Bill Moyers on the CPB

Bill Moyers gave a great speech at the National Conference on Media Reform, mostly on how Kenneth Tomlinson is working hard to turn PBS into FOX, apparently. The speech is filled with wonderful lines, so much so that I would happily repeat the whole thing here if I could, but that would be a bit excessive. I think one of my favorite bits is this one, though:

One reason I'm in hot water is because my colleagues and I at NOW didn't play by the conventional rules of Beltway journalism. Those rules divide the world into Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, and allow journalists to pretend they have done their job if, instead of reporting the truth behind the news, they merely give each side an opportunity to spin the news.

(emphasis added)

To me, that last bit really says it all about the present state of "journalism" as practiced by most of the news organizations today. Someone pointed out the other day that it's become extremely difficult to know what to think on any given issue because all you hear is the expert for one side presenting their argument, then the opposition presenting theirs, and no one that you can believe is more-or-less impartial comes along to point out the holes in either side.

Now, past history has me leaning towards the belief that if it's from the right, and their mouths are moving, then they must be lying. This attitude has undoubtedly kept me from hearing some valid points of view from that side of the political spectrum. On the other hand, when it seems like 90% of what they tell you is bull, it's not too hard to ignore that other 10%. This is sort of like the reason I stopped reading Usenet groups many years ago -- the signal-to-noise ratio got too bad. It stopped being worth my time to sift out the nuggets amid all the dross that poured forth. In the same sense, listening to most of the right to see if they have a valid point isn't worth the rise in my blood pressure that comes from hearing all the lies and smokescreens they put out to keep the real stories from getting out.

Anyway, this is only one small point that Mr. Moyers makes in the middle of a speech that shows how this administration is on the road to succeeding in silencing one of the few sources for actual news that we in America have remaining to us. Go read it, and take it to heart.