Journalistic Sloppiness vs. Journalistic Deceit…And a Bonus

Although the mainstream media (the leading print entities and the vast majority of network and cable news and opinion entities) has been moving to the left since the premier candidacy of Obama, they have now crossed the Rubicon of journalistic idiocy.  I suppose it took Donald Trump to push them to this end; but it is equally possible that they always harbored the ambition to cast journalistic ethics aside in quest of their personal agendas and President Trump simply offered them an opportunity to openly do just that. 

Regardless of motivation, we now stand at a point where historically significant news organizations have shamelessly cast aside all pretense of objectivity and consciously combined their editorial sentiments with their news content.  As the quote commonly credited to George Orwell goes…Propaganda is as much about what is left out, as of what is actually said.  The recent controversy surrounding the New York Times (NYT) coverage of SCOTUS Justice Kavanaugh is a perfect example of this warning.  I have watched some discussions of this issue by parties on both sides of the argument and I fear that many of the comments are missing the main point.  There is significant blowback from the right and the left on the NYT’s coverage of accusations against Justice Kavanaugh.  The facts are that two NYT employees wrote a book about sexual misconduct accusations against Kavanaugh.  Books are a commercial venture and it is clearly a choice of the consumer to buy a certain book or not.  As long as you abide by the libel laws, you can craft a book’s content in any fashion you choose.  But the NYT then took those two authors and published an article in their newspaper based on that book’s content.  The NYT article clearly cherry-picked the book (which had also cherry-picked content) for information that bolstered the accusations of alleged victims and clouded the integrity of the accused. 

In response to this ethical lapse in judgment, the NYT and the authors of both the book and the article are now in a finger-pointing exercise of blaming everyone but themselves for the so-called mistakes that have been exposed.  This is where I believe there is a dangerous case of misdirection taking place.  The NYT has a long and, up until a few years ago, distinguished career of reliable and leading newspaper content.  Until it sold its soul to the Resist Trump Devil, it was widely referred to as the newspaper of record.  My point is this: When those involved in this despicable and political journalistic sabotage claim that irresponsible NYT operations in the edit department are the reason for the ridiculous content we have seen in its pages, they are being disingenuous.  After decades of industry-leading operations, the NYT has not suddenly forgotten how to edit articles submitted by their reporters for print.  There has been no failure in the review processes surrounding the NYT news and opinion content.  The investigative resources of the NYT rivals those of any entity involved in national and international news reporting.  The NYT knows exactly what it is printing, it accurately reflects the partisan agenda of that newspaper, and to blame its shameful and false content on sloppy operational practices is simply pathetic.  If you are going to print this garbage, at least have sufficient integrity to stand behind it.

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It is sickening to accept the fact that biased news reporting in this nation has been unleashed by the reality of our country’s partisan divide.  We have arrived at a point where both Left and Right news sources have a sufficient following blindly drinking their political kool-aid as to allow them to pander to their faithful consumers and simply ignore or denigrate those with an opposing view.  For the first few years of the Obama administration, the mainstream media began their news slanting activities under the cover of the news versus editorial premises.  They claimed it was their right…yea, their absolute obligation…to report the news as they see it.  Then the pro-media agenda coverage begin to migrate disproportionately to above the fold or the top of the monitor screen, while the anti-media agenda coverage fell either below the fold or off the screen entirely.  Once that was a fait accompli, it was relatively simple for them to begin the blending of editorial content with news content.  Thus was the birth of what we now refer to as …fake news.  Openly accepting it as fact, the partisans on each side of the aisle are daily nourished by the news sources with the news they want to hear.  They self-validate their own inclinations by listening or reading only those media sources that confirm those personal beliefs; and they have no problem at all finding such sources.  Is it any wonder that there is a hard percentage (35-40 percent?) of the nation that will vote either Republican or Democrat regardless of the facts surrounding policy and/or candidate quality? 

Our country is starving for an independent news source that will present the news in a factual and non-partisan fashion.  Common folks that are not hard-core partisans have reached the point where, at times, they switch the channel from Fox or CNN because they can no longer tolerate the partisan cheerleading.  The NYT and the Washington Examiner each contain some semblance of non-partisan content; but they essentially counter each other in a broader sense of overall political slant.  There are some efforts online and on cable to create an independent, non-partisan news outlet.  But until those efforts become sufficiently attractive to gain some viewers and until the quasi-partisans get so fed up with their partisan news sources that they are ready to jump ship, it is going to be very difficult for these new outlets to survive.  For the time being, the best we can do to try and get an unvarnished view of the reality that is America is to accept personal responsibility for ourselves and view not only the most objective news outlets we can find; but to also view or read the partisan content from both sides of the political spectrum.  Young people especially take heed…the good Lord gave you a brain, but he left it up to you to use it. 

As a bonus to today’s post, I submit for your reading pleasure some more quotations from my favorite Brit, George Orwell.

In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.

Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.

On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.

To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.

If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.

This man sounds more like an American patriot than a Brit, doesn’t he?  Here are three of my favorites:

A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims, but accomplices.

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion; the more intelligent, the less sane.

I really like that last one.  We should all beware of that seductive siren that goes by the name of Certitude.  Now ask yourselves this question: How many of the principles addressed by the previous quotations are in play today, in nearly every aspect of our daily lives; especially when considering today’s post topic?