I used to admire journalists as champions of truth.
It would be nice if one day, we would collectively wake up and come to our senses what propaganda-pushers the American media have become. I don't think my understanding of journalism is naive; journalists are supposed to be objective and support a free society by being truthful. However, there are limits to objectivity; first, we are all human, the sum of our own experiences, and therefore fallible and subjectively-minded. Second, it's o.k. to cheer for the home team. It's o.k. to be civic-minded. We're on the good guys' side, for crissake. See this 2002 story by Dave Gilson:
Excerpt:
...[After Sept. 11th,] KOMU in Columbia, Missouri, bucked the trend when less than a week after the tragedy. The station decreed that its staff would be prohibited from wearing flag pins or ribbons on the air.
KOMU said the no-flag rule was meant to ensure its journalistic neutrality and "to deliver the news as free from outside influences as possible." But critics immediately accused it of stifling free expression and snubbing the national mood of patriotic unity. Beth Malicki, an evening news anchor at KOMU, received e-mails calling her a terrorist and a murderer. "Suddenly, I was thrust in the middle of a patriotic war," she says. "My suit jacket was the battleground."
WTF??!?! So somehow people at KOMU thought that by showing solidarity with their country in a time of national crisis with a simple flag pin, they ran the risk of a departure from objectivity? This cowardice and warped world-view defies comprehension.
It would be nice if one day, we would collectively wake up and come to our senses what propaganda-pushers the American media have become. I don't think my understanding of journalism is naive; journalists are supposed to be objective and support a free society by being truthful. However, there are limits to objectivity; first, we are all human, the sum of our own experiences, and therefore fallible and subjectively-minded. Second, it's o.k. to cheer for the home team. It's o.k. to be civic-minded. We're on the good guys' side, for crissake. See this 2002 story by Dave Gilson:
Excerpt:
...[After Sept. 11th,] KOMU in Columbia, Missouri, bucked the trend when less than a week after the tragedy. The station decreed that its staff would be prohibited from wearing flag pins or ribbons on the air.
KOMU said the no-flag rule was meant to ensure its journalistic neutrality and "to deliver the news as free from outside influences as possible." But critics immediately accused it of stifling free expression and snubbing the national mood of patriotic unity. Beth Malicki, an evening news anchor at KOMU, received e-mails calling her a terrorist and a murderer. "Suddenly, I was thrust in the middle of a patriotic war," she says. "My suit jacket was the battleground."
WTF??!?! So somehow people at KOMU thought that by showing solidarity with their country in a time of national crisis with a simple flag pin, they ran the risk of a departure from objectivity? This cowardice and warped world-view defies comprehension.
Today, some seek to swing the balance of objectivity further left beyond the point of no return with an idea Orwell could hardly have conceived -- the 'fairness doctrine'-- an aged idea whose return is owed to liberal phonies like Pelosi who would like to completely squelch conservative outlets by dictating equal time. (See http://www.imprimis.org/, search for 'Fairness Doctrine.') That is the height of irony. The mass media with the most exposure, the t.v. media suffers no such scrutiny. Fortunately, awareness is growing against the scourge of those who seek to shackle journalistic integrity through publications like Whistleblower.
I've often said that no group in America is more responsible for making evil look good and good look evil than the news media," said Kupelian. "This issue of Whistleblower documents something truly astounding – the death of the Old Media before our very eyes, and the rapid growth of the New. In my view, it's the single most positive trend in America today. Without a truly free press, it's really hard to have a free country,"said WND Managing Editor and author David Kupelian.
Something deep and intuitive told me to get away from journalism, I'm glad it did. I chose to do something more constructive. In 2008, the pendulum swung far to the left, as journalists such as Chris Matthews championed socialist-leaning policymakers and openly praised them on television. Trashing Palin and gushing sugar for Obama, it was an incestuous lovefest and despite this, no retort from the station owners, no demand for impartiality from politicians, just business as usual.
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