U.S. News | The Professor's Convatorium

Yes, it is most likely true, I’m not kidding and I am ecstatic about it. Ever since the late 1970’s the sources of unbiased, calm, in-depth, productive journalism in the U.S. has been whittled away by big-money and news privatization. The beginning? The Supreme Court Landmark decision of Buckley vs Valeo followed up by Citizens United vs FEC which threw open the money-bribe flood-gates.

Through the Reagan years and after, U.S. news consumers had only a few television news providers in which to select: CBS, NBC, and ABC, called The Big Three. There were major news publications in print such as the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and the New York Times. There were a few major weekly news magazines: U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, and Time Magazine. There were also a few major business journals: Business Week, Forbes, and Fortune Magazine. Perhaps less popular were the news radio broadcasts such as NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered. My father regularly enjoyed PBS shows, both news radio and TV entertainment. Often while driving his Chrysler Plymouth Sedan with adolescent me he’d listen to the Paul Harvey News and Comment show on the radio. I can never forget Harvey’s sign-off, “Paul Harvey… Good day.” or “Paul Harvey… Good night.” Growing up I was exposed to a lot of excellent news journalism because of Dad. He taught me the methods of core critical-thinking skills using analysis, identifying biases, inference, evaluation and problem-solving, all while being open-minded and inquisitive.

*Josh Rushing of Al-Jazeera’s Let’s Focus show*

However, as I began reaching my 40’s and 50’s I noticed something in U.S. news broadcasting that had changed. Time and pejorative tones and manners. News commentary had become in-house discussion panels (cheaper costs) rather than out in the field and investigative. Propaganda had increasingly crept in more and more and I had to know why.

Ironically enough, last week as I watched and listened to my usual dose of varied news sources, I happen to catch an excellent segment on Al-Jazeera called Let’s Focus, hosted by Josh Rushing. His two guest were Emily Jashinsky, host of After Party and an anchor at Breaking Points, and Cenk Uygur, founder of The Young Turks show. Rushing was asking them, What future is there for podcasts and have podcasts become political powerhouses? It was an utterly informing, fascinating 47-minute discussion by the three of them I had to share it here! It was just too good to pass up. If any of you have problems watching the show, let me know. It’s viewable on the Al-Jazeera website as well as on YouTube, here.

The portion of the show I found very engrossing and profound was at the 28:45-minute mark or 29:15 mark when they discussed the inevitable death of private, corporate, traditional news goliaths to the rising popularity of the individual podcasting circuit. Catch it. Cenk Uygur begins with “lying to the audience” as goliath mass media such as FOX News and Newsmax as well as MSNow wants/wanted versus, “not lying to the podcast audience” because they will call you out and permanently burn you! The podcast audience do not want lies and propaganda.

Around the 29:50 mark (and following) is when the discussion got even better! Uygur went on to speak about the Podcast Era today “is a much better media ecosystem” because the host/provider is “audience responsive” as opposed to the cement guardrails the mega-corporate media giants surround the host/anchor(s) and reporters like a slip-knot noose. Then Emily Jashinsky and Cenk Uygur both agree the traditional news media giants cannot buy-out or control the discussion content with their millions or billions of dollars, their private, political interests or agendas, and more importantly with their self-imposed strict time-limits of 2-3 minute snippets or 8-10 minute short discussion panels before breaking off for more advertising dollars. They are themselves heavily restrained by Time=Money in advertising, commercials, and especially during election years their high-yield profits from super-pac campaign ads take the number one priority, forever, as long as they chain themselves to that business model.

The mainstream media behemoths are addicted to, enslaved to more money (greed), more monopolizing mass media buy-outs (popularity reach), and more high-paying super-pacs with special interests (power, authority) that appease the individual corporate owners’ or their Board of Executives’ swayed mission statement. Simply put, the traditional news media goliaths—CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, FOX News, etc.—don’t have the irreplaceable time (in ads and campaign funds/donations) that the podcast circuit is free from and not enslaved to. And Goldwater-conservative podcast co-host Emily Jashinsky stated unequivocally that “We [podcasters] don’t need access; FOX News, MS, CNN, they need access” because those small regular audiences want to see the hosts/anchors talking to the politicians. But “our audience,” Jashinsky says, “don’t give a damn if we talk to politicians. They do not care.” As Cenk Uygur stated correctly, we news consumers are no longer in the past era of a small pond of providers. “But now,” he says “we are in an ocean of content” due to the evolving, advancing tech-online ability to be everywhere at once, repeatedly.

But no more spoilers for the short attention spanners.😉 I strongly urge my followers and readers to watch this episode of Let’s Focus. You won’t regret it. In my opinion, taking away the propaganda-biased mega-profit machines of media and putting it back into the hands of We the People is the best thing ever for this very divided country. After all, the power belongs to the people in a true democracy our Core Founding Fathers intended in the first place.

For further reading of one, of many, specific cases of our dying U.S. mainstream media, here is a link to one of my followers, Robert Vella, who I enjoy very much and follow. Here is his great post:

Poetic Justice: CBS and the implosion of America’s News Media Empire

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always

My late father, who was an agnostic humanist and very well educated in mechanical engineering at the University of Texas – Austin, used to sometimes say to me when there was a controversial narrative being told, or seen on television, heard over FM radio, or inside the theater on the silver screen, that you can’t always believe what you see or hear. His quote that always stayed with me was “Son, there are always three sides to every story, sometimes more than three.” And I have found in today’s 21^st-century hyper-overloaded American tech-media-information market, Dad’s news mantra is never more true than right now. It can be argued that it began in 2000 and has easily grown 6-fold since then.

Did you know as of May 2021 that within the U.S. out of one hundred seventy-four (174) news companies/outlets only forty-seven (47) are non-profit organizations according to Harvard University. In other words, only 27% of all U.S. news media are typically more unbiased than private For Profit news corporations that must heed to private owners’ and/or shareholders’ and a board of directors’ special interests for profits, i.e. biased. And of those 47 non-profit news organizations many of them are under the umbrella of a parent company, such as Frontline PBS under the former CPB. What does all this mean for news consumers, rural and urban viewers inside the United States?

It means most all or a very large majority of our U.S. news is driven by individual owners and boards of directors’ personal interests and/or biases. To be more candid, most all of our news we Americans consume is slanted to some degree, if not to a large degree, and the integrity of our “journalism” is often tainted, polluted, or worse, distorted. How do we avoid the modern traps of (extreme?) biasness? How can we find a more neutral source of news and information?

There are two answers: 1) consume a more varied diverse spread of news agencies, media, and outlets, then compare and contrast all of it to unravel the more objective version of a story. Yes, this is an immensely time-consuming method and every day life gets in the way of such deciphering. But the more diverse the input/output, the better. Or 2) pare down your consumption of news to only the non-profit outlets and digital media platforms. Why is number two (2) a more attractive option? Less time spent is one reason. However, below are sixty (60) reasons why to favor non-profit news outlets because of the “donations” to a political candidate or campaign by GOP-dollars versus Democratic-dollars:

Media Owners/Execs Who Openly Donate

There is where all the biasness saturates our privately owned or publicly traded American news media. And this is why “Three Sides to Every Story” is so critical for U.S. consumers to remember to find fair, more factual, more integrity from their news sources. This is why I often watch Al Jazeera or utilize their website. And right now, with our unprovoked U.S. attack and war on Iran by our fake pretend Commander-in-Chief and his Secretary of War, and the massive ripple-effects it is causing for Americans back home at the gas pumps, grocery stores, utilities, as well as nations and their citizens around the world… we simply cannot rely on this administration’s press releases and conferences (or Truth social X) for any direction or understanding. Right now we cannot obtain or rely on the full truth of:

Why this war was started by him,
Was Iran really an imminent threat to the U.S. homeland,
What is the true status of the war right now, or
How and when will the war conclude.

*Department of War director Pete Hegseth (left) and U.S. President (right), Feb. 2026 explaining war.*

Our POTUS never consulted, brought forth or debated any of these crucial points with Congress (or for Americans) the merit of this Iranian War as our U.S. Constitution dictates he do, and he took a solemn vow again for the second time January 20, 2025, to uphold and abide by our Constitution! Our POTUS breaks this solemn vow, the law all the time while in the White House! How many times will this bogus, idiot Commander-in-Chief get away with so much un-Constitutional, illegal behavior?

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Nevertheless, if your own good conscience wants to have more of the facts and truth about today’s current U.S. administration and what is really happening domestically or around the world, then you have no choice but to take the above two news-consumption methods. If you only watch, browse, or listen to one source of news and (dis-)information, you are NOT getting all or more of the facts. Period. Because privately owned news media or publicly traded news media cannot be wholly trusted to share fairly all the facts and how events and their causes play out. Profits are their bottom-line, every single day.

As my father used to often say, “There is always three sides to every story: yours, mine, and the Sunday morning paper.” And that might not be all points-of-view on the controversy and much of one or two slanted stories might be highly falsified propaganda. Think about it.

One is entitled to their own personal opinion, but no one is exclusively entitled to the facts. The facts are always independent of the narrator(s), including our POTUS. Always.

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always – Know Propaganda