Glenn articulates the rules of journalistic "objectivity"

this bob schieffer interview of ron paul on the cbs program face the nation triggers glenn's examination...



the interview prompts these points from glenn...

(1) The overarching rule of “journalistic objectivity” is that a journalist must never resolve any part of a dispute between the Democratic and the Republican Parties, even when one side is blatantly lying. They must instead confine themselves only to mindlessly describing what each side claims and leave it at that.

[...]

(2) When it comes to views not shared by the leadership of the two parties, as in the above excerpt from the Paul interview, everything changes. Views that reside outside of the dogma of the leadership of either party are inherently illegitimate. Such views are generally ignored, but in those rare instances where they find their way into the discourse — such as this Paul interview — it is the duty of “objective” reporters like Schieffer to mock, scorn and attack them.

[...]

(3) There is another standard media bias at play in this Schieffer interview which I’ve written about before: most establishment media figures, by definition, are hard-core nationalists who scorn any ideas that suggest their country is at fault for anything. The very suggestion that the United States of America might have done anything to provoke rational hatred against it and thus helped cause 9/11 is like poison in Schieffer’s soul. Similarly, the very suggestion that the U.S. is the aggressor when it comes to Iran — rather than the other way around — is heresy to him (the idea that the U.S. seeks war with Iran will be slanderous to Schieffer up until the minute the first U.S. fighter jet drops a bomb, at which point the war will instantly become necessary and just).

i'm reminded of a book i read many years ago by morris berman - Coming to Our Senses: Body and Spirit in the Hidden History of the West...

my biggest takeaway from that book was berman's definition of heresy as traced over 2000 years of western history... berman found that what qualifies as heresy during that two-millennium epoch is nothing more or less than a refusal by an individual or group to cede personal power and authority to an external authority, that external authority being, no surprise, the reigning power of the time...

in the era leading up to and through the middle ages, the power to define "heresy" was wielded by the catholic church... in post-renaissance times, it has been wielded most often by the scientific establishment... what i see glenn is saying here - and it's something with which i would agree - is that the power to define modern-day "heresy" rests with our super-rich elites who control our corporations, our government and our media...

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