Ping to a thread which analyzes the "objectivity" of journalism, and what it means for America.Journalism claims objectivity, but its basis for that claim depends on the conceit that what is good for journalism - namely, journalists attracting an audience to advertisers - is the public interest, and all of it. That is of course absurd, but journalism simply declines to discuss the point.
In the founding era, Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, et. al. were liberals. And as Thomas Sowell points out in On Classical Economics, Adam Smith in his An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, and the classical economists generally, were reacting against aristocracy - that is, against government of, by, and for the Establishment. Here's a quote from a review of Smith's classic:An interesting choice for an introduction is Robert Reich. He is one of the few intellectuals from the left, and while I disagree with him more often than not, I respect his thought process. He offers his interpretation of Smith and how the ideas found in TWoN fit neatly with his positions. Selective reasoning or not, Reich does offer a nice summary line: ". . . it is important to remind ourselves of the revolutionary notion at the heart of Smith's opus - that the wealth of a nation is measured not by its accumulated riches [i.e., by its "balance of payments"], but by the productivity and living standards of all its people."I think that is a perfectly fair definition of the English (note the emphasis) word, "liberal." It was what the American Revolution and the War of 1812 were all about, and the failure of British establishment designs in those wars must have had a salutary effect on British politics - chastening the British conservatives who stood for the exploitation of the people of the colonies (and indeed, of the people of Britain proper), and heartening the British liberals.So Americans who adhere to the principles of the founders of the US are, by British standards, not remotely "conservative." We are, in English, liberals. Since the exalted founding fathers such as Washington and Franklin were liberals, being a liberal was a good thing for an American to be - and conservative was a bad thing for an American to be. What can have happened to make "conservative" a positive word to American patriots, and "liberal" a bad one?
The English language, especially in its American variant, is highly dynamic and "living." Word meanings change with usage, nouns become verbs, and so on. IMHO the operation of journalism in the American context is relevant. The Louisiana Purchase set off a vast land rush, and like other aspects of American life the press was a creature of that land rush. In his classic The Americans: The National Experience, Daniel Boorstin pointed out that when tiny villages like Shawnee, Oklahoma or Ada, Oklahoma - or Chicago or Milwaukee or Denver, or any of tens of thousands of towns which no longer exist - were founded, they were all land speculations. Anywhere you chose to settle, the first thing you wanted to improve the prospects and value of your land was a newspaper to publicize your town. And printers who settled in the West selected towns, committed to those locales, and promoted those towns in order to promote themselves.
I put it to you that the last way to accurately characterize presses which existed to promote themselves and their locales would be, "objective." But, like "liberal" - and in contradistinction to "conservative" - "objective" is definitely a flattering thing for an American to be called. So, for a press which is self-promoting and not objective, the most natural thing to call itself would be, "objective." And equally, it was natural for self-promoting journalism to call people who agreed with the idea that journalism was the essence of the public interest, "liberals." And to call those who, like Theodore Roosevelt, reckon that
"It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena"conservative."Journalism does nothing but criticize, and the promotion of journalism is therefore the promotion of criticism above performance. And what journalists call "liberalism" is the promotion of critics to positions (in government) of power over those who actually take responsibility for getting things done.
What happened to make "conservative" a positive word to American patriots, and "liberal" a bad one? What happened was "objective" journalism.