Glenn Beck – Fox News Thursday 8/27/09 – 7 of 7
NEWS media should be an non-profit endeavor. It should be pluralist, independent of both government or political parties, but also independent of big corporate conglomerates. Being “independent” means dedicated to seeking the truth and informing the public of the findings independent of outside influence.
The media is not independent in present-day Russia for example, because of government meddling. That constitutes a democratic deficit. In America, the News Media is not independent because of private corporate meddling and that too constitutes a democratic deficit.
Democracy can not function without an informed citizenry. If the people decide – in a government by the people, their choice has less value if they are mostly ignorant of the subject on which they are asked to express a position (vote yea or nay). Similarly the people’s decision has no value if they have been victim of a misrepresentation on the matter.
Freedom of speech was established as a pre-eminent guarantee in order to protect those journalist, whose role it is to inform the citizenry, or indeed to protect any individual from the dangers of a tyrant muzzling or gaging dissenting opinions.
In the case of Glen Beck – all this blogger can think is: this trash ought to be off the air.
If corporations are bigger then the republic they undermine the republic. Vitriolic hate speeches and deliberate fear mongering should be tolerated from a man standing on a soap box in a public square. However, the power of television is such, that allowing this on a major broadcast medium has real ramification for the citizenry and therefore the republic itself.
Democracy can not function without an informed citizenry. Fox News is misinforming the public deliberately. The Fox audience are like the victims of a confidence trick. Even if they freely make a choice at the voting booth, they make that choice as freely as the con victim gives her money to the trickster.
Removing Beck from the air would not be a case of muzzling of a dissenting view and trampling freedom of speech. It would be shutting up a dangerous tyrant’s propaganda machine. In this case Glen Beck is the voice on Fox News. Fox News is promoting the interests of the tyrant: big for-profit corporations. Obama is the enemy. The goal: to instill mistrust and fear of the President of the United States of America – at all cost.
Oh, and by the way, they have so little care for what they put together that Mr Beck’s team can’t even spell Oligarchy!
