Today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorializes on the state Supreme Court ruling upholding John Carlson and Kirby Wilbur's right to advocate for initiatives on the radio:
they have the right to talk (and even be activists), but is that a fair use of the public's resource? We think opinion journalism is a high calling and with that comes the responsibility to set high standards. We don't think those who borrow the public airwaves, or even the printed pages, should become directly invested in causes they comment about.Opinion journalism is a high calling, but no more so than for any other citizen to engage in political expression or activism. The main differences between P-I editorialists and other citizens with political opinions is that the former seem more self-important than most other people, and because opinion writing is their only job, they have a more limited view of the world. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 30, 2007 10:22 AM | Email This
"Borrow the public airwaves?" Isn't the P-I delivered via the use of public streets? What's good for the goose? I know the airwaves are regulated (another topic for another time), but isn't the basic point the same?
Typically, the P-I objects less that something is said and more that it's not said to the P-I's liking.
William Randolph Hearst...where are you now that we need you???
The Piper
Posted by: Piper Scott on April 30, 2007 11:23 AMGo John & Wilbur.
Posted by: Army Medic/Vet on April 30, 2007 11:28 AMFigures. Why do they call these people "liberals" anyway? John Stuart Mill is no doubt spinning in his grave over some of the positions that pass for "liberal" these days.
Posted by: bfr on April 30, 2007 11:44 AMThey didn't "barrow" the public airwaves. They paid the FCC for the right to use them via their license. It's no different then getting a permit to use a public street for a protest or rally supporting whatever viewpoint one has.
Talk about narrow minded. What a bunch of buffoons.
Posted by: Mike H on April 30, 2007 12:11 PMThe P.I. is as morally bankrupt as they come.
How does the PI deliver its papers? Do they "borrow" the public roadways?
Federal licensing for the public airwaves contains hundreds of regulations. Violation of these regulations can end up with a heavy fine or a suspension of your license.
How many Federal regulations apply to newspaper publishing? Can the Federal government suspend the ability of a newpaper to distribute their point of view?
Who is "the press"? Weren't they commentators, gossips, nosy neighbors, government watchdogs, etc.? What made them and their "voice" more important than any other citizens? Just because they had access to a printing press - an ability to put their opinions out to a large body of people at one time? Isn't this what "common" people did from soap boxes in parks?
The method of delivery shouldn't really matter - print, radio, television, in person - we ALL have the right to voice our opinions and peacefully redress our grievances to the government. These rights did not have a clause limiting them to only the "press". I believe that the "press" mentioned in the Constitution had more to do with the method of delivery rather than the "who".
In this case, the method was an electronic soapbox - period. Using governmental force to silence dissent (this was an actual case, not some hypothetical "what if" that the libs always are yeling about - in the press) isn't right and the PI is wrong for not recognizing that.
Posted by: SouthernRoots on April 30, 2007 01:15 PMIf you believe that the major national tv media don't care about what goes on outside the major cities, you aren't just paranoid.
Any honest television media person will tell you that they know there are millions of people outside the U.S. cities, but that they can't really "monetize" them because of their diverse demographic and non-centralized geographic location and they they just don't care about them.
This is one of the reasons why Fox News has higher viewership than CNN, but tends to make a lot less on commercials. They just don't pull in the people in the cities the way CNN does.
Posted by: johnny on April 30, 2007 01:26 PMNot that this amounts to the same thing, of course; the point is merely that we shouldn't go about picking and choosing what the press covers.
Breathtaking hypocrisy. The PI (and the Times for that matter) are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by local governments like Seattle MOnorail and Sound Transit. Sure as shootin' they editorialize how great those agencies are. Before the PI next editorializes about Sound Transit, it ought to disclose how much has been "invested" in it by ST.
Posted by: they're kidding, right? on April 30, 2007 02:55 PMBetter get used to it PI, it was unamimous.
Posted by: GS on April 30, 2007 02:57 PMHows their circulation doing these days?
Posted by: GS on April 30, 2007 03:49 PMBut why would I expect that here? Apparently it's more fun to leave off certain parts and then pontificate about what you copied.
Keep up the drooling, fellers.
Posted by: Literate on April 30, 2007 05:03 PMIt was a good decision by the Supreme Court & we can consider the Puget Sound area lucky to have such good people commenting & giving their opinions.
Posted by: Clean House on April 30, 2007 05:55 PMThe P-I can't handle that, because they want to see this country metasticize into a politically correct socialist republic and bring back communism. Dwight Pelz and George Soros would be proud and Soros probably will eventually fund this dead fish wrapper to keep it in circulation.
Posted by: KS on April 30, 2007 07:38 PMShrug.
So what special edition of apologies, investigations will the PI offer us; 20+ yrs of the PI being heavily invested in what they print. Will they "out" all their reporters and columnists who work for left wing causes, whose partners and spouses get money or perks from the issues the paper touches on?
how about joni and all the other paid propagandists? joel? arrghh..
Posted by: righton on May 1, 2007 07:07 AMHas anyone here suffered the recent indignity of listening to NPR's Weekend Sedition/Sunday? Now, more than ever, it's 2 hours of taxpayer-supported propaganda for the Left-Coast Left.
In the Duke rapeless case, for example, NPR gave about ten seconds to the exonerated rapists, and gave 2 or 3 minutes to excoriations of white privilege that Duke represented. Then NPR gave a groveling retrospective rave to 88 tolerant, tenured-radical profs who publicly condemned or convicted (without the inconvenience of proof) their wicked students who had the bad manners to be born white.
(Still, ten honest seconds of reportage is more than the Dukes got from U Dub's Daily. The Daily has only one sane writer, and she was being busily bashed for writing a column about God and Virginia Tech.)
Then there was NPR/Sunday re the 10th anniversary of the Northern Plains flood, a bad but limited disaster in which no lives were lost. Many tax-subsidized NPR minutes drove home the take-home message that Bill Clinton (taking time out from making DNA deposits under the desk) and Bill Clinton's FEMA knew how to manage a disaster, and how Bill & Bill's FEMA are remembered now in the upper-Midwest with passionate fondness. Hell, they even have a James Lee Witt Day.
Nevermind that Clinton's crisis management consisted of making noises, or that his crisis comprised two medium-small towns. NPR's point was to blur distinctions: Clinton's flood, good. Bush's Katrina, baaaaaaaaad.