My Thoughts

I realize that I sound like a conspiracy nut when I rant about the media being "the enemy." It isn't that I think there's a monolithic entity guiding the media along a master plan to do X or promote Y. I think this Facebook comment I wrote does a good job of explaining the seed of my doubt

I came close to minoring in journalism, and spent three semesters in the program.  All the professors were very liberal,  but with the exception of one they were very honest and fair.  They took great care,  way back in '92, to point out what they saw as a decline in journalism standards and a slant to the left. 

In one exercise,  a comparison of news broadcasts from the same day,  that of a big event.  Each ran with different stories about the same event,  each obviously based on what exclusives they could muster.  One even ignored the event,  burying it in the broadcast, despite its importance to the community. 

Another exercise had us watch TV detective shows. Time and again, the bad guy was a businessman.  (this is the era before Law and Order made "ordinary" crime entertainment). The prof called on a producer/writer to explain why. The answer?  There wasn't enough conflict if the villain was a common thug,  and isn't corporate America evil anyway? Why not show that? 

Almost all in profs blamed  Watergate. They said it lead to an influx of liberals into the profession,  based on the glory of Woodward and Bernstein,  and that as a whole they were more agenda driven and far more liberal than what they'd seen before. 

Liberal as they were,  the professors warned that this lead to a decline in objectivity and an isolation of opposing pov's.