You have to be careful with journalists and McCarthy. He was the master at playing reporters, and his recent biography shows that for some time he was very “in” with reporters. There certainly were leftist streams in journalism before 1960, but our research shows that the five major papers, in both domestic and foreign policy, on a scale of conservatism vs. liberalism were quite conservative from 1958 until the mid-1960s.
At the same time that I assert that Big Journalism was leftist in the 1950s, I grant that it has gotten much more so in the last couple of generations. And I admit that I spent decades wondering why journalism was leftist, even as it got more so - and now that I see the mechanism for leftism in journalism, my only question is "What limits the leftism of journalism?"If journalism wasn't as leftist in the past as it is now, what prevented it? I think that religion has to be considered as a factor. Journalism isn't just news, journalism is bad news - and the word "gospel" means good news. Writing to the Philippians (4:8), St. Paul writes,
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.Reporters tend to consider that stuff to be boring, and reporting it certainly doesn't fit the template of magnifying the reputation of the journalist by tearing down the reputation of people who are just trying to make an honest buck by providing a good or service that people will willingly pay for.I just had the scary thought. "Doctor New Deal" was replaced by Doctor Win-the-war" because the New Deal was a cardboard hero - and the Axis wasn't a cardboard villain. WWII might have had the effect of sobering up some of the cardboard heroes with the example of some real villains who transcended the cardboard ones with which cardboard heroes are eager to contend. Maybe it just took a while for that sobriety to wear off . . . and it won't be reestablished until such time, if ever, that we face another existential threat like the Axis Powers - and survive?