There’s an old story that a couple of reporters were sitting around a newsroom when they received a phone call. The anonymous caller said he had a huge tip. He knew that there was a plot to assassinate the mayor on the steps of City Hall that afternoon. He couldn’t go to the police because they were in on it. Could the reporters do something? The reporters jumped into action. They grabbed a notebook and camera and ran over to City Hall so they’d have an exclusive on the murder as it happened.
I don’t think there’s a long tradition of honesty and integrity in journalism. E.g., if you read contemporary news reports and editorials about Abraham Lincoln, the vitriol and dishonesty is shocking. I think the difference is, since Vietnam or Watergate or whenever the Boomers graduated from j-school and replaced the old newsmen, reporters have seen themselves as crusaders for truth and justice. It’s very much their self-created image. It’s just a delusion based on the idea that you own the truth and that you know what’s good for the little people out there. AKA progressive politics.
I guess my point is, dishonesty is nothing new in the media. We just have to stop expecting them to be anything other than what they are.
