Journalism and Objectivity

Free Speech Is the Only Antidote to Mass Delusion

Yes - but actually, it is insufficient in the age of mass communications. We need, we must have, ~~a free press~~ free and independent presses.
In fact, SCOTUS is wrong in calling money “speech.” Talk is cheap - it is printing presses, ink, and paper which cost money. And don’t question the connection between freedom of the literal printing press of the founding era and freedom of the Internet and cable - yes, and over-the-airwaves broadcast - of today.
Article 1 Section 8.
The Congress shall have power . . . To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries . . .
implies that the framers anticipated that printing press would be improved upon.

Amendment 9 -
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
This directly rebuts the notion that the First Amendment is a ceiling over our liberties - it is intended only as floor beneath them. The framers did provide a means of adjusting the unregulated advance of technology on the press, but it would be really hard to get an amendment to the First Amendment ratified.
The reason we are troubled by “the media” is simple; Adam Smith condemned the source of the problem three generations before it arose:
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
Wire service journalism originated in 1848 with the founding of the New York Associated Press - soon renamed simply, “the Associated Press.” The members of the AP - any and all wire services are the same - are in a continual virtual meeting of “people of the same trade.” The AP newswire has been going for well over a century and a half, and the inevitable “conspiracy against the public” arose before it was a half a century old.
The desire of being believed, the desire of persuading, of leading and directing other people, seems to be one of the strongest of all our natural desires. - Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments
That motive operates on all journalists; it is their reason for existence. Thus they make the absurd claim of their own objectivity based on their mutual-admiration-society AP membership.
The effect is that journalists are free to promote the idea which is the exact opposite of Theodore Roosevelt’s famous dictum, “It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena . . .” And what is the most pithy expression of the opposite of that dictum? Elizabeth Warren announced it, and Obama and Hillary! echo it:

You didn’t build that.
Which is obviously cynicism - and socialist dogma.

“Anti-establishment” can only mean “Conservative.”

Wire service journalism is the Establishment in America.
The man whom we believe is necessarily, in the things concerning which we believe him, our leader and director, and we look up to him with a certain degree of esteem and respect . . . The desire of being believed, the desire of persuading, of leading and directing other people, seems to be one of the strongest of all our natural desires . . . The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing.
. . . The natural disposition is always to believe . . . It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. - Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments
Thus, we can expect nothing else of journalists than that they would place being thought of as influential above all else - and we expect quite a lot of our fellow man when we expect him to be prudently skeptical.
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 is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
Journalist “meet together” constantly; the Associated Press was founded a decade before the Civil War, and has been conducting a virtual conversation among journalists - not about “merriment or diversion,” but precisely about what the news is - ever since.
People talk about “the media,” but to really face up to the problem we need to be frank about who is the central problem - it is mainstream journalism. And we have every reason to treat it with skepticism.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3304736/posts?page=25#25

[Donald Trump] may still have the opportunity before him but the window is closing fast. So far he has failed to pivot onto the topic of media malpractice.

I have been cogitating about that ever since I fully realized - a generation ago - that “the media” ~~are~~ is “biased.” The question, in the first instance, was why were all journalistic outlets playing the same tune?
After an embarrassingly long time, it dawned on me that it all traces back to the telegraph. The telegraph, and the AP.
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 is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
The AP - and any other wire service as well - functions as a virtual “meeting” of people of the trade of journalism. That meeting is not “for merriment and diversion,” but precisely about business - and it has been ongoing since 1848. It is impossible to expect any other result than that “a conspiracy against the public” should have begun long ago, and should be ongoing.
In 1945, the Supreme Court of the United States held in Associated Press v. United States that AP had been violating the Sherman Antitrust Act by prohibiting member newspapers from selling or providing news to nonmember organizations as well as making it very difficult for nonmember newspapers to join the AP. The decision facilitated the growth of its main rival United Press International, headed by Hugh Baillie from 1935 to 1955. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_Press
Although that decision apparently does not touch the issue of the effect of journalists’ “meeting together” via “the wire,” it does reflect the fact that the AP from its inception was anticompetitive in nature.

News Over the Wires:
The Telegraph and the Flow of Public Information in America, 1844-1897
by Menahem Blondheim
Of course, the foundation of the AP predates the advent of the Sherman Antitrust Law by half a century . . .
The key point is, though, that the mission of the wire service - the economical transmission of news over a wide area - is actually an anachronism in the context of the satellite and optical fiber communication links which enable the Internet. At this point economizing on transmission bandwidth is of negligible value.
The other point I would make is that there is a systematic reason why a unified press would be a leftist press. Theodore Roosevelt famously declared
"It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena - From Theodore Roosevelt's 1910 speech at the Sorbonne
- but if you are “the critic,” that is an uncongenial message. And indeed, journalists are never "the man who is actually in the arena,” journalists only report - and they prefer to talk about other people’s failures. So it should not be unexpected to learn that journalists’ preferred message is the polar opposite of

"the credit belongs to
the man who is actually in the arena.”
And arguably the opposite of that message is best summarized in the statement,

You didn’t build that.
“You didn’t build that” is cynicism directed at the very concept of earned success. “Liberalism” is socialism, and it is the political logic of the envy of the journalist for the successful entrepreneur.

So if Donald Trump is a conservative, and if he is willing to put his reputation and some money on the line as he suggests he will do, he wouldn’t have to become POTUS in order to perform a signal service to his country. He wouldn’t even have to win the Republican nomination. All he would have to do is sue the socks off of the AP - and its membership, joint and several liability - for all its tendentiousness against Republicans, entrepreneurs, and people who are neither black nor hispanic. Ann Coulter’s Slander would be a good start on a bill of particulars, but the George Zimmerman persecution and the Ferguson and Baltimore fiascoes postdate that book.
That would not be an attack on freedom of the press - it would be an attack on the Borg which has absorbed the free and independent presses which the Constitution and First Amendment sought to guarantee to us.
Technological progress being an explicit goal mentioned in Section 8 of Article I:
The Congress shall have power . . . To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries . . .
the term “press” in the First Amendment should not be read as a reference to a specific technology of ink, paper, and machinery. The press is any technology for the purpose of publishing opinions or facts. The distinguishing feature of technology as opposed to speech is, of course, that it inherently requires things - things which cost money. Some may argue, possibly rightly, that money is not speech. But they cannot argue persuasively that a press is practical if its owner - let alone its purchaser - cannot spend money. “Campaign Finance Reform” is political censorship. Registration of political expenditures can be made to sound benign - but the Constitution would not have been ratified (at least in the opinion of Madison, Hamilton, and Jay) if those founders had not had the right to publish the Federalist Papers under the pseudonym “Publius.” And if they had that right, then under the Ninth Amendment we have that same right.

This transparent bias is a national phenomenon, infecting both print and television media to such an extent that it has become almost impossible to separate coverage of the Trump campaign from attempts to tear it down. The media has long been accused of having a liberal slant, but in this cycle journalists seem to have cast themselves as defenders of the republic against what they see as a major threat, and in playing this role they’ve lost the ability to assess events rationally. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-raimondo-trump-media-bias-20160802-snap-story.html

The point about “the media” is that we, all of us, fear to call it out for what it is: wire-service journalism. Prior to the advent of the Associated Press (beginning in 1848), journalism was highly fractious and independent. A lot of the early newspapers were weeklies, and some had no deadline at all, and just went to press when they were good and ready. In principle the public could get the news about as fast by word of mouth. The main difference between the public and the press was that newspapers systematically disseminated the news amongst themselves by (government-subsidized) mailing of newspapers. But of course, mail traveled by horse or by sailing ship, and “news” could be pretty old when you got it.
One primary bias in newspapers was location bias. Every newspaper existed in part to promote its own locale. Settlers were necessarily land speculators, and printers were settlers. And, of course, bad news has always sold best; you could look it up in Shakespeare. Basically, there are two kinds of news - bad news, and advertising.
With the advent of the AP (and to a lesser extent, other wire services), each newspaper was provided - at substantial cost - a cornucopia of news from far-flung reaches of the US and Europe, much of it actually new, less than a day or two old. In order to make its content useful, the AP set up guidelines (including the pyramid structure in which the paragraph following the headline is a summary of the story, and succeeding paragraphs give more and more detail - and the “what and where and when, and why and how and who” rule). Also to make the stories useful, editors who had never met, let alone employed, those far-flung reporters who wrote about far-away events began claiming, as still today, that “all reporters are objective.”
Now, nothing can be said about trying to make clear, complete, and objective reports. Or even against saying that that is what you are trying to do (if indeed you are). The trouble is, it is utterly impossible to know that you are objective - still less that anyone else is. Indeed, journalists know and will admit that their job is reporting bad news, so on that basis alone they have to know better than to believe that they are actually objective.

The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing. The man whom we believe is necessarily, in the things concerning which we believe him, our leader and director, and we look up to him with a certain degree of esteem and respect. But as from admiring other people we come to wish to be admired ourselves; so from being led and directed by other people we learn to wish to become ourselves leaders and directors . . .
The desire of being believed, the desire of persuading, of leading and directing other people, seems to be one of the strongest of all our natural desires. - Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)

People of the same trade [eg, journalists] seldom meet together [e.g., virtually, over the AP newswire] . . . but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
All journalists know (“if it bleeds, it leads” and “Man Bites Dog, not Dog Bites Man”) that journalism makes money by being systematically negative. And all journalists know that they have to claim that “all journalists are objective.” We should understand that anyone who thinks systematic negativity is objective is a cynic. But nobody can be cynical about everything; journalists are cynical about society and naive about government:
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others. - Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing. The man whom we believe is necessarily, in the things concerning which we believe him, our leader and director, and we look up to him with a certain degree of esteem and respect . . .
The desire of being believed, the desire of persuading, of leading and directing other people, seems to be one of the strongest of all our natural desires. - Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
So yeah . . . I can see how you would think that convincing us that you are telling us “what is going on” is important. But as to what is in our interest, we don’t need that. We need pretty much the opposite - we need to pool our “incredulity” here on FR so we will not “give credit to stories which [we ourselves will] afterwards [be] ashamed and astonished that [we] could possibly think of believing.”
So understand, Megyn, that we recognize that your work is important in a negative sense. It poses an important problem for American society. Wikileaks simply confirmed what the discerning can see in your “important work.” All journalists are in cahoots with the Democrat Party. It is easy to see why: journalism is a monopoly. Adam Smith again:
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 is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
Do journalists “meet together?” That is what the AP newswire is - a virtual meeting of all of journalism. So “a conspiracy against the public” is all that can be expected.
The reason that “conspiracy against the public” take the form of “liberalism*” is obvious, once seen: “No news is good news” (because good news “isn’t news), “If it bleeds, it leads,” and - of similar import in a fundamentally sound, serviceable society - “‘Man Bites Dog’ not ‘Dog Bites Man.’” That last aphorism is particularly insidious because it implies an eagerness to report ill of those upon whom society most depends. Journalism is the unremitting negativity business.
This is the filter through which the news passes - or does not pass - to get published by journalism. What is blocked by that filter - and by the mere expectation that “news” will be very recent - is positive progress. American society, by constitutional design, has progressed so much materially (everything from medicine to information technology to transportation, plastics manufacture, food production and preservation, air conditioning, machine tools, etc, etc) that every Tom, Dick, and Judy in America today is better off than Queen Victoria (1819-1901) was in her day.
Journalism is unremittingly negative towards American society, yet journalism claims that “all journalists are objective.” There is a word for someone who considers negativity objective: cynic. “Cynicism” is a perfect description, not only of journalism, but of “liberalism.” Wikileaks confirms that the notional boundary between journalism and “liberalism” is, quite simply, a con.
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil - Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)
Journalists/“liberals” of today are precisely "writers [who] have so confounded society with government, as to leave ~~little or~~ no distinction between them.” The intended effect of that is to denigrate society (“in every state a blessing”) and to extol government ("even in its best state . . . a necessary evil”)
I, Pencil is an article written in 1958 by Leonard E. Read. The burden of the article is how diffuse are the inputs to make a simple item like a pencil. Of course a particular company - Eberhard Faber, in the example instance - made the pencil. But Mr. Eberhard and Mr. Faber did not simply speak the pencil into existence; the company has to have buildings housing machinery, and workers to operate the machines. But beyond that, the Eberhard Faber workers have to have food, shelter, and normal amenities - including those required by their families.
And the same is true of the vendors who supply Eberhard Faber with the machinery they require, and all the obvious materials - wood, graphite, rubber, and the ferrule material and the enamel. All those vendors have their own equipment, workers, and supply chain. And in all cases the workers need food, shelter, and normal amenities. So although the pencil certainly does not exist without Eberhard Faber, society works together to make pencils - and everything else.
So, “you didn't build that? Somebody else made that happen?” Yes - but that “somebody else” was not government. The “somebody” was more like everybody - mostly very indirectly.
Government planning is nothing more than the irresponsible separation of responsibility from authority, in violation of the first principle of good management. It is mere interference in society’s workings, by people who have nowhere near the competence needed to make such large decisions and be responsible for them.
The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.
The Wealth of Nations, Book IV, Chapter II
Improvement in efficiency via government “planning” is a paper tiger.

* My use of the scare quotes refers to the fact that, in America, the meaning of the word “liberalism” was changed - essentially inverted - in the 1920s (source: Safire’s New Political Dictionary)

The public’s loathing and distrust of the media is richly deserved and indicative of one of Western society’s greatest failings: the free press has failed. Only the fact that there is no alternative keeps it going.

. . . Standards of information and education have withered. The American people, and most other advanced nationalities, are less well-educated and less well-informed than they were 50 years ago. The teaching and academic professions and the journalists have failed. They have not failed completely, of course, and there are many individual exceptions, but they do not get a passing grade. Government can do something about the schools but can’t really touch academia or the free press without threatening the foundation of free society. There is no obvious solution.

People of the same trade [e.g., journalists] seldom meet together [e.g., virtually over the AP “wire”], even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
It is patent that the Associated Press - indeed, that every wire service - constitutes a virtual meeting of journalists, and should be discouraged if not essential. And the mission of the wire service - economizing on the use of scarce, expensive telegraph bandwidth in the dissemination of the news - is obsolete when every Tom, Dick, and Jane can afford enough Internet bandwidth as to have been, in living memory, competitive with the capacity used by the AP.
Antitrust action is indicated. Not only so, but the FCC should be debarred from granting broadcast licenses to stations which broadcast programming which purports to to virtuous - either wise or objective. It is admirable to try to be objective. It is even acceptable to claim to try to be objective. But the claim of actually being objective is arrogant and self-negating.
sophist 1542, 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. philosopher 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]

Conrad Black: The free press failed and the Clintons, Bushes and Obamas are finally finished
National Post ^ | November 12,2016 | Conrad Black

CNN, NYT, CBS, et al. I don’t think . . . are a scrap better, and might even be conceptually worse, because they deliberately misrepresent and twist the truth under the aegis of being the arbiters of truth...something they fail miserably at.

You know my opinion:
Anyone who claims to be objective has to “fail miserably at” objectivity. Because the first thing you must do when trying to be objective is to be candid about what motives you might have not to be objective. And being candid about that is the very opposite of claiming actual objectivity.
The other route to the same conclusion is by reference to the experience of the ancient Greeks, as represented by the following etymological definitions: sophist 1542, 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. philosopher 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]
Journalists (and other “liberals”) seek to delegitimate skepticism, and thus are Sophists. People who accept questions on the air, live, from all comers have to be Philosophers or be exposed as Sophists. That is, they have to openly espouse a political perspective rather than affecting a fatuous “No Labels” stance. Journalists get away with it because they never expose themselves publicly on-air to no-holds-barred questioning.
A “liberal” talk show host who takes calls ultimately has have rigorous caller screening to protect her/him from embarrassing questions. Because the nature of “liberalism” is cynicism about society and naïveté about government.
SOME writers^"Liberals" have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one - Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing. The man whom we believe is necessarily, in the things concerning which we believe him, our leader and director, and we look up to him with a certain degree of esteem and respect. But as from admiring other people we come to wish to be admired ourselves; so from being led and directed by other people we learn to wish to become ourselves leaders and directors . . .
The desire of being believed, the desire of persuading, of leading and directing other people, seems to be one of the strongest of all our natural desires. - Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
The actual mission of FR is to enable us to pool our (individually naturally inadequate) “incredulity” sufficiently to be able to resist the Siren call of fake news. My principal contribution to that incredulity consists of pointing out that:

Wire services homogenize news, and empower its practitioners. The result is ideological uniformity which is safe to go along with - and dangerous to cross.

Journalists claim to be objective. This has two implications:

Since journalism is negative and knows it, journalism claims that negativity is objectivity. A claim which can only be described as cynicism.

The sine qua non of any attempt at objectivity is candor about any reasons why you might not be objective. Therefore a claim of actual objectivity (rather than, say, a claim to be trying to be objective) precludes any real effort at even trying to be objective.

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins . . . Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil . . . - Thomas Paine

Journalists, like all liberals,” love to say “society” when they mean nothing other than government. This is a euphemism for government, but a slander on society.

Journalists think that nothing actually matters except PR (Naturally they were shocked when Donald Trump withstood their “devastating” PR assault on him with an amazing display of pure chutzpah, and won the election). Thinking that they control who wins elections causes them to think highly of government. And as noted above, they are cynical about society.

”Objective” journalism is “liberal” (actually, socialist) propaganda. Or, if you will, “fake news."

the idea that there’s a thing called ‘truth’ — an absolute value that lives above and apart from the world of framing and spin.”
. . . has a name. It is called, “philosophy” - the love (philo) of wisdom (soph being the root of the Greek meaning “wisdom”).
If you love wisdom you love truth and logic and despise sophistry, a word derived from the Greek “sophists” - who, claiming to be wise rather than modestly declaring themselves open to facts and logic in debate, practically invented “the world of framing and spin.”
Author Tom Johnson, you may be onto something. Become a philosopher and eschew sophistry. Great idea!
But, there is a catch. To be a philosopher you actually have to listen as well as talk. And you know what you do when you listen? You learn. Which means, you change your mind sometimes. There is a genre of broadcasting known as “talk radio.” The distinguishing characteristic of the talk radio format is a host who listens to callers even if they disagree with them. And, rather than using straw man arguments to belittle the caller, the talk show host debates the caller respectfully.
To do the job of the talk show host you have to be a philosopher, willing to learn as well as to dish it out. If you don’t take on all comers, the audience will realize that your call screener is protecting you from debating many articulate people who disagree with him/her. The history of talk radio is that no one able to thrive in that format will be considered - or will claim to be - “objective.” There is a reason for that.
To be a philosopher you have to be candid about the reasons why you might not be objective. For example, if a journalist were candid about it he would recognize that he has been taught - for valid business reasons - to be negative towards society. And the other side of that coin is that the journalist - who gives good PR to one politician and bad PR to another - assumes that the government is controllable by journalists, and therefore is predisposed to consider government good. Government exists to control evil in society and in from the world outside its borders, so the journalist - to be candid about the reasons he might not be objective - would have to declare that as a bias to be accounted for when evaluating his statements.
So, yes - by all means, accept "the idea that there’s a thing called ‘truth’ — an absolute value that lives above and apart from the world of framing and spin.” Reject spin - even the “spin” that journalists are more objective than anyone who is not a journalist. Become a philosopher - and, if you stay in the business of public discussion of issues, become a talk show host. Because wire service journalism will expel you from their “objective journalism” fraternity, and label you a “conservative.”

Former Newsweek Washington Correspondent Urges Media to Battle ‘Conservative Moral Relativism’
NewsBusters ^ | January 28, 2017 | 8:37 PM EST | Tom Johnson

”Liberal” is a brand. It was a good brand, in America, back when socialists in America realized that - in America - “socialism” was a bad brand. The consequence was that during the 1920s socialists systematically took over that positive brand, “liberal,” by describing socialist policies as “liberal.” So by 1930 a Franklin Roosevelt could style his socialist policies as “liberalism” entirely unselfconsciously.
Now obviously, neither you nor I would be able to invert, for an entire society, the meaning of a word the way the socialists did to “liberalism.” It is obvious that the socialists had a commanding position in “the media” (a term I denigrate) in order to pull that off. Why would that be? My answer to that question is that journalism is, self-consciously, negative. They know that “if it bleeds, it leads” sells newspapers and, for self-interested commercial reasons, they systematically report bad news about the reliability of the people upon whom society most depends.
In reality, “the people upon whom society most depends” are - the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. Yes, and the policeman, for security is a good just as much as bread is a good. Reporters claim to be objective, and yet they know that they are negative towards society. "Claiming that 'negativity is objectivity’" is my idea of a perfect definition of cynicism. In short, journalists are systematically cynical about society - and, concomitantly, project a naive attitude towards government. Reject, Dear Reader, any suggestion that “society” and “government” are the same thing. This is a great mistake:
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one - Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)
The conceit that “government” and “society” are the same thing is naive towards the former and cynical towards the latter.
I mentioned above my antipathy toward the term, “the media.” I beg you to observe, Dear Reader, that

Journalism is, as indicated above, inherently biased toward socialism. For commercial reasons. And,

Journalism puts itself forward as “nonfiction,” and therefore has - at least notionally - an obligation toward truthfulness. Fiction - whether books, movies, or dramas - has no obligation toward truth which can even notionally be enforced.
Consequently we should not diffuse our criticism by attacking “the media,” we should be attacking journalism head-on. Here we run into that nasty First Amendment thing, and people get confused. The First Amendment is a statement of the most basic constituents of liberty. The First Amendment must be defended against our opponents but also, as occasion can arise, against our friends and against our own selves.
How, then, can journalism be opposed? Journalism - defined as negativity towards society cloaked in a claim of objectivity and a patronizing attitude towards the people who make society work - can be philosophically opposed. The problem here goes back to the schools; most of us were taught that journalism was objective, and most of us still struggle with the problem that, as Adam Smith put it,
The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing. - Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
And there is another aspect of journalism which is a legitimate target of reproach: its homogeneity under the wire service model:
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 is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
Under the wire service model, journalism functions as a single entity which deceptively is marketed through “fronts” such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABC News, etc. The Associated Press long predates the 1890 passage of the (remarkably short) Sherman Anti-Trust Act and, though it has been found to be in violation of it in 1945, was reckoned to be “too big to fail” then. But that was then. The Associated Press was formed a few years after the demonstration of the Baltimore-Washington telegraph by Samuel Morse in 1844. to distribute news nationally to its member newspapers while conserving scarce, expensive telegraph bandwidth.
But that was then, and this is now - a time when, I suppose, FreeRepublic.Com alone disposes more bandwidth than the Associated Press did in 1945. The mission of the AP is to conserve something - comm bandwidth - which was expensive and is now dirt cheap. The purpose of the First Amendment is to guarantee to the people the right to attend to whatever and whoever they choose to - and to ignore whoever/whatever else. “Press” is not a title of nobility - something expressly forbidden by the Constitution - and it is not a priesthood. “Press” is whoever chooses to spend money printing (or otherwise propagating) opinions and/or facts. “The press” is not limited to “The Associated Press.” The very term “Associated” betrays the lack of independence of members of the AP.
The Associated Press is an attack on independence of thought and expression. The FCC - with its restrictions which tend to limit who can broadcast - attacks independence of thought and expression. The FEC - with its restrictions on how much particular presses - such as political parties - can spend to broadcast or print its opinions is an attack on freedom of thought and expression. All of them thereby promote cynicism toward society and naïveté towards government. They are socialist monstrosities. As are government schools.

This story is Watergate on steroids and they’re all avoiding it because they’re in the tank for Democrats.

No, the Media ARE the 'Rats. The Media run the 'Rat Party and the GOPe as well. The Media are this country's worst enemy. - TTFlyer

Trump has been saying Media runs the Dem party now.

Think you have to go back to who owns the media. NYT (Carlos Slim) and WaPo (Bezos) are no blogs for billionaires.

The central fact is, IMHO, that “media” is a misnomer in more than one way.

First because “media” is, in Latin, a plural noun, and secondly because it isn’t the medium, it is the topical nonfiction format - “news” which is the problem. The fact that journalism outlets can be radio, TV, or print is not the point. The point is that we do not have independent journalism. Journalism as we know it is various outlet of a single journalism. Presses can be 'associated,' or presses can be independent:
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 is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
Obviously journalists - “people of the same trade” “meet together.” What is painfully obvious, if you allow yourself to look at it, is that journalists are in a continuous virtual meeting all the time, via the Associated Press in particular, and all wire services in general. And have been doing so for a century and a half.
It is no wonder that all journalists speak with the same voice. No wonder at all.

Second, very specific aspects of journalism cause it to speak in the particular voice that it does:

Journalism is negative, and knowingly so. Any journalist will tell you that “If it bleeds, it leads.”

Journalism claims to be objective. It is too obvious that journalists need to do this, to require any illustration.
The implication of those two facts is that journalists are claiming that negativity is objectivity. But the implication of such a claim is inescapable: “the conceit that negativity is objectivity” is a perfect definition of “cynicism.”
Journalism has cynicism built into it. What does that mean? It does not mean that journalism is cynical about government. As Thomas Paine pointed out in the opening paragraphs of Common Sense, “society” and “government” are in a very real sense opposites. Society is a patron, government is a punisher. Society is a blessing, government - at best - is a necessary evil. Government is considered necessary only to the extent that skepticism toward society is considered valid/necessary. The implication is that cynicism toward society is a rationale for faith in - if not naiveté toward -government.
The character of socialism - call it “liberalism” or “progressivism” or whatever - is exactly the same combination of cynicism toward society and naiveté toward government which we see in journalism.
What is then to be done? IMHO the Associated Press and its membership should be sued, joint and several liability, for all the abuses of the people which their cynicism toward society has motivated them to perpetrate. One egregious example is the George Zimmerman case, in which a propaganda campaign sought to railroad Zimmerman into jail, and all of “the MSM” joined in it. Zimmerman had to defend himself from an attacker motivated by that propaganda. The Duke Lacrosse team “rape” fraud by Crystal Mangum and Michael Nifong is another obvious case. And so is the FL 2000 call of Florida for Gore before the polls were all closed, resulting in the narrowest of margins of victory by the Republican who should have won relatively comfortably. The name of such cases is “Legion, for we are many.” The AP should be sued into oblivion, on antitrust grounds. And claims of “objectivity” by its membership should be completely delegitimated.
We have a free press. We require free and independent presses.

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