It’s funny how the demon’s of the left howl that we have right wing propaganda now when for so many years they have been brainwashing the people in the guise of news on all of the news stations nationwide. Very sophisticated stuff they have been doing. So it is just too bad poor babies, isn’t it!
It’s the theory of “journalistic objectivity” which causes them to take leave of their senses. That theory, to have any validity, would have to be grounded in a reality in which journalists’ motives and desires are identical with the public interest. But in this reality, journalists are simply people who want influence and money for doing nothing but talking, criticizing, and second guessing. There is no case to be made that journalists are inherently unbiased, only that journalists are systematically internally consistent. That is, there is no ideological competition among major journalists. That is only to be expected, because"People of the same trade seldom meet together even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public or some contrivance to raise prices.” - Adam Smith. . . and all major journalistic institutions are in a continuous, 24/7 virtual meeting - and have been since they joined the Associated Press in the second half of the Nineteenth Century. Inevitably they have long since taken for granted among themselves that “what is good for journalism is good for the country.”
But in reality, bad news for the public is “a great story” for journalism; the rules which journalism follows - such as “Man Bites Dog, not Dog Bites Man” and “If it bleeds, it leads” - are designed to promote the bottom line of journalists and have nothing to do with the public interest. They are designed to interest the public - but that is distinct from and, sometimes inimical to, the public interest.There is only one way to conscientiously even attempt to attain objectivity, and that is to be open and above board about any and all reasons you know of which might make you not be objective. But of course, that would not make you seem objective - and since journalism is about PR, which is about appearances, journalists never do that and instead take the opposite tack of claiming actually to be objective. In that sense in is patent that journalism does not even try to be objective. The natural expectation would be that politicians who have no other principle above getting good PR would shamelessly agree with and promote what journalism promotes. Namely, cheap talk and second guessing of “the man in the arena” who takes action with no guarantee that his estimate of the best course of action will not be overtaken by events. Journalists call themselves “objective,” but they apply other positive labels to those who have the same political tendency that journalists do. Since America was founded on liberty and progress, journalists call sympathetic politicians and leaders “liberal” or “progressive” - or else “moderate” or “centrist.” Opponents of the tendency of journalism are called “right wing,” “extreme,” or “conservative."