The media’s hatred of Trump is only hurting itself

The New York Post ^ | August 18, 2018 | Michael Goodwin

[Texas Eagle]

Cozies up to anti-American dictators? Whoa. I didn’t know Andrew Cuomo was a Trump bestie.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Back in my high school years, I actually believed journalists were smart.

We were all bombarded with propaganda to that effect. In fact the propaganda to the effect that “journalists are objective” is IMHO precisely the fruit of a “conspiracy against the public” of the sort which Adam Smith warned people about:

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 Nations (1776)

Journalists “meet together” continuously - not merely by casual contact or by reading each other’s reports but, crucially, via the virtual meeting which is the Associated Press “wire.” They explicitly agree on certain things via the Associated Press Stylebook, which is a form of Newspeak dictionary, and tacitly or explicitly they agree to promote the fiction that journalists are objective (no matter how tendentious they actually may be).

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)

Naturally we are bombarded with propaganda - and naturally, unfortunately, we have a tendency to fall for it.

We come to FR to pool our “incredulity” as self-protection.

[Texas Eagle]

Cozies up to anti-American dictators? If anybody cozies up to anti-American dictators, it’s fake journalists in the fake media.

[Yaelle]

It is so sad! The Russian people KNEW Pravda was all lies! The jokes during the Soviet Union were quite sophisticated and funny!!

Our situation is WORSE because nearly half of us BELIEVE our propaganda!!!

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I had some professor from Louisiana who chatted one evening class over this odd phonenmum that had occurred in Louisiana after WW II. Prior to the war, most of the three major newspapers in the state, were employing folks without a college education. The editor might have been a graduate, and maybe a couple of the prized people might have been that way....but most everyone else was without any college degree. So they tended to emphasize more on the story-telling art, rather than provoking you into some stance with fraudulent writing.

After the war, with the GI Bill...suddenly in the 1950s, you started to have guys show up and take the reporter jobs, who had degrees. Things were fine in the beginning, but by the 1970s...newspapers were set to only have degreed reporters, and you were starting to have a set view of the world from some college professor crowd. The layout, as this professor described this in early 1980s, was that you had people with no true view or understanding of the general public that they were serving.

A couple of years ago, I took to reading newspapers from the 1800s, and it surprised me on the refreshing way they told a story, and they’d do interviews with locals to make a story out of nothing. Of course, none of that happens today.

Very interesting perspective. IMHO an awful lot of tendentiousness was baked into the cake before then. The Senator Joe McCarthy issue should tell you that. And I attribute a great deal of it to tendencies inherent in the (pre-Civil War) creation of the Associated Press.

[elbook]

leftists exposing what they really are — its a good thing.

[PGalt]

Thanks for the ping/posts; thread; comments. BTTT!

[GOPJ]

Our situation is WORSE because nearly half of us BELIEVE our propaganda!!!

True. But that number gets smaller every year.

[Yaelle]

Yes. The more hard the media drives, the more people say, “Wait a minute!”

I nearly had a toothpaste demise this morning when the lib Trump-hating Bill Handel on KFI actually admitted CNN went too far in mocking Giuliani saying “truth isn’t always truth.” Even he said they are just trying to Get Trump in all they do, and it’s ridiculous. To him! And he despises Trump!!

[EdnaMode]

One of the best articles ever written on media bias.

[GOPJ]

Nancy Ancrum, the editorial page editor of the Miami Herald, told Fox News her paper joined the effort without any hope of changing the minds of Trump supporters because “they are just too far gone.”

Imagine that — 63 million Americans are written off because they disagree with the media elite’s politics. Echoes of Clinton’s “deplorables” comment ring loud and clear.

I'm amazed such an honest and hard hitting piece was allowed to be published... Michael Goodwin is defending 'the deplorables'...