Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for April 10, 2022

But newspapers were able to print whatever they wanted. Often, you could tell by their name what political party they supported.

Oddly enough, 60 Minutes gets a bit of the blame. They were the first newscast that ever made a profit. After the stations saw that it was possible, fairness and actual news went out the window.

But it’s good to see that 60 Minutes is still one of the more reliable newscasts.

So who are the real asses here?

nothing scares a dumb ass like a wise one…

I think it all started in the 80’s with the development of “Infotainment”.

Sadly it has become anger as entertainment.

When Stephan says “media doesn’t have to be honest,” you know he’s pointing fingers at the ones who are honest (at least sometimes).

well, if Stephan relies on his wise ass to be the source of his toons we be in deep doo-doo.

The Fairness Doctrine was a blatant violation of free speech. It deserved to die.

My eyes pop out too when I hear the word pizza.

That was, and is, the myth. While the Fairness Doctrine required equal time for opinion segments, it did not apply to news programs. Reporters and news readers curated the statements and events they chose to broadcast, and did so with assumptions about which were important and what they meant. Suppressing some stories and creating others is nothing new.

Follow the money.

I have a suggestion (which I actually sent to an MP). As terribly biased and loaded with misinformation legacy media has become and how Big tech is actively censoring topics on their platforms, I am strictly opposed to government intervention in either arena. It is obvious from thousands of years of history that no government can be trusted to set itself up as the arbiter of truth, like the Liberals are poised to do in Canada, calling for censorship of the internet.

Here’s my suggestion how to handle the situation: pass a law requiring all news outlets, whether TV, radio, newspaper or on-line, to prominently post a disclaimer along this line:

“While this media outlet strives to produce unbiased and factual news reporting, despite our best efforts it is human nature that error or bias may creep in. It is therefore incumbent- and encouraged- that the reader/viewer/listener seek out alternative sources of information in order to gain an accurate understanding of newsworthy events.”

But surely loving pizza should count for something ….

And then theirs the republican trump doctrine “its OK, everybody lies so its OK to lie”

The Fairness Doctrine would not have applied to cable and the internet anyway. Sinclair aside, what impact does broadcast have any more?

There were days long ago when reporters had a fairly high degree of integrity and ethics. Those were high standards. Those were the days when most people seeking the news looked for those standards. Now? Now they’ll settle for whatever turds of “wisdom” they’re told to feed upon unless they actually work at it to fact check and examine the biases in the news they’re being fed.

The “Fairness Doctrine” meant that only the D side of the story ever got told. They claimed that their spin was “news”, while the R side was opinion. And opinions had to be given equal time, so they simply didn’t give the R side any time at all. (Except on the Sunday morning talk shows, which were less popular than televised church.) Pepperidge Farms remembers.

The US government also modified the Smith-Mundt Act so it could propagandize its own citizens.

Pizza to Microchip our Toes?! laughs hysterically

The fairness doctrine was anything but.

Toe microchips, for people who vote with their feet.

The fairness doctrine never produced integrity. There was simply no opposing voice to challenge the lie.

Poor Wise ass on the hill

They were not required to be honest. People were less stupid, more in contact with reality. These days you can survive on subsidies or cozy useless government “jobs” with your nose stuck to the screen of your phone. That’s the kind of gullible people that can be manipulated by the media and the government and live in a fantasy world where your poor choices have no consequences. Forget about unemployment numbers. Even with full employment, with less than half of the working population doing real production, the economy will keep going down

I think I’ll read the paper.

Ah yes, communist donkeys using pizza to microchip our toes. Such a simple, diabolical plan. Those Illuminati sure are smart.

They got rid of the Fairness Doctrine, got rid of Media Monopoly rules, and fast-tracked Rupert Murdoch to citizenship (so he could own an American TV station) at around the same time. Thank Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress for that.

I used to see the British Tabloids and think "My God – this is a newspaper? I’m so glad American newspapers don’t do this. Then they took the guy who did that and let him buy the New York Post and a television station.

Psdonkey!

Yes “donkeys” are communists.

The Fairness Doctrine only required networks be “balanced” not honest. So if they had a MAGA on they also would have to give a Never Trump the opportunity to be on. And that was only if the MAGA editorialized.

Kiss your @$$ goodbye.

The Fairness Doctrine was a censorship measure that required that, wherever the conservative point of view was presented, the liberal point of view also had to be presented. It was used as a political weapon against conservatives, and its repeal was a good thing.

That isn’t what the fairness doctrine said. Not even remotely.

Pizza to microchip? That’s just crazy. They use Jewish space lasers!

Need a sad button today.

Spreading lies and conspiracy theories should be against all principals of the media…..but when you are a privately owned news outlet, anything goes! Just have to rely on one’s own instincts to decipher what’s true and what’s a lie!

Unfortunately some have pea brains who can’t recognize truth from fiction.

I tried for balance. I subscribed to both the Washington Post and the National Review; one far left and one far right. But it didn’t work. Literally every headline story on each website was a politically-slanted view of some issue or event. Impartiality in the news no longer exists. So I cancelled both subscriptions and just read The Onion every day. Life has been better since. Ignorance is bliss!

Among other things the Fairness Doctrine required any station presenting opinionated content also provide opposing viewpoints. It would have required any channel broadcasting Rush Limbaugh to also give 3 hours of air time to Leftist (aka Communists). In effect, it would have silenced Rush which was the Left’s purpose in pushing it in the first place.

In fact, Pastis, In keeping with the Fairness Doctrine, I demand you turn over your comic strip to me for several years to write opposing content. That’s “fair”, isn’t it?

Key word “Broadcast” As we know from our First Amendment the government cannot tell anyone what they can and cannot say.However, the broadcast frequencies were considered a public resource and in order to gain commercial access to them broadcasters had to follow certain rules, including the Fairness Doctrine, which was a policy that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that fairly reflected differing viewpoints.By 1987 it had lost most of its effectiveness. Cable stations such as FOX would never have been subject to it. So, it becomes just another pointless lamentation on the internet.

WTF???

not one mention that it was ronald reagan who did it?

Whatever gets sales gets printed. No one wants to read a story that says, “Local man waits outside for daffodils to bloom”. However, “Nuclear apocalypse! World ending!” is much more enticing.

The Fairness Doctrine prevented the discussion of almost any issue because you could rarely get both sides in the same room to hold a discussion. When you did it was more like a Jerry Springer show than a real resolution of ideas and during a political campaign you couldn’t even have the incumbent’s regular report to constituents aired because everyone running against them demanded equivalent time – think the last 3 Democrat Presidential races?

The problem is that people think that their news source of choice is never biased.

I remember Jack Paar reading the NYT to us one night. On 18 September 1961, a DC-6 passenger aircraft of Transair Sweden, operating for the United Nations, crashed near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia). The crash resulted in the deaths of all people onboard including Dag Hammarskjöld, the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, and 15 others. Hammarskjöld had been en route to cease-fire negotiations with Moise Tshombe during the Congo Crisis. The Times article included how they were greeted after they arrived and what they had for lunch.

That didn’t mean they were always trusted by every person. Often whether they were believed was in the eye of the beholder. It didn’t hurt that the overall news media consisted of far fewer outlets in total. This is another example of trading quality for quantity, not to mention anything that confirms our biases. But the people who attack the donkey are still idiots, no matter how mass or limited the media is.

Unsurprising that it ended under Reagan. It enabled people like Rush Limbaugh to spread their right wing rhetoric and brainwash people who were susceptible to it. Mostly White men of a certain age. All this directly lead to the election of Trump and the severe divisions we have in the US

Dont think of it as news any longer, rather entertainment. Sort of like professional wrestling. I totally ignore it.

There IS no news. Only propaganda.

Conservative claims “the media is liberal” but it’s actually conservative. And you know that because it’s CONSERVATIVES who oppose news stations airing other viewpoints.

There are people who think newspapers and other media companies don’t have political leanings.

Dan Rather is either an idiot or a liar. He said he thought the New York Times was middle of the road.

Well, they did admit, far too late to do J.R. Biden any Election Day harm, that there was something important about the Hunter Biden laptop.

Talk about denialists. At least the ignorant Holocaust deniers actually believe the not-true things they say.

The NYT could not possibly have been stupid enough to think there was nothing to the Hunter Biden story. Among other things.

No doubt Fox News has its own shameful reporting. And no doubt the whataboutists will provide examples shortly.

I have to say this comment section hasn’t gone nearly as badly as I thought it would. I’m proud of you all.

money ruins everything

During the ’50s and ’60s, William T. Evjue, Madison, WI Newspapers Honcho, decided if we could run ads which underpriced Sears, etc.

Should have left well enough alone…..

dang, I liked the wise ass on the hill…

You were allowed to say whatever you want, but under the Fairness Doctrine if you knowingly lied on the air you had to provide equal air time for the opposing view. Basically, it upheld free speech but made dishonesty unprofitable.

Yep that is pretty much what happened, especially when you threw facebook and twitter into the mix.

Wow this toon broke my heart and soul with the slogan no toes for foes. Got to have a garage sale for my ten toes!

Asked and answered.

The Fairness Doctrine didn’t mean that issues were presented in a manner that was honest and balanced. It meant that if you voiced your own opinion, you also had to parrot the establishment line, too.

Fairness doctrine was so easily subverted: You just found some idiot to make a mess of the opposing view.

A New Cry for the outraged sweeps the land! NO TOES FOR FOES! Of course, it signifies nothing remotely corresponding to reality. but that doesn’t matter nowadays….

Reliable information? Perhaps not. But now we get to choose our own bias, rather than be stuck with the so-called “honest” side.

Oh, and (sigh) nobody ever uses “whom” where it is appropriate anymore.

Are you suggesting no communist is a donkey? That’s nonsense.

This isn’t entirely true. The fairness doctrine just meant that say a radio station running three hours of Rush Limbaugh would then have to air three hours of … well I don’t even know of any left wing hosts to name here. It prevented stations from delivering a product people wanted to hear. After the landscape of talk changed, you had both right and left talk stations, and a few who mixed it up, but the left were never as successful – in part because you already had that on the TV networks and in part because nobody wanted to listen to it.

The real problem is in 2010 a law preventing the media from running straight up propaganda was removed. The bias was bad in TV news before but now it’s absurd how terrible it is. Even weather reports are usually exaggerated beyond belief. And there are guilty parties on both sides of the aisle. I’ve come to realize the only difference between some right and left leaning people is the things they hate, won’t discuss rationally and want to ban.

I agree. I know here in Detroit the Free Press was a little more Labor & People friendly while the Detroit News was much more business friendly in their coverages.

When the Fairness Doctrine was in place the default assumption was that news broadcasts on the major networks were fair. Newsflash: they weren’t.

It should also be noted that the Fairness Doctrine only applied to broadcast media, which the government could regulate only because they use the public airwaves. Cable and internet media sources wouldn’t be covered even if it still existed.

Real life interferes with Paradise.Sad.

The interlopers in panel five have to be right-wing ultra-conservative Trump supporters. No liberal would ever make those statements.

It’s weird that the punchline is in the second panel.

Does anyone else think that the people in the 5th panel should be confined to a room with padded walls?