“Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.” — Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Journalism is negative - “If it bleeds, it leads” and (in any reasonably functional society) “‘Man Bites Dog,’ not ‘Dog Bites Man’” - and journalists know it.Knowing that journalism is negative, journalists claim that all journalists are objective. Trouble is, anyone who thinks that negativity is objective is a cynic. Therefore journalism as we know it is a cynical enterprise. What a coincidence! Socialism is cynicism about society.
There is no reason at all to be surprised that journalists are socialists.
The natural disposition is always to believe . . . 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 . . .
It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. - Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)