Conservatism & the Media

Joe the Plumber is milking his 15 minutes of fame, as a bogus reporter covering the Gaza Strip conflict. What troubled me is Samuel Wurzelbacher voiced approval of media censorship.

"I'll be honest with you," Wurzelbacher said in his video analysis. "I don't think journalists should be anywhere [around] war. I mean, you guys report where our troops are at. You report what's happening day to day. You make a big deal out of it. I-I think it's asinine. You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you'd go to the theater and you'd see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for 'em."

Didn't know he was that old. He continued: "Now everyone's got an opinion and wants to downer -- and down soldiers. You know, American soldiers or Israeli soldiers. I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting. You know, war is hell. And if you're gonna sit there and say, 'Well, look at this atrocity,' well, you don't know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it."

We can make fun of Wurzelbacher barely being able to articulate. We can make fun of Wurzelbacher's hypocrisy of saying journalists should not be allowed in war zones. However, Wurzelbacher feels he should have the right to go to Israel as a journalist. None of that matters since Wurzelbacher is not important.

Wurzelbacher voiced mainstream conservative opinion about the media. Wurzelbacher and the GOP base want the media shut down. They are able to rationalize Fox News, the National Review, and Washington Times is not part of the media. That is disingenuous thinking.

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government..." Thomas Jefferson said. "I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." A government without the fourth estate will abuse power. There is a reason Richard Nixon didn't want the Watergate tapes to be released. Nixon knew the American people would hear audio of a hateful man engaged in criminal activity. Nixon would have been allowed to keep his plumbers working, if it wasn't for the Washington Post.

Wurzelbacher is under false impression that information will not come out of war zones. Omar al-Bashir has kept journalists and the United Nations out of Darfur. That hasn't stopped the flow of information about the genocide.

Austin Bay and Jay Rosen had an interesting debate about the media's coverage of the White House message on the Iraq war. Bay is a conservative and Iraq war veteran. Bay wished the media was more sympathetic to the Bush administration's Iraq strategy. Even Bay conceded the White House did a horrible job with their message.

Here’s a good reason: America must win the War On Terror, and the poisoned White House—national press relationship harms that effort. History will judge the Bush Administration’s prosecution of the War On Terror. A key strategic issue for the current White House—perhaps a determinative issue for historians—will be its success or failure in getting subsequent administrations to sustain the political and economic development policies that truly winning the War On Terror will entail.

Good PR is important. The press and President Bush could both agree the current economy is fantastic. That doesn't mean the public will believe the message. Newspapers are dying because corporations are more concerned with profits than reporting. Corporate CEOs would rather fill news pages with Paris Hilton and AP stories than develop good beat reporters. Bush had high approval ratings and wasn't able to deliver on "Mission Accomplished" or WMDs. The President lost his credibility on Iraq. You can sell a newspaper or political spin. That doesn't mean anyone is going to buy.