Should there be separation of media and state?

Question

when you decide which side of an issue to vote for, are you sure the information your be provided is really fair and ballanced?do you think the media at large has a political agenda?if the founding fathers had seen the influence the media wields do you think they would have made provision for this?

Answer 1

Do you have any idea how biased the newspapers were at the time of the founding of this nation?  Do you know how Democratic papers treated Lincoln, including slamming the Gettysburg Address as an embarrassment?  

This is nothing new; in fact, things are much more balanced now than they were back then.  

Information should be factual.  If it's biased, it's up to you to figure that out and get the other side of the story.

BTW--"Media" is a plural noun.  It's a common mistake.

Edit to Abiogeek: Bravo!!

Answer 2

Politics is a game, really. I don't think many people really realize it, because politics is so involved in our government.

The framers made use of the media from the very beginning. Thomas Paine used Ben Franklin's press to print up Common Sense. Even before that Paul Revere's engraving and Sam Adams' words turned a street riot into the Boston Massacre.

After the Constitution established us as a democratic republic, in the 1800 election, James Callendar was libelling John Adams in the press, in what seemed like an effort to get Jefferson elected. Later, Callendar was the same printer who first set the Sally Hemmings story in type. In the instance of the Alien and Sedition Acts, Adams is sometimes thought to have been specifically targeting Constantin Volney, author of the Ruins, a rather popular fictional treatment of the period, and also author of a travel account that was very critical of the Adams Administration. There are some historians who hint that Vice President Jefferson was financing Volney in his literary efforts to bring down the President.

Arranging deals and negotiating votes to get a particular favorite measure across is all part of the game. Would Pennsylvania have voted for Independence, if John Dickinson, who vehemently opposed it, had decided to attend the vote that July 2 rather than remaining at home? Probably not, and since the delegates had agreed that the vote must be unanimous by all 13 states, the measure would have been defeated.

As another respondent has pointed out, you have to find your own answers. Every writer, no matter who they are, put something of themselves in their report. For this reason, it's important to find multiple sources, and piece together the facts from what they have in common and where they differ.

For instance, in a demonstration college students were faced with a National Guard unit that was brought in to maintain order, preferably by getting the students to return to class.  An altercation ensued in which Guardsmen were pelted with stones. At one instance, rifle fire came from the Guardsmen.

One lead read:  Today on the common at Kent State, Ohio National Guardsmen fired on a gathering of students, killing four.

Another read: Today on the common at Kent State, Ohio National Guardsmen, in an attempt to put down a violent demonstration, killed four college students.

Two different leads, with the same facts, but totally different spin.

If you read them both you can pick out the facts from each.

When: Today

Where: Kent State University

Who: Ohio National Guardsmen and Kent State Students

How: gunfire

What: four killed

Why: Student demonstration responded to by National Guardsmen.

The choice of words, in the presentation of those five facts, is the reporters' (and their editors').

The choice of the reader is to decide whether to believe one, without making an effort to investigate on their own, or to try and piece together what happened from different vantage points.

And what usually keeps the reader from not investigating the facts for themselves, is time.

Answer 3

The founding fathers did make a privision for the media, they protected it from the government.  It is your job to become informed on an issue not the media's job to spoon feed it to you like a child.  Is their bias in the media, yes.  Does the bias exist for both liberals and conservatives depending on the source, YES.  If you want a conservative perspective it not hard to find at all, tune to Fox News.  It's unreasonable to expect MEDIA in general that are comprised of reporters that have their own opinions to not see the world through their own rose colored glasses.  The reason we have more than one news agency is to get multiple perspectives of the same event.  The government has no business involving itself in the media, that is precisely why the government expressly forbid itself from doing so to begin with.  It's extremely dangerous for a society to get information through government filters.  Bottomline, it is every individuals obligation to become educated and informed, not doing so is not the fault of the media, but of the voter, and that is where the fault lies.

Answer 4

do you want the government controlling everything you hear about?

Answer 5

It's the seperation of the media from objective and honest reporting that is most harmful.

Answer 6

Actually, America the only country in the world where the media aren't owned by the state.  Even in places like Britain (BBC) and Canada (CBC), the television media are funded by the state.  Now, they're expected to be impartial.  Nonetheless, the media is state-owned.

Answer 7

The owners of the major television networks pretty much own the states.

Answer 8

of course, all because of comercials, if you want the truth about our government you have to watch public access or the BBC

Answer 9

The founding Father's are convulsing in their graves....