Samizdata

Have reports of the death of the mainstream media been greatly exaggerated?

I have just got back from sitting in a discussion about how far should journalists go in chasing a story. It is a good question to ask and not as easy to answer as one might think. Is a journalist justified, for example, in breaking and entering a person’s property without consent to obtain facts even if the story is one of supposedly major importance? Can a journalist eavesdrop on confidential phone calls between X and Y in order to get a story and does that story have to pass some sort of “public interest” test? In my own hazy thoughts on the matter, I tend to take the view that the public interest test has to be very rigorous indeed, ie, life has to be at stake. It is not enough to say that “X is a famous man who is interesting to lots of people” sort of yardstick. It has to involve the exposure of murderous, criminal behaviour by the person(s) being investigated to justify breaking into a private home or breaching a confidential document.

Of course, as the discussion unfolded, it became pretty clear that the world of the internet and blogs, that a lot of media laws, as well as the whole idea of journalism being a licenced profession, is under threat. On the whole, I think this is a good thing. If journalists want to form their own trade associations to promote best practice and carry emblems on their news channels or newspapers saying that Mr J. Pearce is a member of the Journalist Society, well and good. It will be rather like plumbers, electricians or bricklayers forming such bodies, bodies that stand for reputation and high standards. Miscreants can and will be thrown out. Being a member of such a club will be a big deal, except that it will not be a state-approved body, but a genuinely private one.

Anyway, the weather is too glorious for me to write further. Time to light the barbecue and open some wine.

Like most ‘evil free market people’ I hold that collectivist (i.e. big government) ideas taught at schools and universities give the media a built in bias in favour of big government and against liberty. I am sometimes asked to give a specific example of what I am talking about and I will now do so.

A recent edition of Newsweek magazine attracted my attention because it had Europe at 50 in big letters on the front cover.

It turned out that the cover indicated a story about the European Economic Community – European Union (50 years old this year). This story being the normal nonsense, crediting the EU (rather than NATO) with peace in Europe, and crediting it with the economic recovery after World War II. Something that was actually achieved by the policy of deregulation, such as the scrapping of price controls, and tax reduction followed by finance minister Ludwig Erhard in Germany from 1948, and by political leaders in some other European countries.

However, it was a story in China that really interested me. New government spending increases in China were justified on the basis that they were in the spirit of “FDR’s depression busting” policies in the 1930’s which countered the “blows of the free market”.

In fact President Roosevelt’s spending schemes and regulations helped prolong the depression. And the depression was not caused by the ‘free market’ , it was caused by the boom and bust monetary policy of the Federal Reserve System.

In 1921 a previous government credit-money bubble, that of World War I, had burst, and the government of President Harding did nothing much, other than cut government spending, and the economy was well on the road to recovery within six months.

In 1929 another government credit-money bubble bust, that of the late 1920’s – caused by Governor B. Stong’s, of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, policy of trying to support the overvalued exchange rate of the British Pound by a loose credit money policy with the American Dollar.

The administration of President Hoover (contrary to the ‘did nothing’ myth) went in to overdrive – doing all the wrong things. Trying to hold up wages (in order to protect “spending power – demand”), by rigging agreements with industry, agreeing to more government spending, and agreeing eventually to a large increase in both domestic taxes and, in 1931, in the tax on imports.

The administration of President Roosevelt carried on the interventionist policies of President Hoover and, in some ways, deepened them. Thus making the depression the longest in American history.

Why do the good people at Newsweek not know any of the above? Why do they, instead, write of FDR’s “depression busting” schemes, and the “blows of the free market?

It is because of what they were taught at school and university – as simple as that.

People can not be expected to understand current events (such as the government schemes in China) if they have been taught a false view of the past.

This is a shame, since I have grown to greatly value Wikipedia and hope it does not get badly damaged:

Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopaedia, has been plunged into controversy after one of its most prolific contributors and editors, a professor of religion with advanced degrees in theology and canon law, was exposed as a 24-year-old community college drop-out.

The editor, who called himself Essjay, was recruited by staff at Wikipedia to work on the site’s arbitration committee, a team of expert administrators charged with vetting content on the on-line “free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit”.

The open-source and on-line dictionary has been a roaring success in its brief life. I use it constantly both at work and in my spare time. I also consult other reference tools and would strongly advise people never to rely on just one source for the sort of information that Wikipedia and its rivals provide. But it is a shame that this character hoodwinked the site in this way. The best way for Wikipedia to handle this is put its hands up, admit the problem and deal with it.

Which is more than one could say about some organisations.

At 2p.m. British time on Monday the 12th of February, I turned on Sky News. I was greeted by the sight and sound of various people (including a bearded person in Washington DC – who I think I remember watching on the BBC some years ago) going on about how the “legislators and media” in America doubted the “claims” that Iran has been arming and training the terrorists in Iraq (O.K. “the resistance” to you ‘progressive’ people out there).

Supposedly the evil Bush and his henchmen are cooking up stories to justify plans to attack the peace loving Islamic Republic of Iran.

Of course the Iranians (and their friends ‘The Party of God’ in Lebanon) have been arming and training people in Iraq for years. Many Americans and British soldiers and Iraqi soldiers, police and civilians have been killed by these Iranian actions.

Indeed the Iranian regime has even armed Sunni groups in Iraq – even though it knows that some of these groups kill large numbers of Shia. Causing blood soaked chaos (in order to undermine the Western will to fight) is the main aim – even if very large numbers of Shia are killed.

The Iranian regime has been in a de facto state of war with the United States (really with the West generally) for 28 years – even since the Iranian Revolution which occurred after President Carter betrayed the Shah.

To give a example, the Iranian regime was behind the suicide bombings against the Americans and French in Lebanon in 1983. Bombings that killed hundreds and mutilated many others.

The President of Iran is one of the people who invaded the American embassy in Iran and held the Americans there hostage (in various places) for a year, he holds that Israel should and will be wiped off the map and that the ‘hidden Iman’ will soon lead the Faithful to world conquest. The ‘Supreme Leader’ of Iran and the ‘Council of Guardians’ agree with this theology and they wish us all dead (or enslaved). → Continue reading: What is the point of Sky News