The Fall of Conservativism…

Monday, May 26, 2008 1:34 AM Posted in Ethics, Life, Politics

This video is just sick, and it represents a good reason I don’t watch FOX News. Between this kind of overt filth and the garbage spewed by Bill O’Reilly, I just can’t see how anyone who professes Christ as Lord can possibly advocate this stuff. It’ll be interesting to see how FOX responds to Liz Trotta‘s comments. It just cements in my mind why it’s important to get news from multiple sources and form your own opinions. (We’ll see if FOX News lets you decide what is or isn’t obscene with regard to Trotta’s comments.)

What frustrates me most is how unethical all of journalism seems to have gotten. Our daily news channels offer mostly opinion and very little unbiased reporting. I know it’s not possible to report news completely unbiased, but it seems like nobody’s even trying. More and more it feels like every channel is pandering to its “own” audience. It’s disappointing to see journalism in this state- it’s almost to the point that it was in the days of sensationalism, when the media was responsible for helping start wars to increase sales. Disgusting.

In the meantime, I read a very interesting and relatively unbiased article on The Fall of Conservativism by George Packer of The New Yorker. It’s worth reading, even though it’s long. Packer gives a history of the social trends of conservativisim and liberalism over the last 50 or 60 years.

by Joe Kennedy

9 comments

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May 26, 2008 - 7:57 AM

Steve - Why is this video “just sick”? Sounded like she was struggling for her words and said ‘Osama’ when she wanted to say ‘Obama’.

Unless there is more context that is not given, there is nothing outrageous here.

May 26, 2008 - 8:43 AM

Joe Kennedy - Steve, when a “journalist” jokingly advocates the assassination of a presidential candidate, it’s deplorable. That’s your context. I’m happy to condemn Clinton for her insane comments regarding the assassination of RFK, and I was happy to condemn Pat Robertson’s lunatic comments regarding the assassination of Chavez.

First, Liz makes the “slip up” of referring to Obama as Osama. Come on, by now any real journalist can manage to make the distinction. But let’s assume she didn’t mean to screw that up. I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. The context is assassination, and she JOKES that they should both be assassinated.

How are you not seeing this, Steve?

May 26, 2008 - 9:44 AM

Howie Luvzus - Steve can’t see it because he seems, like many conservatives, to be unable to accept that sometimes persons in his political camp are jerks. I see it all the time with Southern Baptists who can’t critique their leaders when they are clearly wrong.

I think the media is responsible for the dumbing down of America. They show us brief sound bites and tell us what to think about them. Talk show hosts like Kevin James are a great example…see http://howieluvzus.com/?p=548. He isn’t mentally prepared to make an argument, just state a talking point.

Also, admitting that your side is wrong about something might lead to that “slippery slope.” So morons on the right and left can’t see that Bill O’ has NO moral grounds for defending Christmas and that Hillary is a lying sleezeball that would destroy the Democratic Party if elected.

That’s why I appreciate you Joe. Seems you can sometimes cut through the crap and aren’t so tied to an agenda that you have to put blinders on to defend your cause.

May 26, 2008 - 11:24 AM

Steve - Joe,

From the video, there is no joking about assassinating anyone, (maybe you saw more of this on FOX than is in the youtube clip?) Seems she is referring to the comments made by Hillary Clinton, but all she did was mention that it was ‘suggested’ (which I disagree with.)

Those comments made by Hillary were clearly NOT suggesting anyone assassinate Obama, they were verbatim what she had already said awhile ago, raising no controversy.

The clear fact is, one of Obama’s strongest campaign tactics is to play the ‘victim’. If anyone says anything remotely critical of him, he cries dirty politics. That is what has happened here, Clinton made a point about Democratic primaries traditionally going well into June, citing some examples – then some Obama people jumped on it and twisted her words into something they were not. Add that to the fact that almost all the major media outlets are IN LOVE with Obama, and presto, you have a ‘controversy’.

To accuse FOX of advocating assassination doesn’t seem warranted here unless you have a better clip that shows this, the clip you currently have does not contain this.

Howie, whoah! Back off with the judgements and condemnation! I was just making observations based on the 14 second clip!

May 26, 2008 - 11:29 AM

steve - My apologies, I just realized what she said under her breath (I couldn’t make it out before.)

I agree, it was an awful thing to joke about.

May 26, 2008 - 12:15 PM

Joe Kennedy - To avoid further confusion, here’s a transcript of what Liz Trotta said:

“and now we have what … uh… some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama …uh..um… Obama …well both if we could [laughing]“

Hopefully that will eliminate any comments asking why I object to Trotta’s statement… by any rational human being.

May 28, 2008 - 9:32 AM

mo - Joe, I agree that this blurb is awful. Fox news should never invite her back on. However, i think you might be being a bit niave if you think that journalism has ever been unbiased, or even close to it. You don’t have to look much further than the founding of our country and the papers that circulated to see some very biased reporting. That’s the beautiful thing about our system and the freedom of the press works.

May 28, 2008 - 10:49 AM

Joe Kennedy - MO, by linking to the Wikipedia article on the role of the media in causing the Spanish-American War, I think I made it clear I don’t think journalism has been unbiased. Likewise, by saying “I know it’s not possible to report news completely unbiased, but it seems like nobody’s even trying.” I was attempting to make the exact point that you say I’m being naive about. I know we can’t have it, but isn’t it a part of ethical journalism to at least try? I think the folks at Poynter would agree with me.

May 28, 2008 - 12:12 PM

mo - Oops, I missed the article you linked, my fault.

Is it journalisms responsibility to try to be unbiased? Or is it the american publics responsibility to undertand the bias and make an educated decision for themselves? I would guess from your post that you believe that the responsibility should be on both. Maybe I’ve just given up on trying to find an unbiased opinion, but in my opinion the bigger responsibility falls on the public. After all, if there wasn’t a significant amount of people willing to watch the trash in that video clip then they wouldn’t broadcast it. Which then poses another interesting conundrum: Are we just as bad as those who support those views for discussing it and adding to the hit count of the video? After all Fox news is really after ratings here, do they really care how they get them?

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