31 March 2023
Press Freedom Does Not Mean Accurate Information
| The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees that all opinions can be disseminated in our liberal democracy. Apparently, it was thought by the Founders that competing consideration of those opinions would result in the eventual selection of the most practical expression of our government ideals. Unfortunately, those Founders ignored the fact that 1A would also guarantee the freedom to express views that don’t have liberal democratic goals in mind. When a media company believes that making money is its paramount objective and decides that it can maximize that by entertaining a select segment of the population, regardless of the accuracy of its “news” reports, the implied foundation of the Constitution on a diligent fourth estate starts to crumble. The business of FOX News is entertainment, not truth. This is the crux of the Dominium Voting Systems suit against FOX, i.e., that FOX acted to satisfy the preference of its audience for arguments they could use to support their own preconceived notions and to deny the legitimacy of the Democratic victory in the 2020 presidential election over evidence that their favored candidate had lost. Unfortunately, there may not be an enforceable standard of objective truth, or even a requirement that facts be checked and reported as such, in the government’s broadcast or cable licensing protocols. The defamation claim that Dominium has made against FOX is probably the only sanction that can be used to enforce a standard of good faith on a media company in the American free-market system. The First Amendment protects the right of anyone, including Rupert Murdoch, to express anything he wants as long as he does not cause harm to someone else. The size of Dominium's defamation claim has perhaps caused Mr. Murdoch to rethink how freewheelingly he wants the FOX Network to exercise its First Amendment rights. |
12 March 2023
Educating the Poor
Professor Desmond’s article in the 12 March 2023 NYT Magazine makes clear that spending government funds on direct payments to the poor in America often just makes them more attractive targets for exploitation by landlords, payday lenders and even junk food producers. In the end, instructing that 10-15% of our population on how to avoid being seduced by those who offer seemingly convenient but ultimately harmful life choices would be a wiser use of tax revenues from the middle class and wealthier sectors of our embarrassingly poverty-stricken economy.
President Johnson’s War on Poverty and its successors have underestimated the importance of showing the bottom economic ranks of our society how to take advantage of the liquidity that these programs place in their hands. Public television offers middle-class viewers a variety of health, money-management, home fix-up and other demonstration shows that help them better manage their lives; however, few of the country’s poor watch or even can watch those shows. Some public funds would better be devoted to delivering well-crafted, sociologically targeted and even entertaining how-to programs that would help our struggling deprived families contend with the temptations they often receive to choose an easy but usually more expensive way to deal with the challenges of daily living.
The government has a lot to learn from the private sector about reaching those in need of guidance on spending their financial legs-up from anti-poverty programs. Hiring advertising industry firms to assemble and sculpt multi-layered campaigns to instruct recipients of public assistance on its effective use. These campaigns could include not only TV and radio shows, block parties or other open-air events, but also other inventive vehicles for attracting needy audiences and slyly disbanding smarter consumers better equipped to manage their limited means. The expense of using marketing professionals will make welfare funds many times more productive in reducing poverty in America.
07 March 2023
Really Fake News
The
report in the 3/5/2023 NYT about the internal debate at Fox News about calling
the 2020 Arizona election results for Joe Biden based on Fox’s sophisticated
algorithm shows the confusion in today’s television news media over whether
news is anything but entertainment.
Within
the Murdoch media empire, the chief goal in selecting content is patently to
keep viewership levels high. It has made the judgement that its targeted
audience cares more how the narrative is told than whether the news is accurate
or even timely.
Somebody in the organization apparently did not get that message. The guiding principle of the Fox News editors is “Tell them what they want to hear, not what they need to hear.”
In fact, that has become a common goal of political campaigning, too. What will it take to change people’s attitudes from the view that what happens in government is no more consequential than the latest plot twist in a favorite TV drama? Failing that, a small, determined minority can be enabled to dictate the candidacy of the opposition (Republican) party, and reawaken the disestablishmentarian leadership of the Trump years.
If enough citizens vote who are fed up with abdicating government to those who would rule in the general interest at the expense of individual self-interest, believers in an efficacious liberal democracy will not be forgiven for ignoring the danger of ambivalence that lost the 2016 presidential election. Even the news must be subjected to critical thinking and separated from entertainment.
05 March 2023
Murdaugh, cf. Trump
The double murder conviction of Alex Murdaugh illustrates the ultimate weakness of the unequally wealthy society in which Americans live. It is possible to ignore personal responsibility to contribute to our common welfare in proportion to one’s financial capability or other advantage. However. Murdaugh finally has been brought to account. The former President still awaits his desserts.
