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Originally Posted by Charlatan
The difference between Limbaugh and Rather should be that Rather is a news journalist and Limbaugh is a columnist.
The difference should be that a news journalist strives to present the news as objectively as possible. A columnist offers opinions.
Trouble occurs when these two different types of journalist start to slip into each other's realms (i.e. Limbaugh presents his information as something other than opinion or Rather infuses his news with his own bias).
The media today is not as cut and dry as it perhaps once was. Journalists can and do shift their roles and increasing straddle the fence on which side of the news/commentary continuum they are sitting. As a result it becomes increasingly important for the consumers of news and information to be aware of how things are being presented. Aware of the bias going in or at least have more than one source for their news and information so they can sift for something resembling the "truth".
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Thats a good point, but in the end I'll have more respect for someone like Limbaugh then a Rather, the reason being one isn't trying to influence while hiding.
I think the issue is the media was NEVER cut and dry, its always been biased, hell this country was founded around a biased press.
At some point though the media put on a veneer of respectability and trust, but it was only a veneer. With only a few major outlets, who would you turn to if something was biased? You could tell your friends, you could make your own newsletter at great expense but you would need to be a crusader.
Enter the information age. Whats happened is this veneer has been exposed for what it is. Quite suddenly we went from almost no fact checking and analysis of the press to 1000's of educated people picking it apart.
Years ago Dan Rather did a piece on the Vietnam war which was complete bullshit. He interviewed 'soldiers' who were never there who committed war crimes that never happened. It REALLY upset vet groups, but unless you were in those groups you never heard of it.
Then he tried the same type of thing with the Bush 'documents'. Within hours, littlegreenfootballs demonstrated those were obviously word documents, a few hours later, its on drudge, the next morning its on Limbaugh, it can't be ignored. I don't recall which major news organization ran with it first, but they didn't have a choice by then.
Now this isn't all good. Personally I didn't care if Clinton was getting a hummer from some fat chick in the oval office. If I were married to Hilary I'd be cheating too, its a political marriage. The story was deliberately buried by the main stream press, now I'm not sure if they would have done the same if the president was GHB, but thats another story. At any rate, that can't be ignored either, because one guy with a web site got wind of it.
Still I think over all its a good thing, but it requires now more than ever that the person reading is educated and understand this sort of thing, something which is sadly lacking.