“Objectivity Has Got to Go”

 “Objectivity Has Got to Go” - Todd Strandberg - https://www.raptureready.com/category/nearing-midnight/ For about as long as I’ve been operating RR, I’ve written many times about how the mainstream media has a leftist bias. For the vast majority of this time, the press has toldthe lie that they have no agenda and that they are fair in covering the news. In the past few years, the liberal media has become more open about their political views. They have reached the point where they think it’s bad journalism to hold to the principles of objectivity. They have a monopoly on truth, so it’s harmful to listen to peoplethat mainly have an opposing view. Now, former executive editor for The Washington Post Leonard Downie Jr. and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward have released the results of their interviews with over 75 media leaders and concluded that objectivityis now considered reactionary and dangerous. Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle, said it plainly: “Objectivity has got to go.” Writers, editors, commentators, and academics have embraced rising calls for censorship and speech controls, including President Joe Biden and his key advisers. This movementincludes academics rejecting the very concept of objectivity in journalism in favor of open advocacy. Columbia Journalism Dean and New Yorker writer Steve Coll decried how the First Amendment right to freedom of speech was being “weaponized” to protect disinformation. In aninterview with The Stanford Daily, Stanford journalism professor, Ted Glasser, insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” He rejected the notion that journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views “journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at itsbest — is all about morality.” Thus, “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.” In a piece entitled, “Newsrooms that move beyond ‘objectivity’ can build trust,” the Washington Post admits the concept of objectivity is dead. Not, curiously, because it’sa faulty one, but because the current practitioners of journalism are too stupid to understand why it was important in the first place. The Post writes, “increasingly, reporters, editors, and media critics argue that the concept of journalistic objectivity is a distortion of reality. They point out that thestandard was dictated over decades by male editors in predominantly White newsrooms and reinforced their own view of the world.” The ban on objectivity means that Republicans are not going to be allowed to express their opinions in major newspapers controlled by the left. The staff of the New York Timeswent into riot mode when an opinion editor gave the green light for Senator Ted Cruz to write an opinion piece for the opinion page. The editor was fired for granting Cruz a voice in the leftist rag. While the left is turning objectivity into a dirty word, it’s invented a new term, ‘bothsidesism.’ You cannot pursue the truth if you let the opposing side speak. They claimthe only way to address issues of race, the treatment of women, LGBTQ+ rights, income inequality, and climate change is with the sole message from the leftist playbook. Any view that cannot stand up to any amount of criticism by nature must be a very weakone. It is insane to have news organizations advocating that reports should be guided by their personal feelings or opinions. We don’t send people to prison because they look guilty.We convict people based on the weight of evidence placed on the scales of justice. The liberal media thinks we should place our thumbs on the scale to determine truth. A century ago, many doctors thought that radium promoted good health. When the element decays, it gives off a huge amount of energy, and people assumed that energy could beapplied to the human body. If people got sick from having been exposed to radium, some took more of the toxic drink. What killed the idea that radium was good for you is the objective truth of a guy’s jaw falling off from drinking several bottles laced withthe element. Many of his bones developed holes, and he died a gruesome death. I always had this thought experiment where I imagined going back in time and having conversations with myself about how things have changed. The Todd Strandberg of 2000 ADwould not comprehend how the people of this time were able to make objectivity an evil practice. The Bible warns that mankind will become more depraved as we get closer to the rapture. The world has perverted the meaning of many words over the years. So whenthey add objectivity to the list, we know the end must be near. “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13).