Thursday, April 30, 2009

Who Betrayed 'Objective' Journalism?

By Robert Parry
April 30, 2009

The mainstream U.S. news media often laments the decline of objective journalism, pointing disapprovingly at the more subjective news that comes from the Internet or from ideological programming whether Fox News on the Right or some MSNBC hosts on the Left.

Read on.
Posted by at

3 comments:

Michael Pyshnov said...

I often find how much communist ideology penetrated even the brain of the dissidents. Do you really want objective journalism? Think again. This would mean you need one newspaper, the objective one, and one tv station run by the same person. You wouldn't need anything that is "biased", right?
Well, good journalism, I think, comes from personal views. And I think that people are so tired to hear lies that they now say: Give me one view, the objective one!

Thu Apr 30, 10:18:00 PM 2009
Anonymous said...

Robert, I do not think "who" is the only question, since voters who are trashed in EU news outlets for their political illiteracy. In my mind, the problem is a two-edged sword, one side is so dull it cannot cut through political baloney and the other is not sharp enough to cut through any political argument coming from Washington, D.C. to get at the truth.

On the media's side, nothing short of a revolution in terms of legislation and methodology will turn reporting into the Fourth Estate it should be. We need laws to transform news sources from corporate entities into non-profit servants of the public and laws that mandate the rights of any individual to demand equal time so her or she can reply to disorted news items. Restoring the right of public people to sue for defammation of character would help. Let's also give the FCC the responsibility to fine news people who continually get their facts wrong.

On the public's side, nothing short of a revolution in education and parenting will effectively address the political illitieracy in the country. Less than ten percent of citizens regulary read a non-fiction book on politics. More often than not, the truth is out there in print, but Americans are not readers; instead, they get their news through television "info-tainment" programming aimed at satisfying sponsors and the political leanings of corporate giants whose ubiquitous and power fingers spread through the entire economic community.

I kind of revolution I am writing about was best illustrated recently when I visited a Jewish midschool in my home town. Not only had the students read leading political bestsellers, they were able to discuss current poltical issues in great detail. At first,I thought the students were gifted. However, the teacher assured me they were not. He said, "Their heritage requires that they read and they do all the time."

So, if the information sword in America is to cut through a field of well financed propangand to get at the truth, it will have to be sharpened on both sides - - the media side and the audience side.

Fri May 01, 03:07:00 PM 2009
libhom said...

Even MSNBC only has one liberal, Rachel Maddow, and one moderate, Keith Olberman. Chris Matthews is a conservative Democrat and the rest of the on air personalities are nutty right wing.

This whole "liberal bias" thing is just fascist propaganda.

Sat May 02, 07:14:00 PM 2009

Post a Comment