The fact that journalism is politically tendentious is none of the government’s business except to the extent that libel suits are enforced by the courts.The reality is, as Adam Smith put it, that
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)Consequently tendentiousness in journalism is strictly a “Dog Bites Man” situation.Where government does in principle have a role, IMHO, is enforcing the Sherman AntiTrust Act (although that could also be done via civil suit). You can’t name “the MSM” as a defendant, obviously - but you can name “the Associated Press and its members” as defendant. All wire services constitute virtual “meetings” of many journalism outlets, and
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. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776)The implication is that you have to be “naive as a babe to believe” that - after well over a century and a half of continual virtual meeting, the members of the AP have not found any occasion to “conspire against the public.” They have, indisputably, systematically claimed to be objective. And yet, just as systematically, journalism is about bad news and they know it. This implies that their claim to be objective is actually a claim that 'negativity is objectivity.’ And that claim is obviously cynicism.Journalism is cynical about society, but since government exists only to control the defects in society, cynicism towards society corresponds to naiveté towards government. And that combination is precisely the precondition for socialist propaganda, which is precisely what “the MSM” projects.
Very deep. I agree and have copied that off to more deeply ponder it.