I agree that Journalism has been allowed to evoke an (unwarranted) assumption that it is objective—as if by default, barring some concerted effort, journalists (and the human organizations bundling and wrapping them) are naturally unbiased, objective reporters of universal fact and truth.
Thank you greatly for your excellent response and addition to the topic. This is environment you used to find much more on FR (”Come let us reason together”).
The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing.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)
Half the truth is often a great lie. - Benjamin FranklinIf you take those points to heart, you will collapse Vanessa Otero’s vertical axis down to a horizontal line.