Victoria Jelinek

“If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re mis-informed.” Mark Twain

Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi is being declared Time magazine’s person of the year. Ostensibly, the magazine claims to be celebrating journalists as the “Guardians of Truth.”

I believe with all of my heart in a free press as a fundamental component of a democracy. * In this piece, I’m not saying that there are not great and absolutely necessary journalists in the USA who continue to find and chronicle the ‘truth’ in an effort to inform the public and contribute to judicious thinking. I’m not questioning these journalists who do investigative work and are critical of injustice and hypocrisy. Of course they exist and thank the gods for that. However, I question whether the modern press, particularly stateside, is, indeed “free” and are generally “guardians of the truth.”

And I encourage readers to ask themselves the following questions:

With the exception of a few US press companies, don’t corporate interests primarily own all the news outlets? In fact, aren’t there only a few conglomerates that own the majority of all the news outlets throughout the country? (Be it print, radio, or broadcast). Does that make them profit-making enterprises? Is the primary objective of most media outlets to capture readers/viewers or to inform? In essence, are the respective narratives within new stories inclusive of bias, left or right, or do they simply inform? Could this be related to ‘click bait,’ fear mongering, and competitive reportage of the same stories at the same time with only slight variations in how they’re told? Do these media corporations make campaign contributions that might effect the choices of the respective news outlets, such as what the public is informed about, how they are informed about it? (Bias, tone). How many investigative journalists do respective news outlets have on staff as opposed to anchors, editors, and assistants, publicists, etc.?

Did the US press continually deride Hilary Rodham Clinton for two years leading up to the 2016 elections? Did the US press publish and report Comey’s ‘findings’ on HRC’s emails ad infinitum just before the actual voting day in 2016? Did this effect voter choice? Does Trump lead each day’s news cycles? In other words, does the US press report tales of Trump’s antics every day on the front page or in the first few minutes of a broadcast? Does it seem as though a previous week’s relentless (story) focus is dropped and another one taken up almost immediately? By perpetually covering the words and actions of Trump and his administration, does this legitimize this administration’s behavior by allowing them to set the news cycles and to receive the attention Trump so desires? Are the stories told simply in the classical journalistic formula of “five w’s and an h” without the respective reporter’s interpretation of the information included? Does a reporter’s personal analysis of the news contribute to a sense of anxiety or scepticism in you? Does the twenty-four hour news cycles contribute to a general malaise that society is facing? If so, how?

Some people think that the modern age is akin to Orwell’s “1984.” I don’t agree. I think the modern age is more like Huxley’s “Brave New World,” where there is such an inundation of information that the public is desensitized to everything. And, lamentably, this style of reporting has undermined the credibility of all journalists, effectively and irresponsibly giving ammunition to Trump’s perpetual claim of “Fake News.”

*Please check out the 2018 free press ranking throughout the world via the link, below. Where does the USA rank? Considering the countries at the top ten of the list, what kind of societies are these? (How are the governed, financed, taxed, run?)

https://rsf.org/en/ranking