Preface written September 16, 2008
This is an example of how journalists’ world-view can affect their handling of news reporting. Some people have noted that the news media are largely left-leaning/statist/socialist/Democratic and suggested that there is some sort of left-wing conspiracy in the news media.
Making the news media more neutral might be easier if in fact there were an actual conspiracy. Unfortunately, there is no conspiracy. The slanted coverage of news is due to the world-view of journalists in general. The people attracted to journalism as a profession tend to have a statist, socialist, anti-business world-view. That is to say, they largely vote Democrat. The left-wing, “liberal” media bias is very real. It’s just not something that journalists do on purpose, for the most part.
Some years ago, I read about a survey of journalism school students. A huge percentage of them reported that they had chosen journalism because they wanted to “make a difference.” There was no burning desire to “report the news.” Instead, they wanted to change things, wield influence. They wanted to change the world. They have an agenda.
A free press is not some huge floodlight, illuminating everything so that a well-informed populace can make fully-informed decisions. Rather it is a series of spotlights, each wielded by a journalist or editor, each of whom has a point to make, each of whom wants you to draw certain conclusions. You can learn a lot about a journalist’s world-view by what they cover as well as how. (And by what they choose not to cover.)
I used to be a big fan of CBS’s “60 Minutes.” I didn’t always like their slant on things but made a point of watching every week. Until, in one show, they took the statist approach to two of their three stories. Blatantly so. The stories were these:
Story one was about poor black families (in Louisiana, I think) who were losing their homes and property, land that had been in their families since the end of the Civil War. Many of them were dirt poor, living in little more than wooden shacks. They were losing their properties due to inability to pay exorbitant property taxes.
New development nearby would cause the poor blacks’ property values to increase. With the higher valuations would come higher tax assessments. With the higher assessments came foreclosures. The 60 Minute crew chose to blame developers for building the nearby resorts (called “plantations”).
The second story was about people buying bits of property out in the woods, perhaps to build a summer cabin or such, only to find that they were not permitted to build anything at all due to federal environmental regulations. The 60 Minutes crew chose to (again) blame the developer who sold them the land. I wrote the following letter and have never watched 60 Minutes again.
60 Minutes
524 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
April 9, 1991
Dear 60 Minutes,
In your “New Plantations” piece Morley Safer says of property taxes, “Increases of 600% or more are not uncommon. The Devil is Development.” But Development does not set tax rates or make assessments. Nor does it foreclose for tax delinquency and hold auctions. The “Devil” which does is Government.
Likewise your “Raw Land, Raw Deal” piece could have exposed how vague and overly-broad “guidelines” found in the Federal Manual for Identifying and Delineating Jurisdictional Wetlands are being used to deprive many Americans of the use of their private property. Instead of questioning the practice, you chose to demonize the private sector. Way to go! In response, the Devil will probably increase taxes and write more regulations.
Cordially,
Warren P. Michelsen
Page, AZ
The folks at 60 Minutes have a statist world-view. Of course, the private sector is culpable, in their view. As a libertarian, I see government as the Bad Guys in both of the 60 Minutes stories. And if I were a journalist, that’s the way I’d cover the story. But I’m not a journalist (just ask any “real” journalist what they think of bloggers) so I don’t get the kind of attention garnered by the Mainstream Media.
The lesson for all of us here is to learn to judge the news critically. Are they telling the whole story? Whose story? If something doesn’t sound right, it probably isn’t. How might they have covered the same subject differently, if they had a different point to make?
If you think there’s no bias, try this experiment: Google for “left-wing” and compare that to “right-wing“. Note not just the more frequent mention of “right-wing”, note too the types of stories wherein these words are used.
Mentions of “left-wing” are typically within articles ridiculing folks who believe there is a left wing and “right-wing” is usually found within articles decrying the right-wing. ‘Nuff said.