When I wrote recently that our current electoral system favors ‘actors’—and that Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMPR) would allow ‘non-actors’ to contribute their skill, intelligence and character to public life-it caused me to reflect a bit about how television has changed the news business, by turning reporters into actors, too.
At one time, newsmen like the late Jack Webster toiled behind their bylines, striving (as Jack always said) to make the reporter disappear, and let the readers form their own opinions about the events reported.
But television news anchors today must either be attractive women (Moses Znaimer once called women on television “eye candy”) or sincere-looking middle-aged men we will think are “just like me.”
It reminds me of the quip by journalist and broadcaster Daniel Schorr of the International Herald-Tribune: “Sincerity is the important thing. Once you learn to fake that, you’ve got it made.”
But almost none of the TV “anchors” write or research their own words. And as Dr. Robert Lichter discovered in a study for Columbia University with his wife, Dr. Linda Lichter and Professor Stanley Rothman (which later provided the basis for Lichter’s book The Media Elite) they are very different from the people they purport to represent.
That survey (first published in 1984) revealed that, well up in the 90th percentile, media “gatekeepers”—these men (there are almost no women), who make the final decisions about the news reports that do so much to shape our opinions—are radically pro-abortion, pro-’gay’, and anti-business. Average citizens’ opinions tend in the opposite direction (though not as extremely): they are mostly pro-life, pro-family, and support free enterprise.
But the most chilling statistic in the Lichter, Lichter & Rothman study was this: two out of three media gatekeepers said they believe it is part of their job to shape public opinion. So when you switch on the TV or radio, or pick up a newspaper or newsmagazine, you may think you’re getting information or entertainment—but what you’re really getting is deliberate brainwashing.
The Internet has begun to change that, weakening the monopolistic grip of the “old media” on our news—as described by Joseph Farah (founder and president of the world’s largest independent Internet news site, WorldNetDaily) in his new book, Stop The Presses.
Farah, a newsman with 25 years’ experience, has used the Internet to by-pass the media censors and give the public news that the mainstream media won’t cover.
He has also incorporated two Canadian social conservatives, Ted Byfield and Tristan Emmanuel, into his world-wide stable of WND columnists.
WorldNetDaily has been a source of daily news for me for several years now. You can visit it at www.worldnetdaily.com; or you can click on their link on our web-page, at www.chp.ca
It’ll give you a fresh perspective on the news.