It is a very good critique.  We can honestly ask whether the "free press" is doing more harm than good, whether it is, in its present state, a danger to the very democracy it claims to be protecting.

November 17, 2018