Journalists, like good novelists, should be curious about everything and empathetic about everyone. They should seek to tell a different story, not the story everybody else is telling. They should instinctively want to report on what it felt like to be Amy Cooper that morning in Central Park, as well as Christian Cooper. The corollary of this attitude is a deep suspicion of stories with angels and demons which perfectly fit our own story about how the world is. Moral clarity means nothing to report.
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Samizdata quote of the dayAugust 11th, 2021 |
 8 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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It’s a sad situation. The instinctive response might be to assume that journalists have “gone bad”. The situation is more nuanced, as many journalists have simply ceased to be journalists. People I know in BBC Local Radio and local newspapers tell a similar story.
Local and regional newspapers, as printed media, (and their journalists) used to be largely funded by advertising. Guess what? Their revenue, and circulation, has massively shrunk as advertisers switched to online media. So the few remaining journalists are less confident, less curious, more concerned about basic survival, and much more willing to recycle corporate press releases as “news” with little curiosity or critical effort.
In BBC Local Radio, it’s not advertising that has hollowed-out their efforts, it’s “corporate policy” from BBC London that micro-manages what they can report about, and even the way they report it.
e.g.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/revealed-the-bbc-guide-for-covering-climate-change
The orders have gone out. The people giving those orders are heavily invested in all the green agenda companies and eager to push all that tax money to themselves. Their actions say they don’t believe in Climate Change personally, but they can count on the Media to never notice or report their behavior.
I was previously unaware of the fact that Mr Cooper had been rewarded for his actions, which were disingenuous at best and probably deliberately manipulative, with a meeting with Joe Biden.
All very reminiscent of Obama’s ill-judged remarks in 2009 which effectively made clear that the so-called racial healer was in fact nothing of the sort. The subsequent highly propagandised “beer summit”, was attended by Biden who predictably didn’t take on board the lesson that it’s important to consider both sides of the story – especially when you are President. In this context the refusal of the media to report in any way objectively came as no surprise.
It is not just journalists – it is the products of the education system in general.
Ironically the more society pretends to celebrate “free thinkers”, “resisters”, “rebels” (and so on) – the more it crushes them in practice.
And it is not just the United States – take at look at the United Kingdom.
Education used to be about mastering basic facts and learning how to present arguments – that is how I got my A levels and my B.A. and M.A.
Today what would I get? Any qualifications at all? As soon as I started to argue a non Collectivist case my answers would be automatically marked as “wrong”, because I had not repeated back the doctrines the schools and universities now teach.
People talk about how it is easier to get “A at A level” than it was in the past – and, in a way, it is easier. But only if you are prepared to repeat back the “correct” line in the humanities and social sciences (and it is starting to hit the physical sciences – at least at university level). If you challenge the “correct” line you are not going to get a “A” – at least so I am told.
I would not get “A” at A level now – not for writing things hostile to “Social Reform” in history and politics, I would be giving the “wrong” answer, and would be failed. I opposed the policies of Disraeli (and so on) when I was young – just as I do now. But, back then, people who wrote against “Social Reform” could still get good grades (if they argued well), I do not believe that is the case now.
And the people who this system produces go on to be government officials and corporate managers – as well as journalists. They are good (very good) at repeating back the “Woke” line (on everything), but they do not challenge it.
They would have to be stupid to challenge it – if they challenged the official line they would not even get good GCSE passes when they were 16 (I am so old I did “O” levels – but they are long gone now), let alone good jobs in the government and corporate administrative structures.
So to single out journalists is unfair – as it is really just about everyone now. If you challenge the establishment line you do not prosper – so people do not challenge it. It is all quite rational behaviour.
Take a couple of examples….
Markers look for key concepts in examination answers, for example that following “laissez faire” policies made the terrible events in Ireland in the late 1840s worse. What if I argued (which I would) that laissez faire policies were NOT followed – that what actually happened was a massive increase in the Poor Law Tax under the slogan “Irish Property must pay for Irish Poverty” and that this massive increase in taxation (even in areas that were not dependent on the potato – as they were forced to bail out Poor Law Unions in other parts of Ireland) crushed the Irish economy. I would be failed – I would be giving the “wrong” answer.
Or an American example.
Let us say I argued (which I would) that President Herbert Hoover did NOT follow “free market” policies – that he was actually highly interventionist (demanding that real wage rates be kept up – and so on) and that his interventionism made things worse than they otherwise would have been in the 1930s – and that Franklin Roosevelt’s interventionism also made things worse than they otherwise would have been in the 1930s.
Again I would be giving the “wrong” answer – I would be failed. I would get no qualifications (not even pass High School) – and thus would not be in a position to be a journalist, or anything else.
If someone has had to be conformist (conformist in their intellectual work – they can be “rebels” by having a ring through their nose, or whatever) all through their childhood and their young adulthood – careful to give the “correct” answers, in order to get qualifications. Then it is a bit much to expect them to suddenly be independent thinkers as journalists, or corporate managers.
“Be rebels”, “be resisters”, “be nonconformists” – just so long as you think, say and write exactly what we want you to think, say and write.
Just today I was looking at the history of France – specifically how there was less state involvement in such things as ill health, poverty and old age in France compared to Germany and the United Kingdom, before the First World War.
Every source was written in a wildly biased way – France was “backward”, “laggardly”, “behind the times”, and so on. And arguments in France that opposed a larger and more interventionist government in this period were “a misleading publicity campaign”. There was not even a pretence at a neutral, objective, historical account. Ever bigger and more interventionist government was ASSUMED to be correct – that it might not be correct (or, Heaven forbid, that government might be made SMALLER and LESS interventionist over time) was not a possibility that could be allowed at all (essentially such thoughts would be “Thought Crime” to be punished).
Any student who write answers in examinations that did not include the collectivist attitude and key words such as “backward” would not be marked well.
Of course these days qualifications are handed out without examinations (on the basis of “teacher assessment”) and not just in Oregon. But that is another matter.
Do “journalists” include people who work for scientific journals? Or are they editors/gatekeepers?
https://unherd.com/2021/08/how-china-could-win-the-lab-leak-debate/
But not all is lost. For an example of “proper” journalism (enquiring minds and rightfully sceptical attitudes) I offer:
https://usrtk.org/biohazards-blog/ecohealth-alliance-orchestrated-key-scientists-statement-on-natural-origin-of-sars-cov-2/
Rudolph Hucker – thank you for the information.
Would these people have anything to do with the infamous Peter Daszak?
What a name “The EcoHealth Alliance” – everything is given away by the name.
They might as well call themselves “The League for imposing Totalitarian Tyranny”.