On Lecturing the Mainstream Media

Donald Trump has accused the mainstream media of being his political opposition.  He claims that they traffic in fake news and that most political journalists are grossly dishonest.  Not surprisingly, those so depicted take umbrage at a president behaving in this way.

Editors and journalists alike reproach Trump for lecturing to them.  This, they say, is not his job.  As our chief executive, he should stick to running the country rather than instructing them on their business.  In other words, they should report and he should listen.

The irony in this colloquy is that the political press has engaged in non-stop lectures on how Trump should behave.  Everyday he is told about his mistakes and urged to take the advice of reporters who know better.

Journalism, as practiced in Washington, New York, and Los Angeles, has become a lost art.  Trump insists that many folks, who pretend to be objective observers, actually function as an arm of the Democratic Party.  They may say they merely transmit information, but they do so in a way that consistently slants it in a liberal direction.

Back in the days of the Soviet Union, the two main journalistic outlets for the regime were notorious for their propaganda.  The running joke was that there was no truth in Pravda—which in Russian means “truth” and there was no news in Izvestia, which translates as “news”.

This verbal witticism may not work for The New York Times or The Washington Post, but these papers have equally transformed into propaganda channels.  They too routinely distort front-page political stories to reflect their left-wing editorial attitudes.

How do I know?  Although I do not subscribe to the New York Times, my wife, who gets it on line, reads the top stories to me most mornings.  Then, if I am interested, I can grab a free copy of the paper at Kennesaw State.

What I peruse almost always begins with a description of how Trump messed up.  What he actually did generally comes later in a story.  And so, if he excludes terrorists from the country, the story starts by depicting how distressed Muslims were with his action.

Likewise, if protestors are tearing up property, the initial focus is on the justice of their complaints.  While members of the Tea Party would have been excoriated for impertinence, radical feminists are praised for their courage.

Nonetheless, the most egregious deficiency in the mainstream media is dishonesty by omission.  Explanatory information not only appears at the end of pieces; it may not appear at all.  Thus, although Trump’s first weeks in office were the busiest in presidential memory, the responses of his detractors took top billing.

Once upon a time, reporters were taught to keep their personal opinions out of their writing.  Those days are long gone.  Nowadays the objective is to be an investigative reporter—without actually investigating.  The goal is to take down a hated president the way Richard Nixon was taken down.

Journalists have become ideologues rather than neutral purveyors of facts.  In print and on television, the aim is to persuade rather than inform.  Emotional outbursts, instead of cool analyses, are the coin of the realm.  Political crusades, as opposed to dry details, are obviously more entertaining.

When I was in high school, my liberal teachers regularly warned of the dangers of “yellow journalism.”  William Randolph Hearst was berated for helping to get our nation into the Spanish American War.  After all, the warship the Maine had probably not been blown up by Spanish saboteurs.

What has changed?  Why the current smug self-righteousness of the fourth estate?  Are reporters smarter or better informed?  Are they more moral and compassionate?  Or is their descent into hypocrisy and bias a sign of our times?  Does it basically reflect the polarization of society at large?

Whatever the cause, many reporters deserve a spirited lecture.  Telling them to do their job is not the same as trying to shut down a free press.  The truth is that they have themselves discredited the press by violating their professional responsibilities!

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University