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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill who wrote (405347)	5/12/2003 2:05:51 PM
From: MulhollandDrive	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

i think i mentioned the book "coloring the news" on this thread some time ago....anyone who has read it, is not surprised by the latest revelation of "faux news" at the ny times... also...dare anyone say....a bit of the soft bigotry of lowered expectations on display at the times? limitstogrowth.org Media: Even Worse Than You Thought “Coloring the News” pulls back the curtain Newspaper editors who wonder why their readership is diminishing should read “Coloring the News: How Crusading for Diversity Has Corrupted American Journalism” (copyright 2001, Encounter Books). William McGowan's recent media critique recounts the press' strange detour into advocacy journalism that is less attentive to standards of accuracy than it is to a supportive view of certain groups. Hint: average Americans are not represented in those newly favored demographics. McGowan agrees with the idea that a wider diversity of views in the newsroom would be a good thing, but his research indicates that the quota-based diversity of skin hues and ethnicities has actually reduced free speech and chilled the forum of competing ideas. Radical journalists have even challenged objectivity as a cultural artifact of the white power structure. Some of the newsroom policies to implement the new journalism are mind boggling in terms of Stalinist thought control. At USA Today, the practice of always having a photo of a minority person above the front-page fold was expanded in 1993 with a policy called “mainstreaming” designed to include the views of ethnic persons in every story. The paper's Diversity Committee analyzed each article for the number of minorities quoted, and the score for each reporter was part of that writer¹s evaluation. In 1997, USA Today scaled back by keeping the scorecards but no longer used them in assessing journalists. In a similar instance, the 90 papers in the Gannett chain promoted the “All American Contest” in which promotions and other financial rewards were given to editors who successfully increased newsroom diversity and sensitivity to coverage of minority issues. After all, the tone had been set by influential New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who repeatedly stated that diversity was the “single most important issue” facing the Times. The book is divided into chapters based on those topics now favored with special treatment by diversity journalism: gay and feminist issues, race, affirmative action and immigration. Each receives thorough examination with plenty of examples. The immigration chapter is nearly 40 pages long and will confirm many of your worst suspicions about how the issue is considered today. Immigration is indeed celebrated uncritically in the newsroom. Objections to open borders based on factual observation and statistics are dismissed by editors out of hand as nativist rantings. The multicultural paradigm has been accepted with no question: the previous ideal of the Progressive era, that newcomers would assimilate into the larger American society has disappeared from memory. Instead of joining with their American neighbors, immigrants are encouraged by the media to remain in balkanized communities with hyphenated identities. In one stellar example of celebrating diversity (and rejecting harmony), the New York Times suggested in 1998 that assimilation was a racist concept. Such over-the-top declarations are reminiscent of Tom Wolfe's description of “radical chic” in the 1960s, when Leonard Bernstein famously entertained a group of Black Panther radicals along with his elite friends in his luxurious New York apartment in order that the Beautiful People could make common cause with The Oppressed. The recent history is that the press has been the unapologetic cheerleader for policies that increase social fragmentation, although the argument is always framed in terms of preserving cultural diversity. From bilingual education (which should more accurately be called non-English instruction) to taxpayer-subsidized benefits for illegals aliens (California's Proposition 187), the press has thrown objectivity out the window in order to lobby for a more uniform multicultural social order. When the readers vote for a different kind of community, journalists retreat into their elite mindset and harden the belief that they are right and noble. The press further assumes that the general public must be filled with unenlightened racists to hold such views. No wonder the disconnect between the mainstream press and the reading public is growing wider. Sadly, the remaining critical editors and writers appear cowed into submission. Many of the journalists consulted for the book did not wish to be named. At the Los Angeles Times, numerous experienced writers grabbed the opportunity of early retirement when it was offered. In one case, a Vermont journalist was fired because he reported an instance of reverse racism in which a white woman was ejected from a minority forum for requesting an opportunity to speak. Throughout the book, the pervading newsroom atmosphere is one of fear and repression. The reader is left with generic human interest stories about immigrant families struggling to find a better life, rather than factual analysis about the demographic tidal wave. Unfortunately, “Coloring the News” appears to have been eclipsed by the best-selling “Bias,” another media critique. “Bias” struck a chord in the public and is written with a mass audience in mind, with a conversational tone plus some juicy stories about Dan Rather that have contributed to its appeal. (We learn that he is called “the Dan” on the set, for example.) “Coloring the News” is more detailed and rewards the serious reader with much usable information as well as psychological insight into newsroom orthodoxy. You can read the preface on the book's thorough website and an excerpt printed in The Social Contract here. — by Brenda Walker