From Rick Moran:
“Freedom of the press is guaranteed and for 230 years, the press has — mostly — used that freedom responsibly. Sure, the pressures of deadlines and the desire to be “first” with a story led to some famous failures. “Dewey Defeats Truman” was supposed to be a cautionary tale for reporters and editors. Instead, along with many proud traditions associated with the craft and art of journalism, the lessons have been forgotten or discarded as outmoded.”
Given how today’s journalists (and most of their editors) are a bunch of ignorant twerps who think that recorded history began around 1990, I would be surprised if they even knew who Dewey and Truman were. (The more knowledgeable ones would probably think that Dewey had something to do with decimals, and “Truman” was that old Jim Carrey movie.)
I think historical ignorance is really only part of the problem. I have to believe on some level that the acceptance of post-modernisms assertions about the subjective nature of truth has caused many journalism schools to throw up their hands and assert that since objectivity is philosophically impossible, why bother trying to be objective? As such the line between reporting and editorializing becomes blurred to the point of being meaningless. Thus journalism is no longer the practice of reporting events from the most objective perspective possible and is now the practice of reporting events as they are seen and interpreted by the reporter.
the practice of reporting events as they are seen and interpreted by the reporter.
Even that would be a step up. In most cases, the event isn’t even seen by the reporter, but repeated from twitter feed or a conjured up fantasy as the “reporter” would like it to be.
I normally assume that any and all “breaking news” from the alphabet networks is simply regurgitated from DNC talking points that were handed to the media at the beginning of the day.
And if it were some other reason, how could we tell the difference?