It’s interesting to note that Professor Larry Sweikart (hi, LS) attributes to Martin van Buren the foundation of the first true political party - the Democrat Party - two years before the 1828 election of Andrew Jackson as that party’s first president.In addition to flat out bribing people with jobs, MVB sought to indoctrinate them by for the first time ever creating a large number of "newspapers" that would do nothing but parrot party propaganda. That was it. They were NOT to report "news."Martin Van Buren was of course Jackson’s second-term VP, and - until GHWB was elected in 1988 - was the only post-12th Amendment sitting VP to be elected POTUS.We are talking full blown Baghdad Bobs here. MVB hired many of the editors himself. ALL were "Jackson men." No deviation was permitted.
One editor of a prominent paper was asked his views on certain subjects. "My views are those of Andrew Jackson."
MVB's DemoKKKrat Party subsidized almost all of these papers. There was no such thing as an "objective" paper.Compare also my contention that the 1848 foundation of the Associated Press created a continuous virtual meeting of all major news outlets and inevitably, over time, formed the journalism cartel we know as “the MSM” with LS’sOne scholarly investigation of antebellum papers (or is that Lady Antebellum Papers?) found that at least 85% of all "newspapers" were totally controlled by 1 party
after the Civil War, where it briefly "appeared" to change for a while (about 75 years), but it never has left its roots.
Ping.
I’m not that old, relatively speaking, but I can’t ever remember a time when journalists did not pursue their agenda in their reports. I can’t ever remember a time when media were “politically neutral.”
Past tense.
Tell all the gang at Forty-Second Street, that I will soon be there;
Whisper of how I'm yearning to mingle with the old time throng;
Give my regards to old Broadway and say that I'll be there ere long.
Was this article written by Jimmy two times? :-)
The WSJ article is propaganda. Never in our lifetimes which are 73, and 75 years have either my wife, or myself ever noted “Political Neutrality” that we can recall, and neither of us has Dementia.
Hey! Its gonna be a contest between the Plattsburg (NY) Press-Republican and the Santa Rosa (CA) Press-Democrat!
we can toss in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle, and the Arizona Republic(an) .. just for added fun!
But of course a paper needn’t be so honest as to put its bias in its title, to be seriously biased. Consider the NY,Slimes, Washington Compost, LA Slimes, SF Comical, and Boston Globe.
Well there is certainly no greatness in the 21st century mainstream news media.
I remember reading an article about Abraham Lincoln’s death. Several anti-Lincoln newspaper buildings were burnt to the ground.
“Political Neutrality Is What Made American Newspapers Great”
American media has NEVER been neutral, ranging from propagating and supporting Soviet propaganda in the 1920’s to the consistent war-mongering of the Hearst newspapers and Walter Cronkite’s continuous lies about the Vietnam war ...
and of course back in the days of Washington, Adams, Hamilton and Jefferson, most newspapers were EXPLICITLY aligned with one party or the other, essentially functioning as party organs ...
it’s ALWAYS been a lie that the media was “neutral” ...
Thanks for the ping/post; thread. How did we get here - history/current events BUMP!
The New York Slimes is still doing what this political cartoon from Puck magazine in 1888 showed the world.
Thanks to RayChuang88 for the above history lesson.
Today, no brains, no training, no honesty, and certainly no self-control.
I have no objection to any media having political bias—as long as they have warning labels or equivalent.
Warning—This newspaper is owned by a billionaire whose agenda includes the following:
—Reducing the population of the planet to one-tenth of its current size
—Maintaining a monopoly of political and economic power by eliminating the middle class throughout the world
.....
This newspaper is a propaganda organ that can be hazardous to your mental health. It is not to be used by children or in any educational setting.
Sorry to say, there was NEVER a time where the news media wasn't biased. Bias = angle, and angle is what attracts readers or viewers to a story.
What happened was the news media figured out how to sell non-bias to the public. There was never any truth to it; it was simply marketing.