While listening to the Hugh Hewitt show on my way home from work tonight, I caught pieces of his interview with Eric Black, a reporter from the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The interview was sparked by, in Hugh's own words, "deeply dishonest reporting of the Wetterling campaign in Minnesota's 6th Congressional District."
Hugh focused a lot of the interview around that specific topic; however, what I found MOST interesting was the way Eric tried to explain "objectivity." His view seemed to be that journalists cannot make their own political views transparent to the reader because it will taint the reader's opinion of his objectivity. In other words, a journalist is being more objective by disguising his own personal filters and biases.
In the course of working on a degree in Mass Communications years ago, I was taught by Professor Wickland at Western Kentucky University that EVERYTHING we see, hear, and read is processed through "filters." These filters are a conglomeration of our own personal experience with the subject, what others we respect have said about the subject, and our culture's attitude toward the subject.
Given a set of facts, how do reporters decide on the headline? From what angle do they approach these facts to make them interesting to a reader? These decisions are made through filters. So then, we must ask: how is it that ANY human being, much less any journalist, maintain true objectivity? Well, I suppose we do it based on how we've filtered our own understanding of it, don't we?
While journalists in their plastic bubble pretend to be exercising objectivity, we all sense that something's just not right... It's like, when you were a kid, there was that creepy guy that you just KNEW was a pervert even though he hadn't displayed such behavior in your presence; he was oblivious to just how odd he was while trying to cover up something you probably didn't want to know about him anyway. It was obvious that SOMETHING was up with the creepy guy but you were never exactly sure what it was.
The journalists are really no different. We all sense they're hiding their true biases even while they pretend to have none. No one really says much because we don't know how they'll react if we call attention to their odd behavior. After all, there's really no need to set off a psychotic reaction when we can all nod and agree... just be sure not to leave your kids alone in the room with that creepy MSM guy.
Hugh focused a lot of the interview around that specific topic; however, what I found MOST interesting was the way Eric tried to explain "objectivity." His view seemed to be that journalists cannot make their own political views transparent to the reader because it will taint the reader's opinion of his objectivity. In other words, a journalist is being more objective by disguising his own personal filters and biases.
In the course of working on a degree in Mass Communications years ago, I was taught by Professor Wickland at Western Kentucky University that EVERYTHING we see, hear, and read is processed through "filters." These filters are a conglomeration of our own personal experience with the subject, what others we respect have said about the subject, and our culture's attitude toward the subject.
Given a set of facts, how do reporters decide on the headline? From what angle do they approach these facts to make them interesting to a reader? These decisions are made through filters. So then, we must ask: how is it that ANY human being, much less any journalist, maintain true objectivity? Well, I suppose we do it based on how we've filtered our own understanding of it, don't we?
While journalists in their plastic bubble pretend to be exercising objectivity, we all sense that something's just not right... It's like, when you were a kid, there was that creepy guy that you just KNEW was a pervert even though he hadn't displayed such behavior in your presence; he was oblivious to just how odd he was while trying to cover up something you probably didn't want to know about him anyway. It was obvious that SOMETHING was up with the creepy guy but you were never exactly sure what it was.
The journalists are really no different. We all sense they're hiding their true biases even while they pretend to have none. No one really says much because we don't know how they'll react if we call attention to their odd behavior. After all, there's really no need to set off a psychotic reaction when we can all nod and agree... just be sure not to leave your kids alone in the room with that creepy MSM guy.
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