Jonathan Turley — jonathanturley.org Feb 1, 2023
We previously discussed the movement in journalism schools to get rid of principles of objectivity in journalism. Advocacy journalism is the new touchstone in the media even as polls show that trust in the media is plummeting. Now, former executive editor for The Washington Post Leonard Downie Jr. and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward have released the results of their interviews with over 75 media leaders and concluded that objectivity is now considered reactionary and even harmful. Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle said it plainly: “Objectivity has got to go.”
Notably, while Bob Woodward and others have finally admitted that the Russian collusion coverage lacked objectivity and resulted in false reporting, media figures are pushing even harder against objectivity as a core value in journalism.
We have been discussing the rise of advocacy journalism and the rejection of objectivity in journalism schools. Writers, editors, commentators, and academics have embraced rising calls for censorship and speech controls, including President-elect Joe Biden and his key advisers. This movement includes academics rejecting the very concept of objectivity in journalism in favor of open advocacy.
Columbia Journalism Dean and New Yorker writer Steve Coll decried how the First Amendment right to freedom of speech was being “weaponized” to protect disinformation. In an interview with The Stanford Daily, Stanford journalism professor, Ted Glasser, insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” He rejected the notion that journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views “journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality.” Thus, “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”
Lauren Wolfe, the fired freelance editor for the New York Times, has not only gone public to defend her pro-Biden tweet but published a piece titled “I’m a Biased Journalist and I’m Okay With That.”
Former New York Times writer (and now Howard University Journalism Professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones is a leading voice for advocacy journalism.
Indeed, Hannah-Jones has declared “all journalism is activism.” Her 1619 Project has been challenged as deeply flawed and she has a long record as a journalist of intolerance, controversial positions on rioting, and fostering conspiracy theories. Hannah-Jones would later help lead the effort at the Times to get rid of an editor and apologize for publishing a column from Sen. Tom Cotten as inaccurate and inflammatory.
Polls show trust in the media at an all-time low with less than 20 percent of citizens trusting television or print media. Yet, reporters and academics continue to destroy the core principles that sustain journalism and ultimately the role of a free press in our society. Notably, writers who have been repeatedly charged with false or misleading columns are some of the greatest advocates for dropping objectivity in journalism.
Now the leaders of media companies are joining this self-destructive movement. They are not speaking of columnists or cable hosts who routinely share opinions. They are speaking of actual journalists, the people who are relied upon to report the news.
Saying that “Objectivity has got to go” is, of course, liberating. You can dispense with the necessities of neutrality and balance. You can cater to your “base” like columnists and opinion writers. Sharing the opposing view is now dismissed as “bothsidesism.” Done. No need to give credence to opposing views. It is a familiar reality for those of us in higher education, which has been increasingly intolerant of opposing or dissenting views.
Downie recounts how news leaders today
“believe that pursuing objectivity can lead to false balance or misleading “bothsidesism” in covering stories about race, the treatment of women, LGBTQ+ rights, income inequality, climate change and many other subjects. And, in today’s diversifying newsrooms, they feel it negates many of their own identities, life experiences and cultural contexts, keeping them from pursuing truth in their work.”
There was a time when all journalists shared a common “identity” as professionals who were able to separate their own bias and values from the reporting of the news.
Now, objectivity is virtually synonymous with prejudice. Kathleen Carroll, former executive editor at the Associated Press declared “It’s objective by whose standard? … That standard seems to be White, educated, and fairly wealthy.”
Outlets like NPR are quickly erasing any lines between journalists and advocates. NPR announced that reporters could participate in activities that advocate for “freedom and dignity of human beings” on social media and in real life.
Downie echoes such views and declares “What we found has convinced us that truth-seeking news media must move beyond whatever ‘objectivity’ once meant to produce more trustworthy news.”
Really? Being less objective will make the news more trustworthy? That does not seem to have worked for years but Downie and others are doubling down like bad gamblers at Vegas.
Indeed, the whole “Let’s Go Brandon” chant is as much a criticism of the media as it is President Biden.
If there is little difference between the mainstream media and alternative media, the public will continue the trend away from the former. MSM has the most to lose from this movement, but, as individual editors, it remains popular to yield to advocates in their ranks. That is what the New York Times did when it threw its own editors under the bus to satisfy the mob.
As media outlets struggle to survive, these media leaders are feverishly sawing at the tree branch upon which they sit.
Presstitutes are professional liars. Objective journalism is a myth, and advocacy journalism is just another way of lying.
BBC presstitutes upset that Lineker can call the UK Nazi state out, but the truth is, no BBC presstitute would ever do what Lineker did, unless they won the lottery.
Russell Brand can shoot his mouth off, even if his rants are heavily skewed, because he has money. Lineker has money, but all the other presstitutes who have broken away from the official scripts, they’ve done so, because their careers have faded, or they faded and moved to GB News where they take their directions from MI6/handlers.
The MSM stopped their fake news accusations when people like me started calling the MSM the fake news. So they changed it, or refrained it into fact checking. I can hear it now, up and down Charlie’s land, ‘Has dat bin fact checked’?
Well what do you expect The Washingstein Post is a jewish propaganda outfit owned by Bezos….
Ditto The New York Times
Ditto The Guardian….who reckons reader donations keep it going.Infact it will be the usual selection of Jewish oligarchs.
I haven’t read a newspaper in, well, 18 years now. And I can say pretty much the same with TV. Of course, being in a pub, it’s on, but I never watch it or pay attention. Most times it’s some football game or whatever.
Anyone who reads the msm, in my opinion, is a complete and utter moron. And the minute I’m in company with a journalist I walk away, showing my utter contempt for them.
It’s nothing but a heavy indoctrination tool, a brainwashing outlet and a tentacle of the state. There is nothing worthwhile in the msm, absolutely nothing at all.
I should also have added…
The reason behind this, obviously, is to promote the views of the degenerate homosexuals and the low IQ, immigrant population, notably from Africa, and most Muslim countries.
“NPR announced that reporters could participate in activities that advocate for “freedom and dignity of human beings” on social media and in real life.”
In other words, homosexuality is degeneracy, unacceptable behaviour, immoral, unnatural and abnormal but regardless it will be foisted upon society and hammered into them until they eventually accept it, through subjective, media reporting.
What many of you do not understand is, as I’ve written so many times on this forum, it’s ideological subversion of the younger generations. They’ve won, because generation Z are so FUBAR that they will prefer lies over the truth as long as it makes them feel happy and not insulting the LGBTQ+ and other minorities completely opposite to all that which is European heritage.
Bottom line? European people are committing suicide and handing the axe to their executioners. Madness.
They’re calling for something not even TASS called for. TASS was a propaganda sheet not a total lie rag. Readers will start leaving them on the shelf. Lots of people are starting to see how fake it has all become so their answer is to double-down on fake. They can’t make them compulsory to read, after which business won’t fund the millions they cost to publish and distribute daily, so print is another industry that will die.
Ah the genius of Huxley and Orwell, amongst so many others completely ignored and ridiculed by the masses. You will be told what is, and what is not!!! Evidence be damned.
Never interrupt an enemy when he’s busily committing suicide…
…and when you need an operation to fail spectacularly and fall into its own footprint without the need of a jumbo jet …always staff it to the gills with schoolmarm narcissist women and and angry divisive ethnics…
“Here endeth the lesson..”
The corporate mainstream media has zero credibility and it “free[d] itself from this notion of objectivity” a long long time ago. Anyone who thinks the legacy media will provide actual news or accurate information is dangerously stupid.
“Polls show trust in the media at an all-time low with less than 20 percent of citizens trusting television or print media.” … That percentage corresponds to the percentage of the population that would probably register as being literally mentally retarded. And many people certainly do not trust major media, yet even those who KNOW the corporate media distorts and lies through their teeth still tune right in like compliant hungry imbeciles when there is some kind of major event…and it is those major events that spawn the largest avalanches of distortions, lies, and outright bullshit.
The ONLY news on broadcast channels you can even mildly trust are those local stories in which you can personally go verify. If it is a “national” or “international” piece on the mainstream media, then you can bet your last dollar it is propaganda at best, if not a destructive lie.
See, the problem is, well, the core problem is practically all corporate news networks are owned and controlled by nefarious Jews, but coinciding with that is the courts have declared “news” to be entertainment, with one judge even stating, “They are under no obligation to tell the truth”.
Corporate media holds a large share of the responsibility for the degradation and destruction of our nations. Recognizing that even many who KNOW the “news” lies shamelessly STILL turn to the “news” when there is a major event, then it is those propaganda outlets and shamelessly lying talking heads and producers that need to be at the top of the target list when the revolution begins.
“Objectivity Has Got To Go”
Newsflash: It was NEVER there to begin with! 😅😂🤣
It appears that in cancelling the remaining laws against media lying (Canada 2019) they are following the same pattern in saying it is going on anyway, as they did with abortion, sodomy and legalizing drugs, and that their enlightened view of what “social justice” is should be free of restraints to change the views of the unwashed and inferior public thinking on these issues. After all, what is the purpose of having such wealth and power unless they can wield it the way they want?
According to the power moguls who own the mainstream media, their main justification to sweep away any remaining legal restrictions against their lying, is that it has been going on for centuries anyway, and in any case the truth is simply relative to their point of view and interests. For instance, with the Covid plandemic the media all over the world lied to public in lockstep unison, being paid off handsomely with heaps of payola, and in the belief they were ushering the plans of their masters for a new order. Complete schleps, everyone of them.
The problem was not laws against media lying. The MSM has little if any of objectivity to it anyway. Not only do they freely fabricate fake news, twist, hide and distort objective facts to suit their interests or the interests of those who pay them, but their gatekeeps select only the news stories which will serve those interests and blank out the others. What their major concern of the owners is is not the totally dishonest and corrupt conduct of MSM but rather the uncontrolled conduct of the independent media uncovering the objective truth regarding the vital interests of the people and freely exposing it to them . This freedom makes the job of the MSM and all of the social engineers exceedingly more difficult. But for the independent media and independent experts there would be no concern even about the Covid vaccines.
What they want are laws to snuff our the independent media so that only the official views of the establishment are propagated, as in China, and if they cannot do that directly in the West then they will try to do it indirectly, simply by going the full distance on the moral relativist gambit and legalizing MSM lying on the basis that truth is a matter of opinion with little objectivity to it anyway, and then with lying and dishonesty becoming even more common place, the public will become so divided that the only reality to them simply will be what their government says and does regardless of their views.
Advocacy journalism is just an euphemism for propaganda.
Newsreaders already tell you what to think, with their tone-of-voice e.g. sound sad if some foreign invaders died in the sea and never made it here
“Mass Media” is a big nothing shrinking day by day.
Since the lockdowns, at least in the USA, no white person watches television. If they want to see an old movie or whatever, they just download it and skip all the junk. This is logical — American television is aimed at minorities and migrants and even then the number of viewers is dropping.
The silly billys of television have kicked the floor out from beneath their feet. There’s only one thing left and it may come sooner than we think.
enjoy the communist jew Pravda !
And any time you feel the pain
Hey dude, it’s plain
You’re waiting for something to deform with…
Jews hate objectivity and reason because it always spotlights them as guilty (they are). More rationale and reason is needed.
I haven’t read a newspaper for years, goes like this. Selling Newspapers, Telling lies…
Journalistic objectivity is an oxymoron like congressional ethics. When was journalistic integrity EVER a reality ? The MSM bobble heads lie to us for a living. Other than local weather forecast , traffic report – car crash on highway , house fire type reports , it’s all propaganda. I always assume the MSM is lying and then work my way back from there to see if there’s a scintilla of truth mixed in. I tell people to take what the media tells them and believe the opposite and they’ll be in good shape most of the time.
Purpose of the media — I call it the five D’s : DECEIVE , DIVIDE , DISTRACT , DEGRADE , DEMORALIZE
Journalists these days are all:
a) spooks or b) clueless gullible kids. I see them up close I have direct experience of these Schmucks.
Selling newspapers, telling lies…