Independent Journalists, the Frontline Workers in the War on Truth

Truthful and comprehensive journalism is at the heart of whether we will continue to devolve, or whether we regain our national footing.  By their nature, journalists have a platform with the public, and a tremendous ability to influence it; people believing in and then acting on erroneous information yields destructive consequences. In this way, journalists as a whole advertently support the interests of the Democrat Destroyers; think of the “every man for himself” hysteria stories or the suppression of the efficacy of certain medicinal drugs when COVID first appeared.

Mr. Dooley, the alter ego of humorist Finley Peter Dunne, famously uttered this about the function of journalism:

The newspaper does ivrything f’r us.  It runs th’ polis foorce an’ th’ banks, commands th’ milishy, controls th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead an’ roasts thim aftherward.

Today, we have shortened that phrase to, “Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable.”

The American press has been an institution, and there is a widely held belief that journalists aren’t supposed to lie, distort the truth, or engage in actions designed to subvert the essential mission of journalism, which is to report the facts without bias.  With the introduction of “spin” (also known as propaganda), now the dominant form of reporting, reporters have become just another opinion or, more aptly, propagandists.  Journalists still want you to believe they are purveyors of truth; not misdirectors, or outright liars.  Legacy media is staffed by biased news directors who decide what is newsworthy and what is not.  This is the state of modern journalism in America today.

More than 80% of us get our news from digital devices, according to Pew Research.  This has created a dilemma concerning who controls the internet, as well as an obvious conflict of interest.  Why?  With people having near-limitless sources of information, content providers have to serve two entirely different and conflicting masters/priorities.  First, they must keep their users loyal to their outlet; if they don’t, they fail economically.  Keeping eyeballs looking at their electronic devices 352 times a day on average and viewing their specific content takes precedence over the second master—delivering valuable and honest news.

This is why we have carefully choreographed media adamantly aligning with specific political and social positions.  Truth is very much in question and on trial.  According to Pew Research, made-up news is a significant problem.  But that nagging question is why are we inclined to believe certain sources over others that may be more factual?  We’ve all experienced intelligent people on opposite sides of contentious social and political positions; how does this happen?

Although written to discredit the conservative movement, Dr. Ralph Lewis at Psychology Today offered an interesting answer in response to my questions above. According to Lewis:

1. Many cognitive biases are at play in making us prone to “irrational” beliefs.  Those biases are a feature, not a bug of human thinking.

2. Most of us hold beliefs contradicted by evidence, driven by intuitive rather than empirical thinking, and feeding our need for comfort.

As Lewis asserts, our early upbringing arranged our thinking processes into certain biases that aid us in living our daily lives.  Whether these biases may be true or not is incidental to an essential process.  Conservative homes tend to hardwire their children with a conservative bias, and leftist homes do the opposite.  Later in life, our experiences frequently ameliorate our thinking as we tend to become intellectually or culturally conservative.

So where do our journalists come from today?  Are they hatched to break out of their shells systematically and identically?  From an Atlantic article, one which was pretty glum about journalism in general and reporters in particular, comes the strange assuagement of guilt: “If you’re getting your news from a source you understand to be liberal or conservative, you’re consuming the bias you’re seeking.”  The article also says about journalists, “Four in five said they’re Democrats.”  Is this prima facie evidence of a corrupt process?  We already discussed how many of our young start as liberals.  But why do so many journalists stay that way?

Journalists tend to share four qualities beyond being liberal, according to the Atlantic:

• They’re sadder about their jobs.

• They’ve received higher education.

• They are not rich.

• They’re generally moral.

Envy, greed, and career choice cannot be eliminated as essential factors in why so many journalists lean socialist.  Capitalism, reduced to its essential elements, rewards greed and hard work over all other facets.  It’s rather harsh, a one-plus-one-equals-two view.  Sink or swim—the kind of unfeeling manner in which so many capitalists are tarred yet do so much good for the rest of us in the process.

Suppose you are sad, poor, seeped in academia … you probably think you are all that exists between the helpless and the afflicters.  In that case, you become a journalist and laud your superior understanding of humankind over the rest of us!  Progressives never seem to get boxed in by facts.  They feel good intentions, and being on the right side of moral squishiness is virtuous.  Journalists are supposed to be excellent thinkers and logicians.  They should follow the money or the facts to get to the truth of a story.  Why does it seem that the uber-majority liberal press has never figured out how the United States became so rich and powerful and why so many people want to be here?  All that, despite everything terrible, constantly reported to that special echo chamber of like-minded nincompoops who never seem to grasp the reality of the American experience where the entire world has benefitted from our example and superior abilities enabled by a system of economic freedom available in few other places. 

Biases of reporters and entire news agencies are on display with overt reporting supporting this or that agenda or narrative, bereft of factual, balanced, or nuanced reporting.  Too many reporters, especially cable news journalists, express opinions and use high emotions masquerading as provable facts without logic, context, balance, or even a nod to supposed neutrality.  Nothing stops them as they smugly knock those who built our country and made it possible for them to say what they do and get paid handsomely, all while being fawned over by a cabal of other like-minded so-called truth-tellers who very much aren’t.

If we are to have any hope of reclamation, independent journalists, or truth-tellers not beholden to a network or an agenda, must be a warfront in which anyone who loves America engage. Reporting facts of the matter is not a partisan endeavor, and it is crucial to slowly but surely dismantle the propaganda machine of the left.

God Bless America.

Allan J. Feifer—Patriot, Author, Businessman, and Thinker.  Read more about Allan, his background, and his ideas to create a better tomorrow at www.1plus1equals2.com.