Thursday, February 20, 2014

Say Hello to the "New and Improved" Pravda-ized American Newsroom

In the latest feat of bureaucratic overreach, the Federal Communications Commission not only wants to set the agenda for the American media (more "social justice" crap, if you please), it wants to place a little FCC overseer in the newsroom to make sure its diktats are being enforced. 

The FCC has picked an opportune time to advance this idea. During the Obama presidency, the media have become so supine, so lackadaisical, that they barely have a pulse. They are thus unlikely to raise much of a fuss over this latest outrage.

And, after all, isn't it better (better for Obama and his control freaks/enforcers, that is) to stress "social justice" issues--stories about victim groups and the like--instead of digging into the manifold disasters of the Obama regime (Benghazi, O-Care, the IRS, the NSA, foreign policy chaos, etc., etc., etc.)?

To paraphrase the poet: This is the way free speech ends, not with a bang but an overseer.

Update: This bit, from Thomas Sowell's magisterial Intellectuals and Society, is worth quoting here. It is the beginning of Chapter 10, "Filtering Reality":
The preservation of the vision of the anointed [i.e. the vision of the left; the way it perceives itself and its "mission"] has led many among the intelligentsia to vigorous and even desperate expedients, including the filtering out of facts, the redefinition of words and--for some intellectuals--challenging the very idea of truth itself. Many among the intelligentsia create their own reality--whether deliberately or not--by filtering out information contrary to their conception of how the world is or ought to be.
Some have gone even further. J.A. Shumpeter said that the first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie. It is not necessary to lie, however, in order to deceive, when filtering will accomplish the same purpose. This can take the form of reporting selective and atypical samples, suppressing some of the facts altogether, or filtering out the inconvenient meanings or connotations of words.
Doesn't that describe the Obama M.O.--hello, "man-caused disasters"--to a T?

Of course, Obama is so confident that the media will continue to carry his water no matter what that he's quite willing and able to lie, too.

Update: Why the FCC should keep its nose out of TV newsrooms

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