Doesn't it strike you that journalists are precisely like lawyers in having no physical product, and no service other than criticizing the people (businessmen, policemen, and military) who get necessary things done? IMHO the question is not, "Why do journalists help 'liberals'?" The question is why we are surprised that journalists promote themselves by tearing down others, and why we are surprised when the people called 'liberals' do the same thing and, being useful to and simpatico with journalists, get helpful coverage from journalists (including positive labels such as 'progressive' and, yes, 'liberal').Their goal is to cheer on the efforts of the "leaders" to build a state completely controlled by the elite, and to put themselves into the position of speaking for their party (a la Pravda). Then they won't have to worry about profit or entertainment; they will have permanent jobs. Only the other day an article was posted on here where a journalism major posited that if newspapers could not survive as a business, why then it was the job of the government to support journalism all the same, out of your tax money.
There is no doubt at all that both 'objective journalists' and 'liberals' have identical mindsets, and differ only in that 'objective journalists' are employed as reporters/editors. And that McCain-Feingold - indeed, that all "Campaign Finance Reform" legislation, promotes journalism as a public good, and were pushed by journalists far more than by the general public. The FCC likewise has a history of promoting journalism as a public good, as evidence that a licensee is "broadcasting in the public interest as a public trustee." So there is absolutely no cause for surprise when a journalist proposes government subsidies for journalism - indeed, what are PBS and NPR newscasts if not government-subsidized journalism?In that light, the "Fairness Doctrine" was regulation of broadcasting in the interests of 'objective journalism' - what could be more in the interests of "objective" journalists than suppressing Rush and the others who call them out for their tendentiousness? What could be more convenient for journalists than having the government prejudge all issues in favor of journalists by defining them as being "objective"?
I lately have become interested in the Associated Press as a transforming agent in American journalism. In the founding era, journalism was openly partisan; Hamilton and Jefferson sponsored papers in which to wage their partisan battles against each other. Now journalists think that a scandal. I, OTOH, think it a scandal that now journalism speaks with a single voice - and I wonder if the AP and the newswire is not the homogenizing force which made that transformation possible/inevitable?
Have you checked this out?
That was the data I was seeking. Fascinating. I have some letters between my gg-grandfather and his friend (who lived in Barbados) arguing the merits of the War (although both were opposed to slavery and thought the southern leadership mediocre at best). I’ll have to find them and read them again in light of this.
Great post! Thanks for the link!