This past September 21st Pat Caddell
gave a speech at the Accuracy in Media Conference. Caddell is
a Democratic pollster who worked for George McGovern and served as
pollster for Jimmy Carter, Gary Hart, Joe Biden, Jerry Brown and
others. He is currently, among other things, a Fox News analyst. The
transcript of his speech is linked below. Early in his speech he said:
"I think we're at the most dangerous time in our political history in
terms of the balance of power in the role that the media plays in
whether or not we maintain a free democracy or not." It is fair to say
that he harbors serious concerns with mainstream media bias and its
unique power to influence public thinking. Since the speech is quite
long I will offer four more quotes to provide a taste for what he
covers.
"We have a First Amendment not
because the Founding Fathers liked the press—they hated the press—but
they believed, as [Thomas] Jefferson said, that in order to have a free
country, in order to be a free people, we needed a free press."
"We designed a constitutional
system with many checks and balances. The one that had no checks and
balances was the press, and that was done under an implicit
understanding that, somehow, the press would protect the people from the
government and the power by telling—somehow allowing—people to have the
truth. That is being abrogated as we speak, and has been for some time.
It is now creating the danger that I spoke to."
"George Stephanopoulos, a former
advisor to Bill Clinton—who every morning, while Rahm Emmanuel was Chief
of Staff, had his call with Rahm Emmanuel and James Carville, and the
three of them have been doing it for years—and he is held out as a
journalist. He has two platforms. I mean, he’s a political hack
masquerading as a journalist."
"But all I want to conclude to
this is that we face a fundamental danger here. The fundamental danger
is this: I talked about the defense of the First Amendment. The press’s
job is to stand in the ramparts and protect the liberty and freedom of
all of us from a government and from organized governmental power. When
they desert those ramparts and decide that they will now become active
participants, that their job is not simply to tell you who you may vote
for, and who you may not, but, worse—and this is the danger of the last
two weeks—what truth that you may know, as an American, and what truth
you are not allowed to know, they have, then, made themselves a
fundamental threat to the democracy, and, in my opinion, made themselves
the enemy of the American people."
I think you get the point. Time
permitting, read the entire speech and the Q&A portion, too. For a
more recent example of Caddell's point see second link. George Burns
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