There was a time when you could. But those days are long gone. Back in the sixties, TV news reporters like Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Chet Huntley, Jim Lehrer, Robert MacNeil and most others were objective and presented the news with nary a touch of bias. People trusted them—deservedly, because they presented the facts and let Americans form their own opinions.
I didn’t even know Cronkite was a liberal until he retired and went boating with Bill Clinton. He was so well respected that reporting from Vietnam after the TET offensive in 1968, he said “I don’t see how America can win this war.” President Lyndon Johnson remarked, “If we’ve lost Cronkite, we’ve lost America.”
But now, journalism is dead—from self-inflicted wounds. It committed Hari Kari, a Japanese suicide ritual. Today, the mainstream media is riddled with liberal bias. And it’s so blatant, that many people just don’t believe or trust them. They’re credibility is about that of a 1950s used car salesman. And that is likely why news organizations are a declining industry which are financially unstable and is slashing thousands of reporters across the globe.
Once upon a long time ago, there was a strict line between news and opinion. That line has evaporated, and mixing news with personal points of view has become common. The indispensable journalist principle of objectivity has been abandoned.
It used to be that reporters would check and double check their facts and get multiple sources for what they wrote. When I was in Journalism school, there was an adage that said, “If your mother says she loves you, check it out!” I guess that’s out of style these days.
In January of 2023, Jeff Gertz, a veteran newsman and former New York Times reporter wrote a 26,000-page report on the investigation of the conspiracy known as “Russiagate” for the prestigious and highly respected Columbia Journalism Review. For five years, the mainstream media pushed the shameful lie that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to subvert an election. Gerth said there were 533,000 articles published about Trump-Russian collusion in just twenty-two months of Robert Mueller’s investigation into that matter.
The list of journalistic malfeasance is virtually incomprehensive. But here are some examples:
The infamous “Steele Dossier” that accused Trump of collusion with Vladimir Putin was filled with unsourced fabrications by the former British spy paid for by the Hillary Clinton. It was total fiction!
The claim that Trump was surreptitiously connected to computers at the Russian financial institution Alfa-Bank was also a blatant lie contrived by Clinton attorneys.
The allegation that Trump’s foreign policy advisors Carter Page and George Papadopoulos were Russian agents was totally fictitious.
Will this change? I doubt it.
Our universities are filled with progressive (far left) professors who shape the thoughts and opinions of their students. And it’s been going on for a long time. I remember a newswriting class in which the prof was commenting on the Chicago riots in the 1968 democratic convention. He didn’t understand how people could support the police. He referred to, among other derogatory remarks, “jackboots” and “Nazi tactics.”
When I objected to this, most of the class looked at me like I’d just turned into a giraffe. Most of them were juniors or seniors, so their attitudes had been molded by left wing teachers.
That, no doubt, still persists.
What say you?
Frank
Frank Victoria is an award-winning author and screenwriter. He’s been an Amazon bestseller with his recent book,The Founders’ Plot, a political thriller for our times. He donates proceeds of his books to Tunnels to Towers and Fisher House, helping military veterans and first responders. His novella,The Ultimate Bet is available on his website and Amazon. Check out his new website:Frank M. Victoria
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