These are not accidents. They are egregious errors in judgment that could be avoided if the professional culture were more committed to accuracy and fairness, and less preoccupied with being first, showing off and sensationalizing the news.Television is still the source from which most citizens get their news. A free press was established to provide the information needs of a democracy. Television news, as the citizenry’s prime surrogate, assumes a heavy responsibility. The nation needs and deserves a television news industry that enlightens and empowers citizens.
Broadcast journalism has its licenses which limit direct competition in broadcast journalism; because of that broadcasting has a theoretical responsibility to be objective. But there is a difference between trying to be objective, and trying to look like you are being objective.In a larger sense, the problem isn’t the medium used, whether print or broadcast - the problem is the nature of journalism as we know it. The nature, that is, of the wire service.
In the founding era, newspapers were mostly weeklies, and some newspapers had no deadline at all, and just went to press when the printer was good and ready. They had no communication technology which was not accessible to the public at large, and by the time the newspaper came out on Wednesday (say) you might very well already know any news which reached the printer shortly after press time the previous Tuesday night. From the same sources the printer had. Consequently, newspapers were as much about the printer’s take on the news as they were about the news itself. IOW, newspaper printers were more like today’s talk radio hosts than like today’s “objective” journalists.
But with the wire services (and a single one, the AP, has always dominated by its own monopolistic design), journalism became homogenized. All major outlets have the same information feed, and the reporters working for the individual members of the AP aspire to have their stories picked up by other outlets nationwide. They conform their formats and their slant on their stories to the Associated Press template. And since the individual editors don’t even know, much less supervise, reporters who contribute stories to their papers via the newswire, the whole operation of wire service journalism hinges on the shared assumptions of its membership.
It is a cult.
Like all cults, it conflates its own interest with the public good. The cult of “objective” wire service journalism places the promotion of the interests intrinsic to journalism - the desire for attention, prosperity, and influence - above the interests of individual people and against the cumulative interests of people generally.
The cult of wire service journalism requires that the public assume that its priests are objective, so its membership promotes that absurd proposition incessantly. To claim objectivity - even to belong to a group which claims objectivity for you - is to foreclose the very possibility of seriously attempting to be objective. Because belief in your own objectivity is the defining characteristic of its opposite, subjectivity. No one can do the real work of attempting objectivity - no one can openly lay out the reasons why he or she might not be objective - and simultaneously claim that they actually are objective.
The cult of “objective” journalism places bad news - places criticism, condemnation, and complaint - on a plane far above getting your hands dirty by actually trying to do something. "The man who is actually in the arena” gets no respect from the cult of criticism, condemnation, and complaint.
The cult of “objective” journalism places novelty far above accuracy. Consequently “There’s nothing more worthless than yesterday’s Newspaper.” The cult of superficial attention-grabbing defines a big story as always “Man Bites Dog,” not “Dog Bites Man.”
The cult of “objective” journalism flatters anyone who promotes journalism’s ego, and heaps derision on anyone who openly considers other principles and constituencies to be more important than the cult of journalism. “Objective” journalism flatters its acolytes by calling them “liberal” or “progressive” - and derides its skeptics with terms like “conservative” and “right wing extremists.” And, during the Soviet era, “Cold Warriors.”
There is no objectivity in “objective” journalism. “Objective journalism” is a propaganda cult. One which successfully cons a very great number of Americans. Most of us have fallen for the con, at least some of the time . . .
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 . . .
It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity,
and they very seldom teach it enough. - Adam Smith