Gerson, a self-described “compassionate conservative,” asks in the Washington Post (via realclearpolitics.com) if the demise of what is assumed as traditional journalism makes any difference:
For many conservatives, the "mainstream media" is an epithet. Didn’t the Internet expose the lies of Dan Rather? Many on the left also shed few tears, preferring to consume their partisanship raw in the new media.
[A] visit to the Newseum is a reminder that what is passing is not only a business but also a profession — the journalistic tradition of nonpartisan objectivity. Journalists, God knows, didn’t always live up to that tradition. But they generally accepted it, and felt shamed when their biases or inaccuracies were exposed. The profession had rules about facts and sources and editors who enforced standards. At its best, the profession of journalism has involved a spirit of public service and adventure — reporting from a bomber during a raid in World War II, or exposing the suffering of Sudan or Appalachia, or rushing to the site of 9/11 moments after the buildings fell.
By these standards, the changes we see in the media are also a decline. Most cable news networks have forsaken objectivity entirely and produce little actual news, since makeup for guests is cheaper than reporting. Most Internet sites display an endless hunger to comment and little appetite for verification. Free markets, it turns out, often make poor fact-checkers, instead feeding the fantasies of conspiracy theorists from "birthers" to 9/11 "truthers." Bloggers in repressive countries often show great courage, but few American bloggers have the resources or inclination to report from war zones, famines and genocides.
The democratization of the media — really its fragmentation — has encouraged ideological polarization.
Is this characterization the truth? Ideological polarization? That seemed to work pretty well in the early years of the Republic. Mr. Gerson reminds me of a dreamy-eyed idealist. The present media landscape is horrible, while the past was something approaching nirvana.
I came of political age when Ronald Reagan was elected, before the so-called “democratization of the media,” and what is known as the “mainstream media” was virulently anti-Reagan. In fact it was the left-wing tilt of the media that paved the way for Rush Limbaugh and all his talk radio acolytes.
No, there was never such a thing as objective journalism, nor can there be. But the Cassandras who lament the loss of this supposed ideal are convinced we are going down the media rat hole. They are right in that it takes resources, i.e. money, to report the news from far-flung places and locally as well, but that is the only part of their complaint that has credence.
Being a person of some historical curiosity, I am somewhat aware of what journalism was like around the founding of our fair country and for much of America’s history, and the word “objective” doesn’t come to mind. I don’t know if it is out there, but I would love to see a history of journalism in America. All of what I’ve read about journalism in American history comes as part of a larger historical narrative.
It would be interesting for someone to write a book that details what journalism was like prior to what is known as the progressive era of the muckrakers. Something tells me that the genesis of what is now known as objective journalism started there.
–Mike D’Virgilio
Although I’m not familiar with the personal hygiene of Mr. Gerson, anyone that calls himself a “compassionate conservative” certainly perceives himself as superior to the rest of we hard-hearted just plain old conservatives. Thus is his judgment on the nature of things suspect, and likely absolutely wrong as in this case.
Mike, I agree completely with you on this. Your point that “All of what I’ve read about journalism in American history comes as part of a larger historical narrative” is an essential thing to know if one is to understand the essential false and self-serving nature of contemporary calls for greater journalistic objectivity.
With objectivity defined as pressing a progressivist agenda, it’s obvious what a crock this argument is.
The fact that Gerson, an atrocious egotist and creepy dirtbag, is pressing that argument is a great indication that we’re on the correct side of this issue.
I notice that Gerson provides no real examples of “the journalistic tradition of nonpartisan objectivity.” Probably because there aren’t any. And of the story ideas he does provide, all of them presume a point of view from the journalist. During WWII, can anyone imagine a reporter attacking the necessity of that bombing raid, or writing stories about how those suffering in Sudan or Appalachia are responsible for their own problems, or taking up the idea that America was to blame for the animus that led to the 9/11 terrorist attacks … oh, wait a minute … on that last point, isn’t that exactly what the so-called objective journalists mused on?
Reporters in WWII had very strong biases in favor of America and against Nazism and Imperial Japanese militarism. Stories lead with sympathy for those suffering in Sudan or Appalachia.
It may be possible to write “just the facts” stories, but even that requires what “facts” someone is reporting. For example, I wrote a short piece about a mining company whose latest project will directly impact my friend’s fishing business. Even if I took the “just the facts” position, I’m going to shade the facts I choose to to include in the story to fit the narrative I’m creating.
I think that is what Gerson and many others fail to acknowledge. Reporters are writing stories that have a narrative with a beginning, middle and an end. We hope these stories are not made up out of whole cloth, but at the same time we have to remember that they are still stories.
On another point – I think Gerson is longing for a time when the media’s bias was practically uniform so there was nothing with which to contrast it. When “Uncle Walt” Cronkite was the voice of news, there wasn’t another network with which to contrast his liberal bias. There wasn’t another network reporting that the Tet Offensive was actually a failure for the North Vietnamese, in contrast to Cronkite’s reports that it was an American military defeat.
Gerson is pining for a time that never was.