As Ms. Geller’s latest book came out this week, it’s a good time to conclude my series on her “relevance.”
In Part 1, I made the case that you never know when a person’s relevance level might change—but now I’m asking, Should we care whether Pam is relevant or not, when deciding if we are going to cover what she has to say?
One of the reasons the mainstream media get things so very wrong, so often, is that they stopped pursuing the story, and began pursuing admission into the club of the elites.
There Is a great scene in the movie The Paper wherein Jason Robards tells Glenn Close about having learned the hard way that while they might cover the rich and the powerful, that was not who they were, as journalists. The legacy media of today takes the opposite tack: It’s not about the story—what is going on, why it is happening, and why it’s important—it’s become all about who you know and what parties you are invited to. Too many modern journalists outside New Media identify first and foremost with the elites in a profoundly unhealthy way.
This brings us back to Ms. Geller, who has been sounding the alarm on radical Islam and the rise of antisemitism, worldwide. She has written about the curtailing of rights of free speech, free expression, and freedom of religion. She has told us about no-go zones, self-censorship, and honor killings; she has warned us about creeping Sharia, in Europe and elsewhere. These are important issues that the nation and the world need to address.
If Pam’s warnings are correct, then a lack of “relevance” on her part increases rather than decreases our obligation to spread the word about her reporting. If we will only write what we are prompted to by our “betters,” then we are simply courtiers trying to impress our lords for the sake of our reputations.
And we have left the truth behind.
The concept of the news media as the “fourth estate” dates back to Europe, and traditionally refers to the nobility, the clergy, and commoners, each of whom were important elements in society. The press, however, created a new force equal to each of them: a counterweight to the players within the parliamentary systems of the eighteenth century, particulary within Great Britain. Significant power outside of government.
In the American context, the fourth estate phrasing is often related back to our own three branches of government—each “checking” the power of the others, and serving as a “balance.” But what if the branches begin to collude with each other, to the detriment of the others? The press is a further counterweight, a “fourth estate” or “fourth branch,” bringing such unsavory alliances to the attention of the voters.
That is why we are told that our mission is “to afflict the powerful and to comfort the powerless.”
If there is an important story that is not being told, and we choose to ignore it because we don’t think much of the source, then we are afflicting the truth, and comforting the powerful.
All for the sake of a few cocktail parties.
And we are better than that notion of “relevance.”
- Excited
- Angry
- Not as Angry
- Bored
- Indifferent
- Sad
Awesome post, particularly the observation about those who come to identify with the powerful and the defense mechanisms that operate as a result.
There are undoubtedly many Muslims who are committed in greater or lesser degree to the proposition that all men are created equal. The problem is, they continue to permit those who espouse the radical agenda that they are superior to continue to express it aloud, either out of fear or because it strokes their vanity.
Apart from a small number of Muslims who publicly denounce the proposition that Muslims are superior and destined to subjugate the kufir, at the point of the sword or some other coercion, if necessary, we see very little objection from the vast majority, and this naturally breeds suspicion that their silence speaks consent. We also witness the incredible contradiction that so many self-identifying secularists have no qualms trying to impose a double-standard on the religious of other faiths, and it leads us to conclude that their hatred for us is so virulent that the transparency of the contradiction doesn’t matter to them, and that they actually admire and identify with the intolerance and totalitarianism built into (at least) the Wahhabi version of Islam, and the way in which it is preached. The targets of the SPLC, given so much credence by this government as actually to create domestic policy for the United States, and the eager complicity of the media, in concert with organs of tolerance such as Media Matters and Think Progress, give us no comfort, either.
To throw away discretion in the service of cocktail party invitations is vile servility to lies and false expiation. Not to put too fine a point on it, but those people suck.
Here’s a piece on the guy who began the Muslim chaplaincy program for the US military:
Unfortunately, the fourth estate acts more like a fifth column in modern America, than a truth-telling “check” outside the halls governments.
Especially in the sense that they’ve chosen who will get access to the microphone and who won’t; which agenda is legitimate and which isn’t; exactly which suite of opinions are “correct” and which aren’t…
And this corrupt bargain is longstanding and understood to be inherent; hence we have “Lurch” Kerry lecturing the MBM; scolding them for giving the Tea Party equal voice and exposure when everyone understands that their opinions are largely irrelevent and irresponsible…Everyone who used to belong to, and “shephard”, the JournoList bunch, that is…
Pam’s message my be more relevant than anyone can comprehend in the here and now. But that message is orthoganal to the desired narrative of the transnational multi-culti fetishists; which is that the only way America can succeed is through enforced, stilted, diversity. DIVERISTY UBER ALLES!11!1!
Even if some of those people placed into postions to satisfy the identity politics crowd are bent on tearing down the system from within…