Great comments. What we were taught back in journalism school was that reporters and editors were the “gatekeepers” of knowledge, and it was their decisions about what to publish and what not to publish which determined “the public interest.”
Of course, this was also predicated on the ideal of “objectivity,” which none of us have (least of all myself).
I remember one seminar in which Fred Friendly, the former news head at CBS, was talking to us students about reporting the news. (He told us about the famous “lighting the huts on fire” story from Vietnam, too.) Anyway, some slip of a girl in the back asks him, “What about objectivity?”
Fred was an overweight guy and sounded like he was from New York, so he came rolling to the back of the room and loomed over this poor girl. He said, “Let’s see. You’re in the state prison with the child rapist murderer doing an interview. You’re objective about that?” She said nothing. He leaned over and said in a louder voice, “So you’re objective about someone who rapes and kills children?” She melted into her seat.
Then Friendly turned around and said, “Objectivity is bullsh*t. But you can always be fair and accurate.”
Sounds like Fox News is in that tradition. Poor CBS, though, is now at the level of “The Onion,” although “The Onion” is intentionally funny.
Still, Mr. Conservatism_is_Compassion, you’ve got the right idea. The modern news media, especially in the past 70 years, considers themselves to be the elite who dispense information to the rest of us. Look at the writings of Walter Lippmann about the “gatekeeper” ideal and the notion of journalism being a “professional class.”
During the time of the Founders, though, what we they called journalism was really opinion and commentary. No expectation was made that there was an “objective” viewpoint. Their ideal was that many voices would speak and write, and then the citizen would make up their own mind.
Once I was the editor of a newspaper. At the bottom of the editorial I published a little history column with quotes from the papers of 90 years ago (which would have been 1899 and 1900 at the time). There were three papers in town - the Republican paper, the Democrat paper, and the Populist paper. All three were wildly inflammatory. They always targeted each other. Circulation was almost 100 percent for all three papers; it was not just news, it was entertainment. People read the stuff knowing the bias up front - the same way I listen to Rush and Savage - and made up their own minds.
Liberty is cool that way. You have the right to speak your mind. I have the right to tell you to go to hell. Sadly, those values are being replaced by other, more pernicious values, like the Stalinist trial Mark Steyn had to recently go through in Canada.
Nice comments, Conservatism_is_Compassion. Have a great weekend.
Of course, this was also predicated on the ideal of “objectivity,” which none of us have (least of all myself).
I have been unable to put my finger on the exact distinction to be made between a claim of "objectivity" and a claim of wisdom. And of course if you research "wisdom" in the etymological dictionary, you find the meanings of the terms "sophist" and "philosopher" are relevant, as follows:sophist1542, earlier sophister (c.1380), from L. sophista, sophistes, from Gk. sophistes, from sophizesthai "to become wise or learned," from sophos "wise, clever," of unknown origin. Gk. sophistes came to mean "one who gives intellectual instruction for pay," and, contrasted with "philosopher," it became a term of contempt. Ancient sophists were famous for their clever, specious arguments.philosopherWhich is my explanation of the fact that the person who claims to be most objective always seems to be farthest from it.O.E. philosophe, from L. philosophus, from Gk. philosophos "philosopher," lit. "lover of wisdom," from philos "loving" + sophos "wise, a sage.""Pythagoras was the first who called himself philosophos, instead of sophos, 'wise man,' since this latter term was suggestive of immodesty." [Klein]
Modern form with -r appears c.1325, from an Anglo-Fr. or O.Fr. variant of philosophe, with an agent-noun ending. . . .
It seems to me that the Associated Press motivates and enables a mutual admiration society among journalists which makes it taboo for one journalist to question the "objectivity" - whatever that word is supposed to mean - of another journalist. It seems to me as well that journalism as we know it systematically corrupts the language, changing or inverting the meaning of words and instituting new and deceptive words.
In the 1920s journalism (or somebody - and who else but journalism was in a position to do it?) inverted the meaning of "liberalism" from opposition to increased government regulation and high taxes to advocacy of those very things. "Liberals" (actually socialists) systematically use euphenisms for government such as "public" or "society." A "public" school is actually a government school, and when a "liberal" says that "society" should do some thing s/he means nothing other than that the government should do it. And yet society and government are not the same unless there is (or unless there should be) no such thing as individual freedom. When "liberals" use euphemisms for government, AP journalism is never slow to adopt the usages "liberals" prefer.
Associated Press journalism calls itself "the press," insinuating that "the freedom of . . . the press" mandated by the First Amendment confers privileges on Associated Press journalism exclusively and does not refer to the right of the people to spend their own money for the use of technology to promote their own opinions.
AP journalism created "Swift Boating" and "McCarthyism," two words which connote the same thing. Both connote AP journalism's preferred image that criticism of Democrats (at least, criticism from the right) is illegitimate. Each word seemingly denotes an objective reality, but one which cannot bear close scrutiny. But as long as AP journalism controls the debate the fact that the words are double smears - smears of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth or of Senator Joseph McCarthy, as well as whoever is tarred with association with the image which AP journalism has created of McCarthy and of the SBVT- is not allowed into the conversation.
And did you know that the Associated Press was aggressively monopolistic from its inception, and that in 1945 it was held by SCOTUS to be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act?
See this pertinent quote which I think is applicable. Carr is a NY Times columnist.
"I was taught when I was a young reporter that it's news when we say it is. I think that's still true -- it's news when 'we' say it is. It's just who 'we' is has changed"
David Carr (b. 1956), US Journalist. CNN "Reliable Sources", Sunday, August 10, 2008.
.......the elite who dispense information to the rest of us. ......
I think that a more accurate statement would replace the word dispense with the word ration.