They aren’t now, either. They have “Codes of Ethics,” it’s true - but they claim to be objective. Now claiming to try to be objective is entirely unobjectionable, even laudable if it is sincere. But claiming actually to be objective is sophistry. Why? Because “sophistry” comes from the term “Sophist” - Greek for “wise man.” The Ancient Sophists used claims of their own superior wisdom to suppress debate. Debates are pretty unsatisfactory if they go, “I am wise and you are not. Therefore I am right and you are wrong.” The classical response to this line of “argument” was to claim to love wisdom but to eschew claiming actually to be wise. That’s the source of the term “philosopher” - philo = "lover of," sophy = “wisdom."The philosopher did not claim wisdom, only to love wisdom - accepting the existence of truth, and seeking after it. That is, the philosopher’s position was, “Spare me the ad hominem attacks and the arrogance, and let’s get down to the facts and logic as they relate to the issue at hand.” And that is the appropriate response to the journalist’s claim of objectivity, which is intended to suppress your willingness and ability to stand up for the truth when the journalist is (whether by commission or by omission). lying.
De facto, a claim of objectivity is no different from a claim of wisdom. Either one constitutes sophistry.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3113271/posts?page=9#9
If you didn’t know anything else about AGW but the fact that advocates of the theory demand cessation of the use of coal in the US - but are mute about the frenetic rate of construction of coal-fired plants in China (and elsewhere in Asia) - you would know that it is a political ploy intended to damage liberalism.By “liberalism” I of course mean what F.A. Hayek, writing in Britain during WWII, meant by the term. I.e., precisely the opposite of the fraudulent post-1930 American usage in which the term is a synonym for socialism.
Theodore Roosevelt was articulating liberalism, circa 1910, in his famous speech at the Sarbonne:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deedsIMHO post-1930 “liberalism” is accurately defined by the perfect inversion of TR’s meaning:It is the critic ; the man who points out how others could have done things better; who counts. The credit does not belong to the individual, who “didn’t do that,” and who falsely claims the credit implied in the status of ownership.When put that way, it is should be obvious that the contempt which 1910 liberals (we) feel for “the MSM” derives from the fact thatIt is journalists who “didn’t do that” - they have never even tried to, and can’t actually relate to anyone who ever actually even did try to, do anything. But what defines their nature - and what they therefore obsessively do - is criticize.Having located the reason for the fact that journalism = socialism, we turn to the reason why the effect of the socialistic tendency inherent in journalism is and must be as homogenous and powerful as it is: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. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. - Adam Smith, Wealth of NationsHence we are reliably informed not only that the mere fact that journalists, as “people of the same trade," read each other’s output is a serious and fundamental problem for us, but that every organization of journalists must exacerbate that problem. All of which compounds the (as shown above, inherent) tendency of journalists to promote socialism. To promote, that is, an ideology whose inherent nature is a conspiracy against the (pre-1920 liberal) order which the Constitution defines as the public interest.There are organizations, and then there are organizations. There is a “National Press Club,” and there is “The Committee to Protect Journalists,” and no doubt there are numerous other journalism organizations with high-sounding titles. But the true root of all organization of modern journalism is the wire service. Any and every wire service, without exception. But the granddaddy of them all is the Associated Press.
- News Over the Wires:
- The Telegraph and the Flow of Public Information in America, 1844-1897
by Menahem Blondheimdescribes the aggressively monopolistic rise of the AP. And I have seen it credibly mentioned on the Internet that in 1945 the AP was found guilty of violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act by SCOTUS. But it wouldn’t matter if none of that were true - it is the mere fact that it is an organization of journalists - an intimate association capable of instantaneously communicating with all of major journalism, and of giving direction to them all in a “stylebook” as to how things are to be expressed, what expressions are taboo, and what makes a good story - which makes it a mortal threat to the order (everywhere but America, and in America as well before 1920, called liberalism) which is the public interest.
In 1945 when the AP was held in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, it was “too big to fail” due to the value then inherent in the conservation of transmission bandwidth, which was the legitimate mission of any wire service, in the communication of the news. But this is 2014, deep into the Internet era. This era is defined by technologies which practically eliminate the cost of the bandwidth which the transmission of the news requires - with or without the AP et. al.
It is one thing to speak, in frustration, of the homogeneous negativity of “the MSM,” and it is quite another to have the wit to finger “The Associated Press and its membership” as a single entity which is responsible for the industrial production of libel against any target it can “fix and freeze” as representative of the (pre-1920 liberal) order which is constitutionally mandated and which history has confirmed to be the public interest. IMHO the next person, or any recent person (e.g., George Zimmerman) or group (e.g., the Duke Lacrosse Team defendants) should launch a massive suit against "the Associated Press et. al” - alleging antitrust violation and RICO treble damages in the pattern of corrupt libel of themselves and of the constitutional order as a whole. And calling for damages sufficient to ruin the AP.
The Internet can disseminate the news, thank you very much. Claims of objectivity - not commendable efforts toward objectivity, but claims actually to be objective - are actually admissions of lack of objectivity about one’s own self. Such claims rebut themselves.