The Grand Illusion
Once upon a time, say sixty years ago, media news was largely about facts and an average reader or listener could usually figure out what was accurate and what was not. No, the news wasn’t perfect, and government hid information back then as well, but most media outlets devoted much more time and effort to digging up hard news, especially the facts. Today, all too many “news” outlets trumpet opinions second-hand and focus on sensationalist “exposes,” often about lesser matters.
It doesn’t really matter whether Hillary Clinton used a private server for some official emails. So did Colin Powell, and there’s no real evidence that either’s use compromised U.S. security. Hunter Biden tried to cash in on his father’s position. So did Billy Carter. Again, there’s no evidence that either President Carter or President Biden did anything wrong. Millions of Americans have greedy relatives. Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinski was deplorable and in terrible taste, but the fate of the free world didn’t exactly hang on a stained dress. So what else is new?
When thousands of people try to storm the U.S. Capitol and overturn an election that state officials from both parties declare was the fairest ever – that is a big deal. And so is a President inciting the mob or repeatedly committing tax fraud.
How did we get to a point where the facts and hard news take a back seat (or are often ignored) to unfounded lies and to those who trumpet them?
Largely because too many in the media have come to focus on what gets people excited and stirred up and how people feel. That drives ratings and profits, even for so-called “staid” and established media outlets such as The New York Times.
The other problem is that far too many media news outlets have focused on “fairness,” falsely equating objectivity to giving both sides equal time/airspace/column inches or the like. Today, the news continues to equate the fact that President Biden inadvertently had a few classified documents in his house and office with the hundreds of classified documents willfully taken and kept by former President Trump. The news media also gave up on noting Trump’s documented tens of thousands of lies and misstatements but scrutinizes Biden’s every statement for even minor inconsistencies.
In such cases, the news media are literally undermining their own objectivity, not that they seem to care that much, but objectivity isn’t measured or determined by equal time or by political beliefs; it’s established by verified facts – and by the lack of facts.
Opinions not backed by facts shouldn’t get equal time. Their shortcomings need to be exposed – factually – and the news needs to concentrate on what actually happened and how, instead of continually churning up the falsehoods and the liars who spout them.
Will this change? Only for the worse, I suspect, because Mammon is now the American God.
I sometimes see your blogs as a series of encapsulated pictures of god … as actually manifest
… the related theory is that you can invoke god by repeating (describing) all gods “1000” names
the point seems to be to arrive at a knowing of (evolving) reality
I wish
I agree with the main thrust of this entry wholeheartedly.
I have to say, though, that as a former civil servant, seeing Hillary Clinton or Colin Powell or any of the rest of them get away with things that would have gotten me fired in an instant doesn’t sit well. To say the least.
Media chases the almighty dollar as much as the next industry, even when that chasing compromises the integrity with which it should be operating. I liken it to healthcare, which is another industry that should be as focused on integrity as profits (and perhaps is not).
I would instead say we had a brief period of factual news and have returned to what civilization usually does. I would argue that Goebbels and Soviet propagandists would enjoy being a part of today’s news reporting. Until Herodotus history was whatever the pharaoh or Cesar wanted it to be. Examples could go on…
Herodotus explained that he reported what he could see and was told.[4] A sizable portion of the Histories has since been confirmed by modern historians and archaeologists.
News under authoritarian control replaced by news under mammon?
I agree. There was a “golden age” of fact-based journalism in the period beginning in the late 19th century until the late 20th century where newspapers became cheap enough to be mass produced and sold widely. In such a competitive market, newspapers quickly learned they had to get their facts straight or readers would simply buy a different paper.
But prior to that, newspapers had much more limited distribution, were expensive and often sold via subscription, and all of them had blatant political slants, often serving as the unofficial party organ for a particular faction. They could, and did, print the most outrageous, scurrilous outright lies about their opponents.
We have now, for different reasons, returned to that age of advocacy and abandoned the age of truth.
Yellow journalism in the US:
“Yellow journalism usually refers to sensationalistic or biased stories that newspapers present as objective truth. Established late 19th-century journalists coined the term to belittle the unconventional techniques of their rivals”
From
https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1253/yellow-journalism
No “Golden Age” exists… merely cheaply gilded.
Perhaps so, but at least they were individually crafted stories instead of so so many that now copy word for word the same opinion piece and then get copied in return. With no concern for accuracy or sourcing their own “news”