Eric’s personal politics are no secret. This post is about real-world news media and coverage, but I think he would feel the same way about reporters and the news media within the 1632verse, so I’m including it.
– Bethanne Kim (Publisher, Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond magazine)
Baen’s Bar
18 July 2009 01:17
Actually, I disagree. I think Cronkite was a very good TV announcer myself, but he helped foist onto the public the silly notion that there was or could be such a thing as “objective news reporting.” This notion — which is thoroughly un-American and completely at variance with the actual history of American news reporting — only became popular because of the stultified, extremely conformist political culture that emerged in America in the 1950s. Once that conformity began to crumble in the late 60s and early 70s, it was inevitable that the appearance of “news objectivity” would crumble with it.
People today routinely decry what they see as the rampant partisanship of Fox News (if they’re liberal) or MSCBC (if they’re on the right of the political spectrum), and seem to view that approach to the news as some sort of deviation from what they apparently think is American custom. In point of fact, while such announcers as Keith Olberman and Bill O’Reilly make no pretense of being non-partisan, they are actually fairly mild compared to most news coverage in American history. If you _really_ want to see partisan news reporting, take a look at the news reporting in the election years of 1800 — “if Jefferson wins, a wave of murder, rape and looting will sweep the nation” — or 1828, or damn near any year in the 18th and 19th centuries and a good part of the 20th. Really, we’re just returning to normal practice.
I prefer it that way. The problem with so-called “objective news reporting” is that it covers up the reality that _all_ news reporting has an intrinsic bias. To give an example, in the late 70s — while Cronkite was still an active anchorman — there were two major events taking place in Southeast Asia: the so-called Vietnamese boat people episode and the Indonesian occupation of East Timor and the genocide which ensued. The American news media — the so-called “left wing media,” and what a laugh that is (a tip: the American media is owned by billionaires and giant corporations, which are not typically “left-wing”) (duh) — gave massive coverage to the first event and maintained an almost total silence on the subject of East Timor. That’s because Vietnam had been an longstanding enemy of the US and the Indonesian military dictatorship which was carrying out the slaughter was seen as an ally.
And Cronkite was no exception.
That’s the reality of so-called “objective” news coverage. It’s a fake and a fraud. That’s why I prefer my bias open and up-front. It’s easier to filter. I do not, for instance — to put it mildly — agree with the view of the world espoused by The Economist magazine. But I read it regularly because the coverage is extensive, they don’t actually lie about anything however slanted their reporting might be, and they are and have been for a century and a half completely open and above-board concerning their political views.
As long as a news reporter or newspaper or media outlet of any kind doesn’t actually lie about things — or, if they make a mistake, publicly corrects the error — then I don’t think people have any legitimate beef.
