Kick the Anthill

In June, PBS won the distinction of being the #1 most trusted network for the fifth year in a row.  While they are “the last independent network,” it might be worth pondering how stiff the competition is for such an honor.

Michelle Malkin’s post on Gwen Ifill got me asking questions this morning.  I couldn’t agree more about choosing moderators for debates that aren’t writing books supporting one candidate – in light of which the PBS network probably needs to rethink running their ad and letting Gwen represent them in the moderator job.  After all, their reputation is at stake.

Here are two other videos you should watch to be well informed.  The first is Gwen herself talking about her book, and the second is her infamous report from the floor of the RNC after Palin’s speech:

I’ve watched the PBS coverage of the conventions and debates this year because I do not have cable, and of the four network options I have, PBS is certainly preferable.  (In fact, not having cable, I think I’d shrivel up and die if I didn’t have any other day/primetime options to the networks.)  I saw Gwen cover part of the DNC with a rosy glow and chipper demeanor.  And I watched her cover the RNC and remember thinking, days prior to Palin’s speech, how unhappy she looked.  Either she wasn’t feeling well or she just really didn’t want to be there.  I really wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt.

The gerbils in my head are working hard this morning, and for whatever it’s worth, here are the questions echoed by my random thoughts they keep spinning ’round:

What’s so important about journalist/moderator impartiality anyway?

I think the PBS commercial kind of answers that.  It is easier to trust someone that is not trying to sell you one way or the other, but in this day and age, it is so easy to shape the news just by reporting some parts and not others.  Reporters only have so many minutes and seconds to bring you the facts, and how do they choose which ones to bring you?  I don’t think it’s always mercenary on their parts, but between the human factor and the mercenary bits, how is the viewer to know the difference?  When I think of journalists who are partial, I think of the Gestapo and the KGB.  I think of the fallen Communist artwork in Hungary, telling the people that communism is wonderful and they should trust their leaders so they will be happy.  Heh.  The definition of an important phrase also comes to mind:

Conflict of Interest –noun
1. the circumstance of a public officeholder, business executive, or the like, whose personal interests might benefit from his or her official actions or influence: The senator placed his stocks in trust to avoid possible conflict of interest. 
2. the circumstance of a person who finds that one of his or her activities, interests, etc., can be advanced only at the expense of another of them.
[Origin: 1950–55]  Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
(cited below)

Is impartiality even possible?

It would not be for me.  I know what I believe and why, and I want the people I get my news from to know the same.  To me, people that don’t know what they believe are more easily influenced by one side or the other.  I’m sure I could read the facts on a newscast, but I would still feel an obligation to use my position to do something about what I’m seeing.  Right is still right, and wrong is still wrong, no matter how many liberals write books and sing songs.  A newscaster that I would trust would be someone with a strong moral compass that isn’t afraid to tell you the truth about what happened on both sides and then tell you the moral tale of why it is important and what the story means to us.  I do get ever so tired of news reports (the war in Georgia, for example) where they tell us what happened but not what it means.  But knowing that we are all human and lean directions even accidentally, there’s just no excuse for believing everything we are told without looking at what facts or ideology are behind it.  My two favorite examples of that these days are liberal AIDS activists and the Obama campaign.

If it’s so hard to be impartial, or if no one wants to be impartial any more, why not just have separate partisan networks?

I certainly think it’s moving that direction.  Actually, we’re probably already there, only the networks are still too much in denial to admit it.  In the tank for the left you’ve got the three majors and CNN, and in the middle to conservative is Fox News (which does not come standard with basic cable – there’s a lean to the left for you).  The only other newscast I can think of that is right-leaning is the 400 Club.  Safe to say conservatives don’t have a lot of options, but that’s the way this cookie crumbles.  There’s also the issue of networks being bought and sold.  If one voice only has one network and it gets sold, say buh-bye to that voice.

What the heck is a moral compass, and why should I care if reporters have it or not?

A moral compass is a guide that directs you based on what your true values are.  I would actually argue that even if you don’t have any morals or values, you still have a moral compass – it’s a compass based on none.  Let’s just say it just doesn’t point true north.  What makes a compass valuable is it’s ability to point true north.  You can have truckloads of compasses but if they all point different directions they don’t help anyone get anywhere.  Having common morals has been one of the hallmarks of American society that has helped us become the nation that we are and stay true to course, which is why the eroding of our moral fiber over the last few decades has been so devastating.  Anchors and reporters used to have a moral compass, or at least it seemed like it.  But network employers who allowed shenanigans off the set and hired talent that looked good but lacked the compass within eroded any hope of that legacy pretty quick.

All this also reminds me that after having this same conversation for years, they still just don’t get it.  But Jurassic Park taught us that nature always finds a way – if the networks don’t do it, bloggers will.  (Insert “hee, hee, hee” and “bwahahaha” here.)

I hope you don’t mind me asking silly questions and giving my own even sillier answers to them.  Quite truthfully, where I live, no one really much cares about the media.  It’s hard to get people to even watch anything but Linda Cavanaugh and Mike Morgan on local news.  But when they do watch it, they believe what they are told.  I hope that my silly questions and answers might have given someone here a reason to be more selective about what they are watching.  And trusting.

Gwen, love, you’ve stirred up the hornets nest again.  Now, you knew when you signed that deal that you were going to, right?  Your publisher is not looking out for your career, but for their own bottom line.  PBS needs to keep in mind that you just flushed your entire trust factor.  But then, don’t tell me they didn’t know you were writing your book.

If you would like to know more about PBS standards or offer feedback, you can visit their ombudsman’s web page.  Or if you want to know who is responsible for selecting debate moderators, be sure to visit Michelle Malkin’s post.

______________________________________________________________________

Citing for “conflict of interest”:
American Psychological Association (APA):
conflict of interest. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved October 01, 2008, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/conflict of interest
Chicago Manual Style (CMS):
conflict of interest. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/conflict of interest (accessed: October 01, 2008).
Modern Language Association (MLA):
“conflict of interest.” Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 01 Oct. 2008. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/conflict of interest>.