- IMHO "the media" is a poor formulation. Yes, movies and fictional TV evince a liberal slant. But IMHO it is "objective" journalism which objectively has the most motive and the most opportunity to function as a political party. And whatever you might think about liberal-slanting fiction, ficton has the defense of not claiming to be fact. Newspapers have pretty explicit First Amendment protection too, but no more so than people who keep and bear arms have. But being licensed by the federal government, broadcasters actually are very vulnerable to the charge of tendentiousness. And all of journalism is out on the McCain-Feingold limb - if you prove that journalism is tendentious (even if it is within its constitutional rights to be so), SCOTUS logically would have to overturn McCain.
- IMHO "objective" journalism is best understood as a single entity unified by its observance of the "eleventh commandment" - "Thou Shalt Not question the objectivity of a fellow journalist." NBC News and ABC News are independent competitors in essentially the same way that the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox (on the field, they are bitter rivals; off the field they are comrades in the business of selling major league baseball as entertainment).
- IMHO the single entity "objective" journalism can coherere in the the eleventh commandment only because of the shared motive of all journalists - the desire to be important as journalists. For journalists to be important, journalism has to be important. But the police and the military do things to provide security, and the industrial corporations do things to provide goods and services - and journalists only talk. That means that the motive of journalism is to denigrate action and promote talk. This journalism - so long as it is unified around the rhubric of objectivity - is well able to do. It does so by second guessing, by systematically telling only part of the truth, and by tendentiously labelling (and by the occasional outright lie).
- Doing things always points the way to how they might be done better, and hence points the way to second guessing the past.
- The genius of the First Amendment is that it tells the government not to attempt to censor truth, even though all truth is partial. It is up to we-the-people to factor that consideration into our deliberation on political questions. Being incredulous when people claim the virtue of objectivity is the beginning of wisdom in that regard.
- Journalism tendentiously labels itself "objective," and labels its fellow travellers "moderate" or "progressive" or "liberal." Or "antiwar" (everyone is of course antiwar, so the label is meaningless. Journalism assigns the label only those who oppose action and promote talk as the only response to foreign threat).
By promoting an agenda of pure second guessing criticism and promoting essentially no serious policy action, the Democratic Party models the perspective of journalism perfectly.
Journalism is free. Therefore journalism can please itself. What would please a journalist is simple - to be important and to be paid. Journalists seek to accomplish those ends by promoting the talk of the journalist over the action of the businessman, the policeman, or the soldier.In that endeavor journalism has many allies, many fellow travelers. And, quite naturally, journalism gives positive PR and positive labeling to such people. Journalism calls them "progressive," "moderate," or - and oldie but a goodie - "liberal."
Journalists do not, however, call each other by those labels. They call each other "objective." But that is a distinction without a difference. Anyone whom journalists call by those other positive labels can get a job in journalism - and instantly obtain the label "objective" for the duration of the gig. But no one who does not merit the other positive labels will under any circumstances ever be labeled "objective" by journalists.
Can You Trust The National Media?
IBD ^ | Oct. 17, 2006 | IBD