Journalism is dead
Posted on September 17, 2019
Journalism is dead. Objective news reporting is dead. Integrity and
courage R.I.P.
By Tim Murray
comprehensive rejoinder:
https://www.eurocanadian.ca/2019/09/media-editorial-staff-in-vancouver-disavow-published-commentary-criticizing-diversity.html#more
It is telling that the editorial board of The Vancouver Sun, one of Canada’s major
newspapers, should think that their job is to serve, protect and promote
the state’s official”Diversity” ideology. They did precisely that recently when they deleted and then disavowed any sympathy for the views of an Alberta academic whose article criticizing “Diversity” appeared in The Vancouver Sun.
Gone are the days when editors and journalists understood that their mission was to speak the truth to power. The power in this case is what I have called the Secular
Multicultural Theocracy, a seeming contradiction but true, IMO.
This change has long been coming. Journalists and editors retire and
die, to be replaced by the Young Turks who graduate from boot camps of
social justice ideology (aka journalism schools). They are on a
mission, but it is a mission to stifle truth in the pursuit or
protection of power. They lack that fabric of neutrality that was once
essential to the make up of a professional news reporter or editor.
I am showing my age here, but I remember a time when editors
partitioned their papers into two distinct categories. News and
opinions. Even the Sports pages were similarly segregated. Opinions were
clearly identified as the editorial, the op ed, and letters-to-the-editor. And no matter what the “slant” of the paper, space was given to both sides of an argument. Now newspapers (and news broadcasters like the CBC, CNN etc) are looking more like political
commercials. On the eve of an election, the Vancouver Sun of
yesteryear, for example, would publish an editorial to announce its
support for the governing right wing party. But at the same time, it
always had a labour reporter who provided readers with a union
perspective. Imagine that.
There were also iconoclastic, outspoken columnists who fearlessly
tackled subjects that few would dare to touch. Many of them were of my
Dad’s generation. They had experienced the Depression or served
overseas in the war, and they weren’t intimidated by anyone, or shy
about saying what needed to be said. Doug Collins (author of “The Death
of English Canada”) was the incarnation of this kind of journalist. He and others
braved bullets. In contrast, the cowards who pass as editors and reporters today
fear the loss of their pensions or the respect of their peers if they
stray from the party line.
It has been said new paradigms prevail when the guardians of obsolete
theories die off. It seems that we are the guardians of obsolete
notions about objectivity, free speech and sustainability and that the
remaining time on our clock is to be measured in one or two decades at
most. The game was over 25 years ago but most of us still haven’t heard
that news. Our list-serves are like the therapy sessions of a self help
group for PTSD victims. We need them not only to vent and trade
information, but fundamentally to assure ourselves that we are not
insane and our predicament is not a nightmare but reality.
For details on the events surrounding the publishing of the Vancouver Sun article which was critical of Diversity, see :
https://www.eurocanadian.ca/2019/09/media-editorial-staff-in-vancouver-disavow-published-commentary-criticizing-diversity.html#more
