Journalism Ethics II

Would you rather be happy or know?

You take the blue pill, the story ends,

you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.

You take the red pill,

you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

Morpheus, The Matrix

If there were thousands of relatively independent media companies in the mid 1900’s,
~50 by the 1980’s, and less than 10 after 2000,
mostly owned by conglomerates with conflicting interests
dependent on legislative initiatives for regulatory concerns
and commercial advertisers, political campaigns and government for profit,
is most “mainstream” information relatively more objective or less?

Power in America…is control of the means of communication.

Theodore White

Did the founding fathers want the communications industry
to keep an eye on the government for the people
or an eye on the people for the government?

Is an independent press essential to capitalistic democracy?

Without an informed and free press, there cannot be an enlightened people.

Justice Potter Stewart

Why is journalism the only profession
explicitly protected by the US Constitution?

Do the few who control dissemination of most financial and political information,
enjoy relatively disproportionate levels of influence than the many who don’t?

Information is the currency of democracy.

Thomas Jefferson

Is what you think others think what they’re thinking,
or what they and/or some others want you to think they’re thinking?

Are the less informed easier to persuade than the more?

Freedom of the press

is guaranteed only to those who own one.

A J Liebling

Are you certain
you’ve not been conditioned to think certain thoughts?