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
One of our nation’s most accomplished and respected scholars about the McCarthy period in our history is Dr. John Earl Haynes who, along with co-author Harvey Klehr, has written extensively about the major defects in Sen. McCarthy’s viewpoints.
See Dr. Haynes’ articles below:
(a) Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Lists and Venona
http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page62.html
(b) Exchange with Arthur Herman re: Venona
http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page58.html
Also consider this message from Dr. Haynes to me:
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“Klehr and I have repeated made clear that neither Venona, Moscow archival material, nor Vassiliev’s notebooks provide any meaningful vindication for McCarthy.”
“First, that there had been significant Soviet espionage and Communist infiltration of key government agencies was not a view originating with McCarthy. That point had been publicly and vigorously advanced years before McCarthy arrived on the scene by, among other, Elizabeth Bentley, Whittaker Chambers, and Louis Budenz. The evidence that has emerged since the early 1990s certainly corroborates and vindicates their charges and the particulars of their testimony.”
“Second, Joseph McCarthy, however, went beyond them by claiming that the espionage and infiltration occurred with the knowledge and assistance of key Truman administration officials, namely Secretary of Defense and State George Marshall and Secretary of State Dean Acheson, both part of McCarthy’s “a conspiracy so immense”. There is no support in the new evidence for what was new in McCarthy’s charges or for the particular persons he named such as Acheson and Marshall. When McCarthy was right, he was not original and was only repeating charges made years earlier by others. When he was original, he was wrong. For my view of McCarthy, see
http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page58.html and
http://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2007/12/mccarthy-accord.html “
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