"David" wrote in message
...
| On 18 Feb 2005 12:41:13 -0800, "Hatfield"
| wrote:

| If the *mainstream news providers have betrayed the people*, then the
| people, sitting on their living room couches, will not be happy with
| the newscast they are now watching. And so they will simply pick up the
| handy clicker and change the channel !!

| So not to worry, David, America is free to watch what we want, and free
| to give poor viewer ratings to any news outlet which we distrust. Which
| will cause their advertisers to start sponsoring other media channels
| whose excellent ratings indicate the people are well pleased with their
| content quality.

| So really, David, thanks to capitalism and individual freedom, as
| opposed to Government ownership and control, the problem you report is
| (at least in America) automatically self correcting.

| God bless America!.

| Those people may as well be sitting on their couches shooting heroin.
| There is virtually no real news on TV.

Wow, this thread is almost on-topic!

But the flag-waver needs a reality check. Unless he's a frequent listener of
news sources outside of the U-S (my favourite is the CBC, but the Beeb will do)
the idea that market forces will "correct" this oversight fails to realise that
market forces have created this problem in the first place.

The first thing I'd do, if I were running things, is oblige licencees to run a
minimum amount of news sustaining (although I'm not sure what I'd do with
all-news stations) as a condition of licence. By taking out the financial
segment of the equation we might get the real news once again. As with
everything else in America, the money has corrupted the process to the point
where it's unrecognisable from the industry of the past, where true
investigative journalism overturned administrations, corrected social imbalances
and played a role in making the U-S the beacon of freedom it once was. But of
course, it's the flag-wavers who don't really want it that way, anyway, just so
long as things stay the same for them. And (it's worth noting, not that you
don't already know) there are plenty of countries where government "ownership"
does not come with government control....often, in truly free societies, it's
the government-owned media that is the biggest critic of its government. But
the flag-wavers don't know that, either.
--
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Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by
evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious
encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." -- Justice
Brandeis
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