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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Monday, July 27, 2009

Thought for the Day

By the standards of the last half century, journalism today is poor, especially when compared to the golden era of journalists who came back from covering World War II and instituted the very moral "just the facts" school of journalism.

However, by historical US standards, journalism today is pretty mild.

4 Comments:

  • I seem to recall the standard of journalism being raised in the last century, at least in part, by broadcast journalism.... Ironically, it's now broadcast -- or more specifically, cable -- that is leading the charge back to propaganda journalism.

    Maybe I'm wrong.

    By Blogger -epm, at 8:48 AM  

  • Nope. You're right.

    There was this wonderful movement from those WWII returning journalists striving for integrity.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 10:19 AM  

  • integrity lasted a few years after WWII (chasing out McCarthy and the Red Scare)...but integrity was held hostage seemingly overnight when civil rights took foot with the freedom bus killings and church bombings. The JFK assassination sent US journalism integrity to the bottom of the sea -- only for minor bubblings surfacing around watergate - but even then it was orchrestrated by Langley (CIA). Now integrity is almost a comical term - taken over by "truthiness" and "fair and balanced". money is the master and integrity always loses to greed.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:14 PM  

  • That's an interesting read.

    The usual story line is that integrity went out the window with the idea of profit making television news. The cable networks, and the change in the big three's newsrooms.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 7:12 AM  

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