Well we’ve hit that fun time in an election where every newspaper in the country decides to chuck objectivity and endorse a candidate.
My question is how and why did this practice start? Doesn’t endorsing a candidate, at the expense of another, completely screw up their oath to be objective at all costs?
Why does no one question the mainstream media for taking sides?
The Op/Ed page is the one place where newspapers routinely takes a stand on many issues, including presidential candidates.
Arjuna34
If you read a paper enough, you can also safely guess which candidate they will endorse. I put $20 on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution picking Al Gore. Oh forgetit, I’ll bet my wole life savings on it.
The reason I ask this question is because I saw Larry King interview Jim Lehrer over the weekend.
Lehrer had sad that he doesn’t vote because it would be a conflict of interest.
I have to admidt that I never thought much of him before, but I kind of respected him for the answer he gave.
It made my question the whole notion of media folks backing certain politicians.
Political bias in mainstream media seems to be obiquitous in all democracies. In Australia, it is taken for granted that all of our newspapers have a distinctly conservative (politically right-wing) slant. Many people have complained about this in uncountable letters to the editor, but no-one from the print media seems to be taking any notice…
The same is also true of our TV moguls.
In colonial times, newspapers were strictly opinion papers that happened to have “dispatches” and advertising. Even as late as the 1930s newspapers commonly used their news columns to advocate whatever cause/party they aligned with.
The idea of an “objective” press didn’t even get started until late in the 19th century. The idea is that newspapers (and radio/TV stations) can clearly advocate on their editorial pages, although it’s a good idea to try and keep it out of their news coverage.
What I’m about to add does not diminish the validity of your question, but does add some historical perspective.
As far as newspapers are concerned, the tendency toward political bias is far, far older than any “oath to be objective at all costs,” as you put it.
In fact, newspaper objectivity – which we take for granted as a jounalistic ideal today – is a fairly modern concept. In the early days of newspaper publishing, papers were often founded solely to hawk political views, support parties or candidates, or disparage political enemies. Newspapers were considered political soapboxes – nothing more, nothing less; and no one was embarassed by this situation because if party A had a mouthpiece newspaper, party B usually had one too.
The fact that they carried a list of ship arrivals/depatures, or a weather “report,” or a police blotter, was just a bonus.
Huh?! How would Jim Lehrer voting represent a conflict of interest?
mm
The way he explained it, when he went to vote they asked him which party he wanted to vote under. As he was fairly known at that point in his career, he said everyone around him seemed interested in his answer. He looked around, and then walked out. He hasn’t voted since.
He implied in the interview that whatever party he would have chosen at that time might have given the opposite party an edge at saying his reporting was biased.
I tend to agree.
I didn’t see the interview, but from the way you describe it, it doesn’t make sense. Why not just register as an independent? There’s no law saying you need to register with a party in order to vote.
Saying you’re not voting because it’s a conflict of interest is a pretty weak argument. Lehrer could easily say that he doesn’t want to tell or doesn’t have to tell how he’s voting, which is a right in this country. (At least I think it is. I believe each state guarantees this, but not the Constitution.) Good journalists keep their personal opinions out of the stories they cover
Newspaper endorsements today don’t count for very much. Not many people pick up a newspaper because of its political slant. If they do, they aren’t likely to be persuaded to change one way or the other. A Washington Times reader isn’t going to read the NY Times editorial page and say, “Gosh, I never thought about Hilary Clinton in those terms before.”
You have to for many state primaries.
> You have to for many state primaries
No, you register as an independent & skip the primaries. Isn’t that better than not voting at all?
An interesting sidelight is that the main reason why journalistic objectivity caught on has little to do with objective standards in the news. Newspapers simply found that if they were “objective” in their reporting, they could sell more newspapers. This trend began when all cities had several papers. People would buy more than one a day. So if you were a staunch Republican, you’d buy the Republican paper and the “objective” one, and avoid the Democratic paper. The opposite was true of a staunch Democrat. So the objective paper can sell to both and get a bigger audience, which was important as the finances of newspaper became more advertiser-centered.