The Strange, Sad Death of Journalism

Townhall.com ^ | November 27, 2009 | Michael Gerson

[Lancey Howard]

But I don't believe that journalistic objectivity is a fraud.

Well, then that's a problem, Michael, because we are seeing right now, before our very eyes, the "mainstream" Democrat newsrooms "journalists" igoring, spiking, and dismissing the expose of the most massive and costly fraud in history. Fifteen years ago, the public would never have discovered that "global warming" was a fraud all along. Now, thanks to the NEW media, more people are learning about it every day.

[Little Bill]

i have a branch of my family that has been in the News Paper Biz for almost 300 year's. started in Dublin, Anglo Irish.

I kind of enjoyed my Uncles progress from Liberal Rat to Conservative Republican, over my life time, He worked for the Glob among others. I kind of think that his investigative reporting in the Sixties and Seventies gave a view of Mass politics that sickened even him.

[Phlyer]

We cancelled out subscription to the local newspaper after years and years - and when we did, we told them it was because any newspaper that would endorse a blatant socialist like Obama does not have the best interests of the community or the nation at heart.

In some ways, it is like celebrity political activists. They are free, at least for now - though ironically the first thing socialists do is work to control the media - to say whatever they want. But I am free to decline support for them. I won't go to a movie with George Clooney, et. al. in it, because they use their fame to advocate something that I find unsupportable. Similarly for 'news' papers.

But for those years that I subscribed to the paper, I would stop off on my way in to work and read it while I ate a little breakfast. It was my way to wake up my mind each day. I wish I could get a true newspaper, and not just statist propaganda.

[Paul Ross]

Ah, its not mere bias that we are seeing from the media. We have been seeing an infiltration ongoing for decades that is now almost total and complete. From the 1962 Congressional Record, Communist Agenda, as revealed by Cleon Skousen, "Naked Communism", note the agenda's explicit targets of "takeover" or "capture":

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
[Can anyone say GOLDMAN SACHS isn't?]

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

a visit to the Newseum is a reminder that what is passing is not only a business but also a profession -- the journalistic tradition of nonpartisan objectivity. Journalists, God knows, didn't always live up to that tradition. But they generally accepted it, and felt shamed when their biases or inaccuracies were exposed. The profession had rules about facts and sources and editors who enforced standards.

Not in my lifetime.

"As Walter Cronkite prospered in the old environment," says Starr, "Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann thrive in the new one.

The author pines for a better, more romantic era in which journalists were more ethical, more concerned for the well being of their country, and less partisan. Of course, the above quote from the article quite tellingly reveals the fact that in the old media model, there was only the one view point, from the left, and no one disputed it. I'll take today's model over yesterday's, thank you very much.

Yes, as an "objective" reporter Cronkite was always the lefty that he openly was as a retired journalist cum commentator.

The codes of "journalistic ethics," and the claims of journalistic objectivity, were not always part of the press. Before the Civil War era, newspapers were not dailies, and they didn't have the Associated Press newswire to feed the maw of a daily press. And the newspapers were consequently much more about the opinion of their printers than about "hard news" - in the gathering of which the printer didn't have a huge advantage over the owner of the general store. So the newspaper was much more open about its opinions, much like the editorial page of today's paper is.

With the advent of the AP, newspapers had not only the motive but - precisely because they were "associated" - the opportunity to claim objectivity without fear of being ridiculed by competitors. The AP homogenized the newspaper industry - making it the less objective for its ability to claim to be more so.

[GOPJ]

I’ll check it out!

[GOPJ]

Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].

Spooky list.

[Reeses]

I love reading obituaries. You meet the nicest people there. Too bad, so sad.

[PGalt]

Thanks for the ping/post; list; thread; comments.

The anti-truth propagandists are on the run. Life is too short to be deceived anymore by discredited liars and enablers of discredited liars.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT