Posted on 01/31/2013 8:48:17 AM PST by NCjim
Sure - modern journalism is designed to sell. And, in selling, to make the journalist look good. One of the ways modern journalism sells is by flattering the audience. If I tell you that you are public-spirited and knowledgable - while I privately think that you can be convinced of anything that I decide to sell you - I am flattering you. Isnt that what modern journalists are about??Lets not kid ourselves. Were all out to be gods of one kind or another.
We are "inclined to evil as the sparks fly upward. It requires humility to say that about yourself - and humility is precisely the missing ingredient in journalism. If you sign on as a journalist, you are joining a mutual admiration society. Thats why Dan Rather was so unrepentant when he was caught red-handed selling fraudulent Texas Air National Guard memos. He knew that no other journalist would stand up against the consensus that "journalists are objective."No matter how clear it way to you and me that Rather had run with a story so poorly sourced and so unreasonable - even aside from the proof that the memos werent made on a 1970s typewriter, how likely is it that there could be memos like that, getting copied a dozen times, and still not have shown up in the three prior high-profile political races Bush had been in? - Rather knew that he was in a privileged position and was immune from serious criticism. After all, if you cant trust Dan Rather, why can you trust all the other journalists? The rest of the journalists were utterly unwilling to go there, and Rather knew it.
So journalists know that they are in a mutual admiration society, and when they vouch for the objectivity of one of their own, they are really vouching for their own objectivity. And since in the nature of things no one can know that they themselves are objective, they are all engaged in an exercise in arrogance. When you allow yourself to see it, it is blatantly obvious.
There is only one way to attempt objectivity, and that is to scrutinize your own motives and interests and evaluate how they could affect your perspective - to figure out how where you stand might be determined by where you sit. But any openness to that issue is anathema to people who are claiming that they are inherently objective.
Thanks for the ping/post to this thread. BUMP for after work read.
They'll have to act like conservatives, i.e., they'll have to pull their own weight, or starve. But my guess is that they will bitterly criticize the wealthy who, they will remain convinced, are hoarding all the money.
They're like the living dead. They just keep coming.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.