Fourth Estate?

Such a simple statement...

And the president at his barbecue with the press this August and a reporter said to him: Mr. President, is it really true you don't read the press or watch us on television? And he said no. And the reporter then said: Well, how do you then know, Mr. President, what the public is thinking? And Bush, without missing a beat said: You're making a powerful assumption, young man. You're assuming that you represent the public. I don't accept that.

...to produce so much discussion: Jay Rosen, Centerfield and Instapundit, to start. For my own part: no, I don't consider the media to represent the public. Big surprise there: nobody does, actually. I mean, does anybody here think that, say, Eric Alterman wrote What Liberal Media? because he thought that pushing the media to the Left would make it less mainstream? I take the position that it doesn't matter what your political affiliation is: you're likely to see the press as a funhouse mirror distortion of your own beliefs*.

As for their positioning themselves as the Fourth Estate of government, I can only echo the question of one of Jay's commenters:

If the press is the Fourth Estate, where is the check on the press?

Read the articles and links, as you like: they don't all agree with each other, but the debate is interesting.

Moe

*Frex, my default take is that the press is generally a vaguely left-of-center entity more interested in sensationalism than in real news, and ferociously uninterested in the flavor of the raw meat it attempts to devour. Figuring out when this take is biased (as opposed to actually being just the simple truth) can be a fun experience.

Comments

[Mithras]

Bush ignores anyone - experts, academics, journalists, career military officers - who he considers "elite"; i.e., tells him things he doesn't want to hear. That's obvious.

What's disheartening is that you right-wingers think he's wise to do this.

[asdf]

Actually, I think that you might find that your critique and Alterman's are actually quite similar.

[asdf]

Actually actually actually, actually actually?

I need to find a different word. Blogging has turned my writing to mush.

[Moe Lane]

"Blogging has turned my writing to mush."

I've noticed that problem with my own stuff from time to time. I may have to cut back in favor of RPG materials...

Moe

PS: Never read the Alterman book... actually. :)

[Factory]

Perhaps the problem is the forth estate was supposed to be based on the hard work of investigative journalism and critical thought, none of which is reflected in 'gotcha' journalism. Well, it's either that or the lack of alcoholism, and those hats with the cards stuck in them.

[nagoya ryan]

My instinctive answer to the question of what checks the press, as a free-market lefty (yes, I was born in a lab), was to think,"ratings, ad revenue?"... But, unfortunately, pursuit of higher ratings and ad revenues are what have made the press so shallow and sensationalist, don't you think? People will sit through the commercials if there's good video, right? Is the shallow nature of journalism (especially broadcast journalism) our own fault? What can be done about this? Sorry, no answers today, only questions.

There are deeper sources of information, of course, outside the mainstream... but who but a few of us bother to dig? It make-a me sad. End result: Among industrialized democracies, we have one of the most poorly informed populations, whose job it is to elect, arguably, the most powerful executive on the planet. Everybody in the world watches our elections, and they make everybody quite nervous, I assure you.

[Timmy the Wonder Dog]

The problem with the fourth estate, all those journalists want to be celebrities. Results in an unhealthy relationship as it lends itself to self promotion instead of reporting facts in the context of sound analysis.

[Gromit]

I think you have it backward, Timmy. The television networks, particularly the 24-hour news network, need celebrities because their primary purpose is to sell products to consumers, not good journalism. FNN and CNN don't have big entertainment divisions to offset the costs of journalism, so they have to "sex it up" as the British might say. This is the market at work.

Gromit