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The Hellish World of ‘Modern Journalism’
Townhall.com ^ | December 26, 2020 | Jeff Davidson

Posted on 12/26/2020 3:54:02 AM PST by Kaslin

Imagine that you’re a graduate student majoring in journalism, accepted by one of the premier programs in the U.S. such as Washington and Lee University, Emerson College, Northwestern University, the University of Missouri at Columbia, or some other top-ranking school.

You've been indoctrinated since the third grade by Left-leaning teachers. During your time in college, you’re further indoctrinated. However, once you graduate, your goal is to be as objective as possible in your reporting. You realize that most stories have at least two angles to them and you're going to search the unexplored territory that most industry professionals seem to continually ‘overlook.’

Covering All Sides?

Graduation day arrives, and you’ve landed a job at a noteworthy media outlet, either in television, newspapers, or magazines. Your initial assignments as a ‘cub’ reporter involve monotonous, routine, and mundane local events. However, after a short time on the job, you're elevated to state-wide news reporting, and then political reporting.

You intend to cover all sides of an issue, but guess what? Your editor discusses how articles will play out – You are told the conclusion before you even begin your assignments. The conclusions invariably are ‘the Right is bad,’ and ‘the Left is good.’ Your assignments are to accent the Left’s point of view and to disparage the Right.

Now you’re thinking, “Okay it's not always going to be like this. Certainly, some issues merit a balanced perspective.” As time marches, you realize it's never going to be that way.

Advocacy, Nothing More

‘Journalism, as practiced today in +90% of all media outlets, is actually advocacy journalism for Leftist viewpoints. As such, the riots during the summer were not really riots, if your organization reported on them at all. What about Hunter Biden’s incriminating laptop? If it existed at all, it was ‘Russian disinformation.’

The stolen election of 2020? Be serious! Top officials said it was the cleanest election in U.S. history, and who are we to dig further, despite +2500 affidavits from eyewitnesses in the trenches, who fully documented the vast criminality that transpired?

The years roll by and your quest for objectivity becomes a fleeting thought. You are now a gung-ho, well-paid advocacy journalist, doing your part for the cause! Any news item to which you've been assigned is reported one way, and one way only, and the conclusion is pre-determined.

What if you're one of the few who realize that ‘American Pravda’ journalism is no better than Soviet Pravda. The only difference is that in the old Soviet Union, readers knew that state-controlled ‘journalists’ were lying to them. So, you play the game, you write what you're assigned, and you reach preordained conclusions.

Few Can Break Through

The sad reality is that few can emulate a Cheryl Atkinson, Bernie Goldberg, or Lara Logan. Each was a mainstream journalist who could no longer tolerate the hypocrisy, the lies, and the outright slander. Legions of others tried to break from the pack, but couldn't make a living on their own. As such, most ‘journalists’ are indentured servants of the Leftist mindset, who never successfully breakaway, unless they decide to scrap it all, and enter some other profession.

When you hear buffoons like Jim Acosta, Joe Scarborough, or Jonathan Karl, or even Leslie Stahl or Andrea Mitchell, consider that they might not have always been shills for Leftist ideology. Once, they might have aspired to be objective, fair-minded, and unbiased in their reporting. Lured by elevated job titles and rising wages and benefits, they succumbed. Now, each has long labored under corporate edicts and can no longer differentiate between truth and their organization’s non-stop propaganda.

Each could probably pass a lie detector about their commitment to ‘fair’ and ‘accurate’ reporting. So, for three years running, we were constantly fed bogus reports about a Trump / Russia connection, of which there was none. Following that, we had to endure phony impeachment proceedings, initiated as a result of one single anonymous whistleblower, which is the most that the Left generally musters.

The Twilight Zone of Truthful Reporting

Concurrently, despite the multitude of eyewitnesses, with sworn affidavits, under penalty of perjury, even renowned journalists insist that the 2020 elections were fair, legal, and aboveboard.

What a world, as some of the most respected names in ‘journalism’ are mere puppets to the organizational regime that pays them! They offer a Twilight Zone rendition of what's occurring in the world. And each of us is supposed to swallow it, hook, line, and sinker.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: failedenglishmajors
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1 posted on 12/26/2020 3:54:02 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Cheryl Atkinson: wrong.
Sharyl Attkisson: right.
Pretty basic to check names.


2 posted on 12/26/2020 3:58:59 AM PST by Travis McGee (EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: Travis McGee

Indeed. The hellish world of modern literacy.


3 posted on 12/26/2020 4:06:19 AM PST by Blennos ( )
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To: Travis McGee
That's why the title is: The Hellish World Of Journalism!!!
4 posted on 12/26/2020 4:13:02 AM PST by Kaslin (Joe Biden will never be my President, and neither will Kamala Harris)
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Comment #5 Removed by Moderator

To: Kaslin
"When you hear buffoons like Jim Acosta, Joe Scarborough, or Jonathan Karl, or even Leslie Stahl or Andrea Mitchell"...

What is this "...or even Leslie Stahl or Andrea Mitchell"? Are they mere semi-buffoons or part time buffoons or is the author a mere coward?
6 posted on 12/26/2020 4:16:16 AM PST by equaviator (If it seems like it's too bad to be true then maybe it isn't.)
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To: Kaslin
As such, most ‘journalists’ are indentured servants of the Leftist mindset, who never successfully breakaway, unless they decide to scrap it all, and enter some other profession.

The last four years have been remarkable, in that President Trump has torn off the mask of the dominant media in the United States.

The truth is the Media has been the foremost power in the USA for over 50 years.

From the article: "As such, most ‘journalists’ are indentured servants of the Leftist mindset, who never successfully breakaway, unless they decide to scrap it all, and enter some other profession."

This has been going on for a very long time. A close personal friend gave up on his journalism career in exactly these circumstances. He started in 1972, and got out, after successfully making it to a major market, about 1982.

7 posted on 12/26/2020 4:16:30 AM PST by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries. )
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To: Kaslin

“”””The years roll by and your quest for objectivity becomes a fleeting thought. You are now a gung-ho, well-paid advocacy journalist, doing your part for the cause! Any news item to which you’ve been assigned is reported one way, and one way only, and the conclusion is pre-determined.”””


I question the ‘You are now a gung-ho, well-paid advocacy journalist’ aspect of this story.

What I observe are a bunch of very angry people who spent a lot of money to get their degree in Leftist Journalism only to find the only job is at a local newspaper who can barely pay them minimum wages.


8 posted on 12/26/2020 4:23:37 AM PST by Presbyterian Reporter
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To: Kaslin
actually advocacy journalism for Leftist viewpoints

None dare call it propaganda? It fits the definition, especially the pejorative connotation, to a T.

9 posted on 12/26/2020 4:35:46 AM PST by Migraine ( Liberalism is great (until it happens to YOU).)
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Journalism ? No Propagandists

the ‘jornalists’ slant and create what the editors demand of them.


10 posted on 12/26/2020 5:05:52 AM PST by elbook
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To: Presbyterian Reporter

That’s a fact.
Its why I left the Scribbling Profession in 1980.


11 posted on 12/26/2020 5:19:52 AM PST by Eric in the Ozarks (Baseball players, gangsters and musicians are remembered. But journalists are forgotten.)
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To: Kaslin
I admit I didn't read the whole thing. In fact once I read:

...your goal is to be as objective as possible in your reporting. You realize that most stories have at least two angles to them...

and

...You intend to cover all sides of an issue, but...

I really couldn't read on. I do not believe either of these premises are accurate. Leftists are so deeply indoctrinated that by the time a so-called "journalist" graduates I seriously doubt they even realize there is any "story" but the left's agenda. I doubt anything resembling journalistic integrity even exists anymore.

If my kids had the choice between dating a drug dealer or a "journalist" ... You know, if the drug dealer were successful and did not partake in his/her products personally...I think I would rather they dated the drug dealer.

12 posted on 12/26/2020 5:30:54 AM PST by ThunderSleeps
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To: Kaslin; conservatism_IS_compassion; All

ping

The Hellish World of Co-conpiratorial PROPAGANDA. Don’t get mentally imprisoned by it. It’s your life. Welcome to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGCdLKXNF3w


13 posted on 12/26/2020 5:43:56 AM PST by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
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To: ThunderSleeps
If my kids had the choice between dating a drug dealer or a "journalist" ... You know, if the drug dealer were successful and did not partake in his/her products personally...I think I would rather they dated the drug dealer.

Public schooled or other? Rhetorical question only.

14 posted on 12/26/2020 5:46:54 AM PST by Buttons12 ( )
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To: Kaslin

Leftist/communist propaganda media survives and thrives by alienating and attacking half the country because the other half, their leftist/communist audience, is still a huge market and it’s what they want to hear.


15 posted on 12/26/2020 8:25:44 AM PST by Newtoidaho (All I ask of living is to have no chains on me.)
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To: Kaslin; Travis McGee

See my long running tag line...

We are ruled...by liars who refuse them news, and by fools who can not govern. “

G.K. Chesterton


16 posted on 12/26/2020 8:34:13 AM PST by Covenantor (We are ruled...by liars who refuse them news, and by fools who can not govern. " Chesterton)
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To: marktwain

I am a former editor of the Camp Pendleton SCOUT. Trained at DINFOS in Indianapolis.

After my service I worked in journalism in some form or other for almost 30 years.

Everything today is advocacy journalism. People become journalists because they want to change the world, not for the excitement of reporting the news. Too many outlets/sources of information screaming for our attention makes it worse.


17 posted on 12/26/2020 8:34:25 AM PST by GSWarrior (Democrats: science is settled and mathematics is racist.)
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To: GSWarrior
Everything today is advocacy journalism. People become journalists because they want to change the world, not for the excitement of reporting the news. Too many outlets/sources of information screaming for our attention makes it worse.

We are returning to the world of advocacy journalism which existed at the founding of the Republic.

To fully get there, we need to break the hold of the Tech Oligarchs.

18 posted on 12/26/2020 8:42:10 AM PST by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries. )
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To: Kaslin

*Imagine that you’re a graduate student majoring in journalism... “

Why is there even a major in journalism? All you need is an English writing class and when an event happens to go out there and find answers to” who, what, when, why, and how.”

You now have a degree in journalism.

What they teach in “journalism school” is how to become a propagandist, which does take a fair amount of time to master.


19 posted on 12/26/2020 9:21:55 AM PST by aquila48 (Do not let them make you care! Guilting you is how they control you. )
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To: aquila48
What they teach in “journalism school” is how to become a propagandist, which does take a fair amount of time to master.

Actually, all a RATagandist really needs to know, is how to copy/paste.

All their "fake news" fodder is sent to them by Obama/Clinton, the DNC, CIA and FBI.

20 posted on 12/26/2020 9:28:29 AM PST by ROCKLOBSTER (Trump won the "popular vote". Biden won the digital vote.)
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