Why that’s a perfect description of our Kenyan in chief, now isn’t it?"Repugnant and cowardly?"
It’s also, by no coincidence, a perfect description of the “Wolf!” crying industry that is wire service journalism, known under the alias “mainstream media.” Just as “To a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” to a reporter every sheep looks like a wolf. In fact, calling journalism "the ‘Wolf!" crying industry” understates the case, because of journalism’s “‘Man Bites Dog,’ not ‘Dog Bites Man’” rule, which expresses journalism's preference for the unusual/atypical.Under that principle, journalism would rather decry a “wolf” which is apparently actually a sheep than to report the presence of a an actual menace. A phenomenon which is on full display in the persecution of George Zimmerman, as it was in the case of the transparent Duke Lacrosse “rape” hoax. Even as, today, the “evil” we are told to hate are the hundreds of millions of insurance policies against violence known as privately owned guns.
And then we wonder why journalists are “in the pocket of” Democrats - for them both, every tragic aspect of the human condition is a “problem” to be “solved” by a Gordian knot cutting “solution” portending worse misery than the original complaint. Democrats have no principle other than going along and getting along journalists. "Surprise, surprise,” journalists promote Democrats and give them positive labels - they started calling Democrats “liberal” in the 1920s, when “liberal” was what all traditional Americans understood themselves to be - and what socialists will never be. Before that, socialists were called “progressive,” because progress of, by, and for the American people is the pride of the success of “the American experiment.” Journalists also call socialists “moderate” or “centrist,” too - and moderation is classical virtue.It’s why “liberalism” is, as Rush puts it, “a gutless choice.” Repugnant and cowardly.
If you read Ann Coulter’s Treason you will see that our journalists - who were “objective” even back then - systematically ridiculed and distorted McCarthy’s views and statements, putting him in “heads you lose, tails I win” situations. They demanded that he name names, when all he had said was that there was reason to investigate to learn names, if any - and then if he did name a name, they condemned him for smearing the person named. When in fact the name corresponded, history shows, with an actual communist.I don’t pretend to know the details of what you are referring to - but the odds are long that McCarthy had a legitimate, if too nuanced for him to be able to burn through the fog of journalistic obfuscation, point.
I put “objective” in scare quotes above. To me, the most powerful case against “objective journalism” is to be found precisely in their claim to be objective. Because, in the nature of things, it is impossible for anyone to know that they themselves are objective. So if you say you are objective, that just proves - conclusively - that you are not objective about yourself. Which is to say, you are not objective about anything.
It is of course possible, and laudable, to attempt objectivity. It even is legitimate to say that you are trying to be objective (if in fact you are). The catch, for the “objective” journalist, is that any good-faith attempt at objectivity must start with self-examination, and an open discussion of any reasons you can think of why you might not be objective. Which is, of course, precisely the opposite of claiming actually to be objective.
I’m sure that some people claimed to be objective - just as the Sophists of ancient Greece claimed to be wise - before the advent of the Associated Press. But the AP institutionalized the claim of actual objectivity in the late Nineteenth Century in response to the alarms which were raised about the concentration of propaganda power which the Associated Press represented. The AP justified that claim on the basis that it was composed of dozens (at the time) of newspapers which individually were notorious at the time for not agreeing about much of anything (source: News Over the Wires: The Telegraph and the Flow of Public Information in America, 1844-1897 by Menahem Blondheim).
It has been an unspoken premise of membership in good standing within the AP, including within any newspaper which belongs to the AP, ever since. If you go to work as a journalist you are signing on to the premise that you will claim that every other journalist is objective - and that you expect every other journalist to claim that you are objective. Thus, by becoming a journalist for the AP or one of its member outlets, you are de facto claiming that you are objective. Which excludes having the humility to admit to any subjective impulses.
And that implies that you are not even trying to be objective. Oh, you will go along with the “rules for objectivity” such as “giving both sides of the story” - but the trouble is that you have already ruled out the possibility that there actually are valid perspectives other than your own. So even if you “tell the other side of the story" until the cows come home, the version of the “other side of the story" which you tell will always be a straw man. Anyone who considers himself to be the arbiter of what is objective will be extremely subjective.
Journalists systematically agree with “liberals” for the simple reason that “liberals” have the same motive that “objective” journalists do - namely, to get attention and credit for importance, without having to actually work, and without the constraints of a bottom line. “Liberal” politicians and “objective” journalists profit from their symbiotic relationship. “Objective” journalists and “liberals” cooperate in finding ways to embarrass people who are trying to gain their sense of importance by actually doing needed things.http://www.robertmundell.net/NobelLecture/nobel3.asp
Jhttp://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2983733/posts?page=5