December 3, 2024
A major problem in America today is the abandonment of its traditions. The two-parent family is no longer the dominant feature it once was. The idea of citizenship, love of country, is less obvious these days. So many things have changed, as the culture of America devolves.
And one of the greatest of those is the honor and integrity that once accompanied some of our professions.
People in education too often no longer embrace and abide by traditional concepts and values. They often change what is done in classrooms without notifying parents, or going through official processes. Too often, schools teach what to think, rather than how to think, pushing certain concepts while hiding others.
News journalism once was a clear-cut process of reporting to the public what actually happened in news-worthy events. It didn’t hide relevant information. When reporting on a political topic, it did not take sides. And opinions were not expressed in news stories. The ideals of free speech and objectivity were respected and obeyed.
Yes, there is a place for opinions in journalism, but opinions must be clearly labeled, and not sneaked into news reporting to advance a particular point of view.
That sensible, honorable rule no longer exists for far too many people claiming to be journalists. News is largely no longer the process of keeping the people informed. Far too often news organizations are not providers of needed information, but sources of inducement to a particular way of thinking.
During the COVID frenzy lots of things were labeled as misinformation or false information, and were hidden from the public. However, many things that were labeled and withheld proved to be true and beneficial, and things presented as truth were found to be false.
Among topics where the opinions were hidden from the public were problems with the mRNA vaccine, the source of the COVID virus, and the issue of facemask use and uselessness.
The greatest and most harmful journalistic failures were in the realm of politics. Among those items, in addition to COVID censorship, were opposition to the Hunter Biden laptop story, the Steele dossier fiasco, and the Russian disinformation mess known as Russia Gate.
Social media sites also frequently banned certain pieces of information, claiming they were false. Sometimes this action, even though improper in a nation supporting free speech, was due to honest beliefs that the information was truly harmful. Other times — likely in the majority of cases — it was a politically motivated action, designed to prevent the spread of information contrary to the preferred narrative.
Neither of those are justification for the denial and restriction of the free expression of ideas guaranteed to us by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Even unpopular speech is defended by the free speech guarantee.
Workers at newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations and networks were also guilty of banning certain ideas.
Individuals yielding to political philosophy was often the problem. But there is a much deeper problem. Whereas some so-called journalists allowed political ideals into their work, because they hoped to convince the public more than they wanted to hold to their career integrity, others did the same thing for a different reason: they were trained that way, and believed they were acting appropriately.
There is a broad movement in academia away from the notion of objectivity. Jonathan Turley, a law professor at the George Washington University Law School and legal authority, addressed this in his new book, The Indispensable Right, dealing with the right to free speech guaranteed to us by the U.S. Constitution.
Turley wrote, “In journalism schools, professors now denounce objectivity’s place as the ‘supreme deity’ of American journalism.” One professor, Stanford’s Ted Glasser “has called for an end of objectivity in journalism as too constraining for reporters in seeking ‘social justice,’” he wrote.
This infection has spread from the classroom into the newsroom, as graduates enter the workforce, and join in with those who prefer political success to professional honor and personal integrity.
Speaking of this new view of journalism Turley wrote: “Reporters must serve as active interpreters in framing the news to convey what they view as the truth, including the suppression of opposing views on issues like climate change, the pandemic, or gender identity.”
“In 2023, former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie, Jr. and former CBS News president Andrew Heyward released the results of their interviews with over seventy-five media leaders and concluded that objectivity is now considered reactionary and harmful,” Turley wrote, adding that “Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor in chief at the San Francisco Chronicle, said it plainly: ‘Objectivity has got to go.’”
In his book, Turley follows up the discussion of the infection of journalistic principles with a similar infection of the field of law and interpretation of the Constitution and legal concepts.
In this context, the ideas and circumstances that brought about legal principles based upon the forces at work at the time they were implemented can now be ignored because “things have changed.” Laws and Constitutional principles can be changed at the whim of individuals rather than through established and necessary processes.
This line of thinking will not protect the freedoms Americans treasure and depend upon.
No comments:
Post a Comment