Journalists Are Not Professionals Anymore

When you go to anyone of the following professionals, you receive their opinion whether you like it or not – doctors, lawyers, certified public accountants and priests.  If you don’t like the number, the CPA is not going to change it.  If you don’t like the advice and analysis the lawyer gives you, he or she can’t change the law so that you “like it.”  If a doctor tells you have a disease, he or she won’t change the diagnosis just because you don’t “like” being sick.  When a priest tells you what is wrong and what is right, he or she won’t change the message so that you “like” it.

Unfortunately, today’s journalists clearly spin the news to please their audience.  This is not necessarily anything new, yellow journalism has been around forever.  However, in an age when more and more people are exposed to news (TV, radio, Internet, newspapers, magazines) it is sad that journalists present themselves like entertainers.  Give them what they want is the driving factor.  Liberal journalists make fun of conservative people in the news, and conservative journalists lambast actions by liberal actors.  Why?  Because they know who their audience is and they know these people won’t tune it unless they get the “spin” they want.  This is of course driven by the ratings and the need to make a profit.

I miss the “good old days” when the big networks (CBS, NBC, ABC) freely admitted that they lost money subsidizing their news departments.  Journalism was considered to be a profession and it was felt that for the good of the country, the networks had to provide this service even if they didn’t make a profit.  Think about it.  Back when Walter Cronkite was at CBS and Huntley/Brinkley were at NBC did anyone “spin” the news?  Did Republicans watch one newscaster over another?  Was one anchor liberal and the other conservative?  No, that did not exist.  The news was the news.  Opinion was presented separately and identified as such.  Remember Eric Severaid on CBS?  Now opinion was infected the news, and we have what we have.  A Fourth Estate with about as much moral underpinning as a pack of wild dogs.

The Republic will survive, of course, but it is still sad to see.