Following on from the provocative op-ed China scholar and Foreign Service Officer Richard Mueller wrote for the National Security Forum (NSF) on the necessity of preserving our democracy in this highly tense political environment, Warren Lerude added the following comment for our readers to accompany his column (below) that originally appeared in the Reno Gazette-Journal:
From Warren:
“Varying strong-willed post-election NSF discussion topics fit in with my November 20, 2016 RG-J commentary about media bias. Almost everyone accuses almost everyone else of bias while taking little ownership of their own. Clintonites vs Trumpites and vice versa, conservatives against “the liberal press” and liberals railing at the “right wing media”, and The New York Times vs The Wall Street Journal battling opinion pieces on editorial pages.
In this mess, we risk turning our democratic society’s greatest asset, freedom of expression, into a dangerous liability—if we don’t protect our First Amendment obligations.
Opinion from all quarters has bias. Independently researched and impartially written news reporting, examples being The Associated Press and local coverage appearing in newspapers and broadcast world-wide, gets falsely categorized as biased. The eyes of partisan beholders see newsworthy facts as threats to their own agendas.
There has never been a time more important than now for a free and independent press in America reporting facts. The electorate would serve itself well if it sorted out the factual reporting from the biased opinion that deludes the national conversation by all concerned—especially the self-serving politicians and their biased surrogates.
The democracy requires respect for factual truth above and beyond biased opinion.
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And here is Warren’s RGJ column on the topic:
Who, and what, is the media?
One View, By WARREN LERUDE
The Reno Gazette-Journal, Nov 20, 2016
Is the media biased? Everyone has an opinion. But what is—or who are—the media?
Spiro Agnew called the media a singular monolith, then switched to plural with the “Nattering Nabobs of Negativity.
Is it—or are they—the people working in the 90,000 square foot Reno Gazette-Journal building? We built that building when I was the publisher 36 years ago as we moved the then Reno Evening Gazette and Nevada State Journal from 401 West Second St. downtown to 955 Kuenzli St.
Today, many offices are vacant due to changing economics of publishing. The on-site staff has been reduced. Across the country, this shift in newspaper resources and the emergence of other information voices have helped develop what is called media bias.
Newspapers have been the backbone of journalism going back to l776…and before that…to 1734…when an editor was jailed in the colony of New York for printing the truth about the Crown of England. A colonial jury declared truth to be a defense for libel. That planted a seed for the American Revolution and our First Amendment freedoms.
Today’s changing times have shifted the unique significance of newspapers even as their traditional missions remain. Fair and balanced coverage can be seen, for instance, in the October 23, 2016 front page Reno Gazette-Journal headlines: Who replaces Reid? and Meet Catherine Cortez Masto and Meet Joe Heck.
Today’s Reno Gazette-Journal offers opinion through an editorial board made up of diversified citizens. Editorials include reasons why endorsements may be wise and why readers may disagree.
Radio and television stations have broadcast the news, some with distinction if not great depth, for decades, and networks have covered national affairs in breadth if not the depth of newspapers.
Today, there is a dramatic change, a passing of the torch in new generations. The “new” or “social” media surfaces on the Internet via the iPhone and other instant electronic devices with rampant bias in opinion and unchecked allegations. On-line facts are elusive.
Tom Brokaw said on “Meet the Press” social media made a major difference in this election. Everyone used it, including Donald Trump tweeting at 3 a.m., a time he claimed Hillary Clinton was sound asleep at the switch. Both claimed bias by traditional media.
On the vast social media, new voices demanded to be heard.
Many chose choirs where preachers delivered sermons on cable networks. The culprits were easily identified. The cast of characters on CNN and MSNBC were as pro-Hillary as the folks at Fox were thumping for Trump. Some cast themselves as fact-gathering reporters when, in actual fact, they were bias-brawling commentators.
Much of today’s media bias is in the drama of ruthless television advertising. Eighty to one hundred million dollars were spent on television ads in the U.S. Senate race in Nevada by national Republican and Democrat campaigns whacking their biased axes to win Harry Reid’s seat.
…Crooked Hillary…lock her up…Dangerous Donald… loose cannon, finger on the nuke trigger…
It got so bad that elementary school teachers in Maryland had to cancel a fifth grade election project to shield students from the shocking language used not by reporters but by politicians and their supporters, much of it played over and over in television advertising and on the Internet.
This appeared to be a dramatically new world of media bias. It was different but not a new concept.
In the 1800 presidential race, Thomas Jefferson’s campaign called John Adams “…a hideous hermaphrodital character which has neither the force of a man nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”
Mr. Adams’ campaign responded, declaring Jefferson “…a mean-spirited , low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father”.
Jefferson defeated Adams to become the third President of the United States. They didn’t speak to each other for years, then finally made up at the suggestion of a third party who sought unity.
So, maybe, there is hope for the country today.
Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and her surrogate, President Obama, have pledged a peaceful transition in our American tradition.
Let’s hope this overcomes the deep bias spread everywhere by our angry electorate in the red and blue divided states of America.
Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Warren Lerude is professor emeritus, the Reynolds School of Journalism, University of Nevada, Reno, and former editor and publisher of the Reno Gazette-Journal