May 19, 2016 --
When
I attended Journalism school in the early 1970's I had a
raging liberal news writing teacher who almost failed me in the course because I
refused to write my copy with the sensationalism and liberally biased slant the professor was looking for.
What passes for journalism and news today is little more than angry,
mean-spirited, liberal-leaning gossip.
Political correctness is a horrible
disease that has gotten worse in the 22 years since Robert Novak wrote this
piece. Most schools today, especially colleges, are little more than indoctrination
camps for political correctness. That's why so many people don't know how to
think. Schools do little more than
force kids to memorize political correctness along with the answers to the
government’s standardized tests. There is no attempt to give kids any kind of
moral scaffold or a sense of a higher power, i.e. -- God and Spirituality -- upon which to hang the ideas and information
that gets thrown at all of us today by the vast media sources that our modern
world provides. That’s why people don't know how to look at multiple sides of issues
and form thoughtful conclusions on their
own. They need the biased media, liberal
education, the church, the government or corrupt politicians to tell them what
they should believe.
Thinking is too
hard for most people in our modern world.
Many people are so brainwashed with political correctness that all they
can do is spout the liberal talking points that have been drilled into them
from childhood. It’s impossible to have a civil dialog with these poor sad
people on any important social or political topic. Their identities and the
make-believe worlds they have invented are threatened by common-sense
conservative points of view and concepts such as God, self-reliance and
free-market capitalism without government regulation.
They
quake and take umbrage at the suggestion that people need to be
responsible and accountable for their choices and actions.
They imagine that there are
no bad people in the world who might deserve capital punishment for murder, rape or public mayhem.
They rebel at the notion of societal norms such
as defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
They lash out in
anger at anybody who dares offer any sort of idea or opinion that is
politically incorrect or doesn’t fit the liberal agendas and templates with
which they identify.
Political Correctness in the
Newsroom
By Robert Novak
Imprimis – November 1994 – Hillsdale College
A free press is one of the foundations of a free society. Yet
Americans increasingly distrust and resent the media. A major reason is that
many journalists have crossed the line from reporting to advocacy. They have,
in effect, adopted a new liberal creed: “all the news that’s ‘politically
correct’ to print.”
How does one define “political
correctness” in the newsroom? One need look no further than the new style book
of the Los Angeles Times, one of the largest, most influential newspapers
in the nation. It forbids reporters to write about a “Dutch treat” because this
phrase is allegedly insulting to the Dutch. Nor can one report that a person
“welshed on a bet” because that would be insulting to the Welsh, and one
certainly cannot write about a segment of our population once known simply as
“Indians.” They must always be referred to as “Native Americans.” Jokingly, I
asked one of the Los Angeles Times editors, “How do you refer to
Indian summer? Is it now Native American summer?” He replied that he would
substitute “unseasonably warm weather late in the year.”
This is what political
correctness can do to language; it destroys meaning. It also demeans the ethnic
groups it supposedly protects. Do we really think that these groups are so
unintelligent as to be unable to distinguish between conventional idioms and
genuine prejudice? Is their identity so fragile that it must depend on
censorship?
People who believe in the real
dignity of the individual, no matter what his race, sex, ethnicity, or other
condition, shouldn’t embrace political correctness because it is bad
philosophy—and reporters shouldn’t because it is bad journalism.
Elitist Reporters
Twenty-two years ago, I wrote a
paper in which I alienated many of my colleagues (and won the approval of a
few) for publicly stating that the national media—the five hundred or so
reporters and editors based mainly in Washington, D.C. who work for newspapers,
wire services and television networks—had become elitist. I noted that
reporters were no longer the typical working-class populists of earlier years
who lived on small salaries and who had constant contact with ordinary people,
problems, and views.
But the members of the Washington
press corps are even more elitist today. I am not just referring to “media
stars” like, Diane Sawyer, who is earning $7 million annually. Most
run-of-the-mill reporters and editors in the national media are in the top 1-2
percent of income earners in the nation. A Washington bureau chief makes over
$100,000 a year; a senior reporter makes over $70,000 a year. Is it surprising
that many of them have trouble understanding and appreciating the difficulties
other Americans face or that they think differently from other Americans about
such issues as taxes, government regulation, crime, family values, and
religion?
I also declared twenty-two years
ago that members of the national media tend to share a uniformly liberal
ideology. This does not mean they are secretly meeting every other week in
someone’s basement to get their marching orders. Rather, their ideology
originates from a number of left-of-center experiences in their university
education, in their tightly-knit peer groups, and in the milieu of popular
culture since the Sixties.
Am I exaggerating the impact of
this liberal ideology? Of the five hundred or so reporters and editors I
mentioned earlier, I am aware of only two who are well known, admitted
conservatives. Nationwide, there are only about ten editorial pages in America
that could properly be called “conservative” and that stance does not extend
beyond the editorial page at more than a handful. At the very least, this
striking imbalance speaks volumes about the potential for liberal ideology to
dominate the news.
Liberal Axioms Held by the
National Media
Of course, many journalists hotly
deny that they are liberals. Others claim that they do not allow their
liberalism to influence their reporting. But here are some unquestionably
liberal “axioms” that I believe (based on polls and other sources as well as my
own experience) are held almost universally by the members of the national
media:
The “rich”
(and this covers many middle-class Americans) are getting richer and the poor
are getting poorer.
The income
of the rich should be redistributed to the poor.
Americans
are undertaxed.
Our taxes
are well below those imposed in Europe, and the federal government should
therefore raise rates, especially for those who earn more, save more, and
invest more.
Government
is, on the whole, a positive force in America that has done vastly more good
than harm.
The
balanced budget amendment is a dangerous idea.
Term limit
amendments are even more dangerous and are also undemocratic.
There is a
nationwide health care crisis, and only the government can solve it by
establishing universal coverage for health insurance.
The
“religious right” (a term that lumps millions of ordinary believers together
with a few extremists) is a serious menace to the future of American society.
Being
pro-choice is not enough; there should be absolutely no interference with the
reproductive rights of women.
To support
school choice, whether through vouchers or tax credits, is to support the
destruction of all public education.
It is far
better for the forces of the United States to be under multinational command
than for them to be controlled by our own military commanders.
Conservatism
is a narrow philosophy; liberalism, by contrast, is more broad, unprejudiced,
and compassionate.
Advocacy Journalism
There is no doubt that the strongest trend in the media industry is
toward advocacy journalism. The news sections of most newspapers are even more
ideological than when I first criticized them twenty-two years ago. Once the
editorial page was the place for journalists to express their opinions, but now
they do so on every page, including the front page—under the misleading banner
of objective reporting.
Increasing selectivity is also leading to increasing bias; members of
the media are not only more subjective in determining whether a story will make
it into the news but in determining what kind of “slant” it will be given and
how much coverage it will receive. Even the wire services have succumbed,
running (and not running) stories that in the past would have gotten the
reporters and editors responsible for them fired. And, of course, the worst
examples of bias and selectivity are seen on network television programs, which
have come to value “entertainment” more than the news.
Liberals often argue that
conservative bias—as evidenced by a growing number of conservative journalists
ranging from William F. Buckley, Jr., to Rush Limbaugh—makes up for any liberal
bias in the media and leads to “balance.” But they are being disingenuous, and
not just because liberals greatly outnumber conservatives in the journalistic
profession. Buckley, Limbaugh, and others like them are opinion journalists.
They have never tried to represent themselves otherwise. Moreover, bias of one
kind cannot possibly “make up” for other kinds. By all means, liberal and
conservative views are welcome in certain areas of journalism, but when they
intrude on the objective reporting of the news, they are both equally harmful.
Reforming the American Media
How do we return to the old
standards of objectivity and “a fair press”? It is important for Americans to
make their views known and to convince the media that reform is not only
desirable but necessary. But this is not enough. Twenty-two years ago, I
remarked that the pressure of public opinion would surely force the media into
more responsible behavior, but it has not happened.
That is why we must also take
special care to educate properly the young men and women who want to pursue a
career in journalism. This is not an automatic recommendation for journalism
school; unfortunately, most of these institutions are in the business of
spreading bias and political correctness, not curbing them. And there are none
(with the notable exception of the National Journalism Center in Washington,
D.C.) that challenges the dominant liberal ideology in the media. But one does
not have to attend journalism school to learn the fundamental principles of
good writing, reporting and editing, or to understand bias and how to avoid it.
A good liberal arts education can provide ethical as well as academic training.
Finally, action must be taken at
the top; people who are dedicated to the principles of good journalism as well
as the principles of good business must take leadership positions at or even
buy newspapers, magazines, and television stations. They cannot merely wait for
the current establishment to change—they must lead the way. The stakes are
high. When the media is out of touch with its citizens, the nation is vulnerable—when
facts bow to bias, truth is also in jeopardy.
