A Harsh Critique of Media Ethics

The Pew Research Center, firmly ensconced inside the liberal establishment, has a new poll that has the organization worried sick (perhaps not as much as the new USA Today/Suffolk University poll that shows President Donald Trump defeating every single Democratic presidential opponent). Pew is concerned and confused about a dramatic difference between Democrats' and Republicans' skepticism about the media.

When asked about the ethical standards of the media, 31% of Republicans said their standards are "very low," and 48% picked "low." Among Democrats, 10% said the media have "very high" ethical standards, and 53% selected "high."

Pew's poll question wasn't specific about the definition of "ethical standards." But we can guess that many people are responding to the media's commitment to objectivity. Are they in the business of reporting, or advancing an agenda?

Democrats are invested in the idea that the media will affirm their beliefs, which makes the media guardians of truth, honor, beauty and anything else they think is Not Trump. Republicans see the media as affirming all the Democrats' beliefs, which undermines any claim to independence.

The already threadbare notion that the press was a nonpartisan and objective referee lost any tether to reality when Trump came down the escalator and declared his presidential campaign. They mocked the implausibility of a President Trump. He soon denounced them as "scum," and they have ardently opposed him and portrayed him as an unhinged buffoon ever since.

Pew researchers also asked if Americans have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence that journalists will "act in the best interests of the public." There's a 46-point gap between Democrats and Republicans on that question, and it jumps to a massive 75-point gap between respondents who say they are highly politically aware and associate with one party. Ninety-one percent of politically aware Democrats are confident the media will act in the public's interest, compared with 16% of politically aware Republicans.

In other words, Democrats and Republicans alike are confident that the media will help the Democrats wage war on Team Trump and achieve their version of a Great Society, with a Green New Deal and "Medicare for All."

That starts with impeaching President Trump and removing him from office. "Facts" will not put the slightest brake on the impeachment wagon. The new report from Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz offers loads of evidence for the strong distaste that Republicans and Trump backers have for the media. They were deeply invested in a false narrative of Trump campaign collusion with the Russian government, spurred on by a wildly unreliable dossier of gossip circulated and funded by Hillary Clinton's campaign. The fake media were openly hostile toward any facts that didn't line up with that narrative, and even now they insist Horowitz's damning new factual findings are somehow still part of an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory.

No one in the press demonstrated an ethical standard by responding to the Horowitz report with a confession saying they were wrong for having pushed a false narrative and a sleazy dossier. Instead, they expressed shock and disgust that pro-Trump media outlets were still resisting their crusade. How could anyone disagree that Trump must be impeached? They must all be pawns of Russian disinformation specialists.

Journalists don’t have to be objective. They can even claim to be objective knowing that they are no such thing. They can even change the meaning of “objective” to mean “agreeing with the perspective of journalists.”
But journalists have to wonder how long they will get away with functioning as a political cartel to slander conservatives and flatter liberals.
Any questioning of the existence of that cartel is challenged to seriously question either that the wire services constitute continual virtual meetings of all major US journalism - or Adam Smith’s dictum that 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.” It’s an open-and-shut case.
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The resulting “conspiracy against the public,” I submit, is centered on the self-serving propaganda campaign to the effect that “journalists are objective.” Good events are, in general, long in planning and execution - and thus do not qualify as “news.” Journalism would make more fuss over a house burning down than a hundred houses being constructed. Journalism is therefore systematically negative towards society and naive towards its corrective institution, government.
This means that the claim that “journalists are objective” is not only fallacious but cynical - the suggestion being that negativity (what actually describes journalism) is “objectivity.” Journalists know that actually trying to be objective is a difficult discipline, and no fun. They also know that if they go along ideologically with other journalists, no journalists will complain that they are not objective - and if they do compete ideologically with other journalists, they may be condemned as “not a journalist, not objective.” The effect is herd behavior by journalists - and redefinition of the term “objective” to mean, “in accord with journalism’s ideological consensus.”
And “objective” is far from the only word which journalists have redefined. Other words which have virtuous implications - “liberal,” “progressive,” “moderate,” and “centrist” have been redefined to mean what journalists have distorted “objective” into meaning. The only difference being in acceptable - to journalists - usage: “objective” is to be applied only to journalists, and never to non-journalists. And no other adjectives are ever to be applied to a journalist.
The redefinition of words is thus another, related, “conspiracy against the public” just as “journalists are objective” propaganda is. But since nobody gets labeled “liberal” by journalism unless they are in full go-along-and-get-along mode with journalism, “liberals” never get libeled.
And the New York Times v. Sullivan decision is not the impenetrable bulwark that journalists like to think. The intent of the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, was to put paid to any concern that the rights of the people were in any way attenuated by the Constitution. And since “Your right to swing your fist stops where my nose begins,” that means that the intent of the Bill of Rights was to assure that the rights of the people were not, and would not easily be, changed. Hence, the intent of the Bill of Rights was that the right to sue for libel was not touched by the Constitution. In asserting that
". . . libel can claim no talismanic immunity from constitutional limitations. It must be measured by standards that satisfy the First Amendment”
Justice William Brennan and the entire Warren Court erred in Sullivan.

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