Can
Speculation Be Defined as News? By L. Brent Bozell III and Tim Graham,
1/4/17, CNS
At the dawn of 2017, let us offer a
philosophical question for the news media. If the scourge of the new-year is
"fake news," should we not concede that it's not news to speculate
about what will happen after a news event? The problem is, without speculation
about the future — whether immediate or distant — cable news channels and radio
news outlets would surely enter a crisis about how to fill 24 hours a day, and
newspapers would struggle to fill their pages.
Time magazine
offered a double issue called "The Year Ahead." Obviously, it cannot
be defined as news. Nothing has happened yet. The final page of content in the
edition is "The 2017 Quiz on News-to-Be." The concept is clearly
borrowed from the late New York Times columnist William Safire, who began many
years with a similar crystal ball quiz.
Questions can
project the news outlet's obsessions, and these certainly do. The second quiz
question is, "When it comes to conflicts of interest, Donald Trump will
make no changes to his business practices because?" Options include
"His lawyers say the law doesn't require him to" and "Americans don't really care."
How Trump
handles the potentially massive conflict of interest that is his global
business empire should be a top news story. He'll soon announce how he prefers
to resolve that matter. Is it utterly impossible to suggest he will make
changes to his business practices? We can predict he will and that whatever he
does won't satisfy Time magazine. Also, after summarily ignoring both Clintons'
buck-raking practices for years, why the sudden concern for financial ethics?
Ah, the "news" business.
Comments
Speculation is the forming of a theory or
conjecture without firm evidence. It is the weapon of choice for liberals who
want to implant their political narratives. The perpetual question asked by
interviewers is: “What do you think will happen?
If the media ever returns to separating facts
from opinion, they will find their audiences will gravitate to facts and make
their own conclusions.
The amount of speculation filler by the media
is currently about 90%. The only thing that will bring more facts and less
speculation to US media is a competitor who offers more facts and less
speculation and they will have to do their own research, because research firms
are tainted with liberal bias.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
No comments:
Post a Comment