MEDIA CRITICISM

“Objectivity” is the sacred cow of professional mainstream journalism. All “professional” J-schools stress the importance of filling reportorial and editorial duties with the utmost “objectivity”. The problem is that, when pursued to its ultimate logical conclusions, human objectivity turns out to be a hoax, a fiction that, in expert hands, usually hides precisely the opposite, a very definite worldview which, wittingly or unwittingly, colors all choices, percepts, and opinions. In an environment in which most J-school students are simply indoctrinated to become unquestioning, careerist cogs in the machinery of capitalist media, discussions of this kind may serve as an alarm bell for those wishing to become real journalists, real servants of the public interest, and actors for their own survival.

JIM MILES—What is not said is that the U.S. defense budget is about 3 times larger than China’s without including all the nuclear and security related monies with that.  Also not mentioned are the U.S.’ 800 or so military bases of all kinds scattered around the world, with most of them oriented towards containing China and Russia.  Nothing is mentioned of current U.S. interventions in the Middle East nor the even more current examples of the U.S. openly extolling the desire to get rid of other countries’ governments, regardless of international law.

DANY SCHECHTER—Bias is a hot-button word. In veteran TV reporter Bernard Goldberg’s hands, it is a cudgel, a weapon to strike out at the people at CBS News who rejected him after a lifetime of service, and more broadly, to advance an ideological agenda dressed up in the appealing clothing of media criticism. A New York Times #1 best seller, “Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News” is published by Regnery, a long-time home for right-wing polemicists and propagandizers.

On Russian TV Maria Zakharova properly calls US journos “politicians” and “propagandists” pretending to be journalists.