The Role of the press?

From: http://townhall.com/columnists/arthursc ... sletterad=

WikiLeaks is doing what the mainstream media was supposed to be doing.

The role of the press is to:

Serve as watchdog for our local/federal elected officials.
Inform readers to know what’s going on in the cultural as well as the political realm.
Generate an awareness of our country, states, and cities.
Get us mad about anything going wrong, and enough to do something about it.

Wow, silly me!

Are these the things the press should be doing?
Which of these is the press doing

Wikileaks is journalism in the same sense that a billboard used by graffiti artists is journalism.

That is to say, it is not at all journalism: Wikileaks does not editorialize (except, of course, when it comes to timing releases and such things). Journalism is not only the simple act of reporting facts, but also the act of adding commentary and providing context for those facts; without that, you get situations where people read something on wikileaks, and come to very wrong conclusions about what is being said or what happened in actuality (as an example, there's a rumour going around that one of the emails in the Clinton dump proves that the Democrats had Scalia killed. Which is of course utter bullshit, as anyone who can do research could tell you, but who cares about reality when there is another thing to add to the giant conspiracy theories trumpeteers are so fond of).

It may have started out with good intentions. It has turned into an unwitting tool for conspiracy theorists, idiots, small-handed vulgarians and dictators. It's not just laying bare the backroom dealings of the powerful, but also putting lives at risk because apparently individual lives do not matter to them in their quest for truth.

IMHO the worst thing about this election campaign is that Trump has deliberately set out to destroy all trust in journalism. The orange-faced candidate says outrageous things, and when news outlets report his exact words, he accuses them of "bias". He retweets rigged crime statistics from a nonexistent "bureau". His followers tout unreliable sources like conspiracy whacko Alex Jones and James O'Keefe, who edits cherry-picked footage to create phony narratives. They cheer for each new release from WikiLeaks, data that has been shown to be sourced from Russian hackers, and they cherry-pick that data for more distortion. If WikiLeaks isn't biased, why have they not said a word about Trump?

The so-called "mainstream media" that Trumpsters spit on has been doing its job, both in straight reporting and editorializing, and has made clear the distinction between the two. They have been reviled for it. Trump, in his paranoia, believes that they, the Clinton campaign and "international bankers" (conspiracy-speak for Jews) are all in a huge plot against him because he is so BIGLY important, the entire world depends solely on him, "I alone can fix it". Megalomania is a common trait in the worst dictators. We cannot afford a megalomaniac in the White House.

To be petty the role of commercial media is to make money for its shareholders.
After that, I would hope that the news and current affairs on commercial media would provide accurate and unbiased information, along with intelligent analysis.
We also have taxpayer funded media ABC and SBS (like UK BBC). When a conservative government gets into office they always set up a committee or inquiry on perceived bias on these, as they believe these are left biased. Every inquiry has concluded that they are neutral, but seem biased when compared to the right controled commercial media. Thanks Murdock.

Daryl wrote:To be petty the role of commercial media is to make money for its shareholders.
After that, I would hope that the news and current affairs on commercial media would provide accurate and unbiased information, along with intelligent analysis.
We also have taxpayer funded media ABC and SBS (like UK BBC). When a conservative government gets into office they always set up a committee or inquiry on perceived bias on these, as they believe these are left biased. Every inquiry has concluded that they are neutral, but seem biased when compared to the right controled commercial media. Thanks Murdock.

And the media moguls (pre Sir Rupert)of centuries past declared a free and independent press to be the 4th pillar (estate) supporting a free society. Investigative, yea even muck raking journalism has always been a high expense item offset only by increased circulation.

Wickileaks is not journalism, yet. I await the RNC, Donald Trump campaign and Howard Stern hacks releases. I mean even Foxnews swears it is fair and balanced.

Daryl wrote:We also have taxpayer funded media ABC and SBS (like UK BBC). When a conservative government gets into office they always set up a committee or inquiry on perceived bias on these, as they believe these are left biased.

Erm, the BBC is somewhat left-biased (and Global-Warming biased... and Bremain-biased...)
At the last election, when the Labour Party lost quite dramatically, one BBC reporter asked a Labour MP "Where did we go wrong?"
Plus there's Question Time and... yeah.
Remember, BBC recruits via the pages of the Guardian, a left-wing newspaper.
I'd be shocked if the BBC showed any right-wing attributes, especially since Clarkson et al left.

Michael Everett wrote:

Daryl wrote:We also have taxpayer funded media ABC and SBS (like UK BBC). When a conservative government gets into office they always set up a committee or inquiry on perceived bias on these, as they believe these are left biased.

Erm, the BBC is somewhat left-biased (and Global-Warming biased... and Bremain-biased...)
At the last election, when the Labour Party lost quite dramatically, one BBC reporter asked a Labour MP "Where did we go wrong?"
Plus there's Question Time and... yeah.
Remember, BBC recruits via the pages of the Guardian, a left-wing newspaper.
I'd be shocked if the BBC showed any right-wing attributes, especially since Clarkson et al left.

And when the Republicans finally gained control of both houses of congress they defunded PBS and NPR. No more communist propaganda at the government's trough.