THE PROTRACTED CONFLICT

As a journalist, I am sure I am not singular in being slightly schizophrenic about the press and, in general, the media. I believe, with some passion, in a free press, radio, and television; free, of course, from state interference or control. But I am appalled at the capacity of the free media to get things wrong or to mislead the public.

These reflections are prompted by the media treatment of the successful candidate in the recent U.S. presidential election. With a few honorable exceptions, the media presented Ronald Reagan as an amiable bumbler, a B-movie cowboy who ought to have stayed in Hollywood and, at that, a cowboy whose right hand had to be kept under constant watch in case he used it to shoot from the hip.

BC

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Brian Crozier

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As a journalist, I am sure I am not singular in being slightly schizophrenic about the press and, in general, the media. I believe, with some passion, in a free press, radio, and television; free, of course, from state interference or control. But I am appalled at the capacity of the free media to get things wrong or to mislead the public.

These reflections are prompted by the media treatment of the successful candidate in the recent U.S. presidential election. With a few honorable exceptions, the media presented Ronald Reagan as an amiable bumbler, a B-movie cowboy who ought to have stayed in Hollywood and, at that, a cowboy whose right hand had to be kept under constant watch in case he used it to shoot from the hip.