Wouldn't You Love to Watch: The Trump News Channel?

Trump News Network

The thing to understand is that “No news is good news” because good news “isn’t news. All commercial general-interest journalism follows the “If it bleeds, it leads” formula. And that implies that all journalists know that journalism is negative.
And yet all journalists claim that journalists are objective. Well, they would:
The man whom we believe is necessarily, in the things concerning which we believe him, our leader and director, and we look up to him with a certain degree of esteem and respect. But as from admiring other people we come to wish to be admired ourselves; so from being led and directed by other people we learn to wish to become ourselves leaders and directors . . . The desire of being believed, the desire of persuading, of leading and directing other people, seems to be one of the strongest of all our natural desires. - Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
Journalists have a deep desire to be believed, and to be our "leaders and directors,” as Smith put it. So naturally journalists claim to be objective; the only question is why anyone would accept that thesis. There are two objections to that “thesis”:

Nobody can know that they themselves are objective - and having friends who swear that you are objective is no answer to that conundrum; they can’t know that they are objective about that, either. So it is a fundamentally vacant claim. Even worse, the implication of the claim actually to be objective is that you don’t even have to try to be objective - and that you are not even trying to be objective.

Journalists know that they are negative, yet claim to be objective - which amounts to a claim that “negativity is objectivity.” But that claim is a perfect definition of “cynicism."
“Objective” journalism is cynical about society and consequently naive about government (since government’s raison d'être is to limit the effect of shortcomings of society, being cynical about society implies the promotion of more government and the diminution of freedom).
It follows that conservative journalism would be distinctly less absorbed with bad news about society than conventional journalism is - and since the “If it bleeds, it leads,” rule is predicated on making journalism interesting to the public (not “in the public interest,” which is an entirely different concept), conservative journalism would have difficulty in the marketplace.
It is my settled opinion that “conservative news” is what talk radio is. Talk radio is “news about 'the news’.” That is, conservative commentary. “Objective News” is about the failings of society and the need for more government. Conservative commentary argues that the failings of society are easily exaggerated, and that government has a powerful tendency to do more harm than good:
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil . . . - Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)
Once understand that “objective journalism” inevitably promotes socialism, and you understand why “liberal talk radio” does not have nearly the size of niche that conservative talk radio has. “Liberal talk radio” is in direct competition with “objective news” - and cynicism and naiveté sell much better in the “objective news” format than in the thoughtful context of what Rush Limbaugh calls “the long form.” The ancient Greeks had a similar issue: “sophists” used claims of superior wisdom to formulate facile arguments. Precisely as “objective journalists” do now. “Philosophers” arose in Greece to contest the sophists’ arguments, and they had to insist on facts and logic rather than emotion and facile argumentation. Talk radio hosts take on all comers who call in, and if they appeal to authority rather than to logic, they fail. So “liberal” hosts do poorly in the format.

In actuality “objective journalism” promotes socialism, and talk radio is “conservative news.”
The way to attack “objective journalism” is via the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890) - Free Republic (which is basically a one-page law and doesn’t go into detail about defining “trusts.”). I refer you to Adam Smith:
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776)
Since the Associated Press and its membership are, via the AP “wire," in a continuous virtual meeting - and have been since before the Civil War - only extreme naiveté would cause anyone to expect that they would not long since have found common cause among themselves which is distinct from the public interest. The Associated Press - all wire services, they all have similar homogenizing influence on national news - should be sued into oblivion for the “conspiracy against the public” which is the systematic promotion of socialism by “the media.”
The AP was successfully sued under Sherman back in 1945 - but that was by another wire service, and it long predated the advent of satellite and laser/fiber-optic revolution which enables the Internet. Back then, scarcity and high expense of telegraphy bandwidth was a thing. Now, "conservation of bandwidth in the propagation of news" is an anachronistic mission.

Down with the AP!

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