“Journalism is the protection between people and any sort of totalitarian rule.” – Andrew Vachss
Image Credit: Roger H. Goun / CC
By William Haupt III [Tennessee Watchdog Journalist, Columnist, Author, and Citizen Legislator via The Center Square] –
n 1802, Thomas Jefferson told us, “A press that is free to investigate and criticize the government is absolutely essential in a nation that practices self-government and is therefore dependent on an educated and enlightened citizenry. On the other hand, newspapers too often take advantage of their freedom and publish lies and scurrilous gossip that could only deceive and mislead people.”
Jefferson was greatly criticized by the press during his presidency. But he believed in the truth. He said, “The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the first object should be to tell the truth. Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Media was once the heart and soul of democratic egalitarianism. Thomas Carlyle considered it the most conspicuous social commentator of his time. He saw the press as instrumental to the birth of democracy by reporting facts that led to rebellion against tyranny during the French Revolution.
Carlyle knew a functioning democracy required informed citizens. A democracy is a government of informed people. No governing body can operate without knowledge of the issues on which it is to rule. Media is obligated to inform the citizens and bridge the gap between government and voters.
“The point of journalism is to hold people in positions of power accountable.” – Ana Kasparian
Media have a duty to give equal representation to all opinions for the public. Without media, the loop between government and the public would not exist. Media is essential for preserving democracy. Media’s purpose is to report and repeat facts to the public, not trade appeasement for approval.
In the 19th century, U.S. newspapers were partisan. Editors shaped news and comments to meet partisan views. In 1828, papers opposing Andrew Jackson’s marriage to a woman before she was divorced claimed he was immoral. Pro-Jackson papers supported him, and accused his critics of slander. The good news was there was a left and a right leaning newspaper in every major city.
Before the Civil War, political parties subsidized newspapers through federal printing contracts. Editors or their reporters worked part time for state legislators or in the U.S. Congress. Again, this helped to bring both sides of a story to citizens who wanted to hear party facts, not political fiction.
During the Cold War, we saw partisan news coverage sharply decline. And that’s when journalism became a profession instead of a passion. As returning GIs enrolled in college, with radio and TV competing for talent, we saw the advent of degreed reporters and news anchors. Liberal college professors wrote the playbook and script for today’s avant-garde liberal media news reporters.
By the 1970s, the Cold War fractured bipartisan reporting. The Vietnam war moved more reporters to the left, which dominated media with liberal Democrats. While the Republicans still reported more mainstream news, the left spun a more twisted liberal slant on reporting, which pleased Democrats.
On Election Eve 2000, Tom Brokaw said, “We don’t have egg on our face, we have omelet all over our suits,” after he called the election for Al Gore over George Bush and later retracted that call. Democrats spent five weeks harvesting votes during the Florida recount with media defying every recount after George Bush won. This convinced America we no longer had an unbiased press.
A recent Unleash Prosperity poll of more than 100 of America’s top journalists found that Barack Obama was the most overrated president in U.S. history thanks to his love affair with liberal media. In popularity biased polls, presidents who grew the size of government, like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, are ranked “most successful.” This shows the power and bias of liberal media.
According to a new survey titled “The American Journalist Under Attack,” released by Syracuse University, Republican journalists fell from 18% of the total in 2002 and 7% in 2013 to 3.4% in 2022. That’s significantly lower than the number of Republican voters (26%), according to a 2022 ABC poll.
Democrats in the news industry saw their ranks swell by 8% in 2022 to 36%. The number is 9% higher than the overall Democrat population of 27%, according to the ABC poll. This new survey clearly reflects media is empowering Democrats over Republicans at the expense of the truth.
Yet according to this survey, only 22% of the respondents said U.S. journalism was headed in the right direction, and 60% said it was failing. When asked about the most important problems facing journalism today, their consensus was: declining trust in all media, poor local news, too much bias and opinion journalism, easy access to fake news and the lack of trained professional journalists.
America is evenly split between liberals and conservatives, but media doesn’t reflect that in their reporting. People wonder why more conservatives don’t become journalists? This is supply versus demand. There are few news rooms that cater to conservatives. With the majority of liberal media bashing and distorting conservative thought, few no longer understand what conservatism really is.
If we look at the universities that are cloning liberal prototypes for today’s news rooms, we can see why so few conservatives work in traditional media today. With liberal media checking social media and the internet they can determine if you lean right or left before they review your resume.
Through sheer numbers, the liberal media and progressives have totally distorted the goals and objectives of true conservatism by labeling anyone center right a white supremist, a racist, or a sectarian for not supporting the expansion of government over promoting free market capitalism.
Years ago, when journalism was a passion and not a profession, gum shoe reporters didn’t care about politics, they wanted a scoop and looked under every ashtray to find one. Today’s reporters pull stories off of the AP and regurgitate them, adding their liberal opinions and justify that as news.
George Orwell wrote, “No event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.” This has been going on in “for profit media” for centuries and it will never change. With declining profits, papers are hustling every dime they can get and every political friend they can make just to survive. Since much of that money and spoon-fed news comes from leftist politicians and advertisers, conservative journalists can’t make major inroads with liberal media by telling the truth, and will labor for less for nonprofits.
“Disinformation, and contempt for the truth or the reality of most people’s lives has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage.” – Carl Bernstein
About the Author: William Haupt III is a retired professional journalist, author, and citizen legislator in California for over 40 years and now lives in Tennessee. He got his start working to approve California Proposition 13. His work also appears in The Center Square, The Western Journal, Neighbor Newspapers, KPXJ 21 (Shreveport, LA), Killeen Daily Herald, Aberdeen American News, InsideNova, Kankakee Daily Journal, Monterey County Weekly, Olean Times Herald, The Greeneville Sun and more. Follow William on Twitter @iii_haupt.