[Terry Mross]

“Someone” controls all of the media. Every night the networks “report” exactly the same “news”. And so do the local stations. It’s as if one person was deciding what to cover each day.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

“Someone” controls all of the media. Every night the networks “report” exactly the same “news”. And so do the local stations. It’s as if one person was deciding what to cover each day.

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. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776)

. . . and the Associated Press “wire” is a virtual meeting of all members of the AP - a “meeting” which has been in continuous operation since before the Civil War.

What sort of “conspiracy against the public” comes of that? I answer with another question: “What motivates journalists?” And Adam Smith suggests an answer to that, as well:

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)

. . . and if that applies to anyone, IMHO, it applies to journalists. And how do journalists attempt that? They grip attention with bad news - and they conspire to make it difficult for people to think that any journalist might not be objective. This they accomplish by calling each other objective - and by expelling anyone from the fraternity who does not go along and get along with that rule.

No one should be at all surprised to detect collusion among journalists. After being in continuous meeting since forever, cooperating is what they do. And since they consider bad news to be their stock-in-trade - and they nevertheless call themselves objective - journalism as we know it is a form of cynicism. And cynicism is the opposite of faith - and of conservatism.