# Why is the U.S. press so horrid? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 7, 2008, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-u-s-press-so-horrid/462517 "2008-09-07T19:07:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-u-s-press-so-horrid/462517/61 "2008-09-09T00:39:56Z")
IMHO the downfall of American media started with the 24 hour news networks. When nothing is happening C-Span is just dull, but other networks fill in the slow periods with speculation after awhile speculation just became what it’s all about. Guessing then took priority over informing. ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-u-s-press-so-horrid/462517/62 "2008-09-09T00:54:15Z")
> [@Garfield226](#): > > Did you miss the part where I said “_one_ of the legitimate functions”? I didn’t miss it at all. Unfortunately, that seems to be the only legitimate function of the media nowadays, at least the big time media. This is why I’m bringing up Woodward and Bern–OK, are you getting my point now? I’m getting tired of typing the same three names out. > [@](#): > > If there’s a general consensus that journalism has gone downhill, I wonder whether the general dumbing down of the population is the chicken or the egg. Looking at what the rest of the public is doing in our hospitals, research labs, computer networks, businesses, factories, and schools, I’d say there’s quite a bit more evidence for stupidity in journalism specifically than in the general population. I’d say the general population is doing quite well for itself. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-u-s-press-so-horrid/462517/63 "2008-09-09T03:51:24Z")
Except that Woodward at least is still alive, well, and publishing, and so are a fair number of other _real_ journalists. I’ll grant you that the average reporter has the brain the size of that of a triceratops, but there are plenty of intelligent, well-informed journalists out there as well. It really is the twenty-four hour news cycle, and the fact that we as the public seem to prefer that the time not spent on headlines be spent on (in no particular order): 1. celebrity garbage 2. political analysis 3. kidnapping and/or/ murder and/or rape sensation stories 4. interviews with victims or connections of victims of those sensation stories 5. tragedies, whether natural or manmade 6. interviews with victims or connections of victims of those tragedies rather than the PBS or BBC World New approach, which is to summarize the headlines in the first ten minutes, and spend the remainder of the time going in depth on some or all of the stories, usually with little to no political bias. Like government, we get the press we deserve. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-u-s-press-so-horrid/462517/64 "2008-09-09T04:03:02Z")
Woodward isn’t immune to Parrot Syndrome, unfortunately. His first two books about the Bush White House were fairly sycophantic…he didn’t start actually digging until the third one, written after the bloom fell off of the invasion of Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-u-s-press-so-horrid/462517/65 "2008-09-09T04:10:02Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Woodward isn’t immune to Parrot Syndrome, unfortunately. His first two books about the Bush White House were fairly sycophantic…he didn’t start actually digging until the third one, written after the bloom fell off of the invasion of Iraq. Yeah, _Plan of Attack_, which I read at the recommendation of **Scylla** , was very disappointing. It read more like spoon feeding than investigation. But I’ve got the impression he has recovered his journalism. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-u-s-press-so-horrid/462517/66 "2008-09-09T04:44:01Z")
Anecdote: When I was in college, a girl in my honors macroeconomics class was complaining that she didn’t want to learn all this stuff–she just wanted to be a journalist! You can be a journalist if you write reasonably clearly at a fourth-grade level. You can be a tv newsreader if you read well, have good diction, & are presentable. Actually understanding any given field you report on in depth–that’s optional. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-u-s-press-so-horrid/462517/67 "2008-09-09T09:27:53Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > You can be a journalist if you write reasonably clearly at a fourth-grade level. You can be a tv newsreader if you read well, have good diction, & are presentable. Actually understanding any given field you report on in depth–that’s optional. I had an editor back in the 80s who explained it this way: When you read a news article, you think to yourself “My, isn’t this journalist knowledgeable!” But that comes to an abrupt halt as soon as the article broaches any subject you actually know something about. Suddenly, you realize that the journalist might be just as ill-informed about everything else he writes about, and that his job is more about seeming authoritative than actually being authoritative. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-u-s-press-so-horrid/462517/68 "2008-09-09T09:39:19Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > Here’s a really big hint as to the dignified nature of news gathering in previous generations: The first newspaper was called _The Tatler_. Before anyone calls me out on this claim: Wikipedia cites many earlier papers, some over a century before the Tatler’s first edition. Most of these were bound in book form. Tatler may more accurately be the first tabloid, if not in format at least in spirit. It was a very ungentlemanly publication. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-u-s-press-so-horrid/462517/69 "2008-09-09T12:15:29Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > On the other hand, it’s hard to reconcile that assertion with the the fact that a substantial part of the sponsorship comes from business advertising services _exclusively_ aimed at the well-off, who would normally be presumed to have a conservative bent. I can’t open a copy of the Los Angeles Times or turn on commercial television without seeing ads for luxury automobiles, upscale transoceanic air service, or similar products and services that the average person can seldom anticipate ever needing. And just today there was an ad in the Times for a service that helps landlords screen out bad risks. You’d think we were a country where nobody makes less than 150K a year, and are all awash in liquid assets and revenue-generating real estate. How can the socioeconomic disparity between the the audience of the content and the audience of the advertising be so enormous? Watch commercial television in the late morning or early afternoon. All the ads will be for payday loans or no credit check telephone service. Clearly not aimed at the upper classes. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-u-s-press-so-horrid/462517/70 "2008-09-09T14:39:24Z")
**Linty Fresh** , your description of journalism doesn’t match anything I’ve seen in the world of American newspapers. Yes, television journalists are pretty, empty-headed things, but that’s a different world. I don’t suppose you would recognize a real American newsroom. It’s not a Darwinian circus. It’s largely filled with earnest, intelligent professionals. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-u-s-press-so-horrid/462517/71 "2008-09-09T14:47:39Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > But why would that be any different now than it was then? They had shareholders in the 50s and 60s, too. In the '50s and '60s, newspapers were owned either by individuals (families) or by companies whose exclusive business was news reporting. And even the biggest of these companies weren’t that big in the overall scheme of things. Even now, you’ll find the organizations doing the best work tend to be free of connections with large media/entertainment empires. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-u-s-press-so-horrid/462517/72 "2008-09-09T16:42:49Z")
> [@Linty\_Fresh](#): > > It’s when the media started to parrot that we got into deep shit. So…1898? To be generous. I mean, at least with the Mexican-American war you had some pretty clear outrage in some sectors and a lot of papers wrote against it. You’ll find that in pretty much every war of the 20th century both large and small the media’s main function was to prepare the American people for future conflict or to tell them why the current war is so great. They would have no problem with lying through their teeth. Across the board. This isn’t some quirk of the Iraq war. Study your history and join the depressed. The knee slapper is that even in the tail end of a disastrous catastrophe you’ll hardly ever find a principled criticism of the war, just the fact that it didn’t work. They’ll say it was a mistake, or the intentions were good but we “bumbled” or we didn’t plan our strategy correctly or we didn’t have enough men or we didn’t understand the local conditions enough or our leadership wasn’t strong enough, etc. You can see it with regards to Iraq all the time. > [@](#): > > As far as I’m concerned, there are 4,000-something troops and God alone knows how many thousands of Iraqi civilians that might be alive right now if the media stopped “parroting” and started earning its keep. Trust me, they do earn their keep. Even if every newspaper and evening news show were struck with a deliberating streak of conscience and spoke against the war I don’t see how this would have any casual connection to what happens in Washington D.C. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-u-s-press-so-horrid/462517/73 "2008-09-09T17:51:43Z")
> [@Laudenum](#): > > I watch American television sometimes. If anything (with the notable exception of Fox News), there is a huge liberal bias. I see a huge corporate bias. I see Fox trumpeting the right wing with no counterpoint. I see Kristol and Rove being touted as pundits . I hear right wing talk shows all over the country. The left wing press is a myth. We need to go back to equal time. If you present a right biased show you have to allow equal time to the other side. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-u-s-press-so-horrid/462517/74 "2008-09-09T18:49:45Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > I see a huge corporate bias. I see Fox trumpeting the right wing with no counterpoint. I see Kristol and Rove being touted as pundits . I hear right wing talk shows all over the country. The left wing press is a myth. > We need to go back to equal time. If you present a right biased show you have to allow equal time to the other side. To be fair, we do. It’s called MSNBC. And MSNBC is every bit as biased as Fixed Noise, even if I do agree with it. The only news programs worth watching _for news_ are PBS and BBC World News, IMO. ETA: I should say, MSNBC in Prime Time. I gather the morning (Morning Joe) is actually right wing, the daytime is pretty much sensationalism type stuff, with a little actual news thrown in if anything exciting happens, and late night is “documentaries” about prisons and stuff like that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-u-s-press-so-horrid/462517.md?page=3)