As a career broadcaster and journalist, I’ve always believed that honesty wins a reader’s or viewer’s trust. Honesty may require confessing errors or reporting inconvenient truths. I am an unapologetic conservative. But I will never allow my political leanings to compromise my journalism. Edward R. Murrow is my model.
As polarizing Trumpian politics was born, journalism took a hit on both sides. Opposition to Donald Trump found expression in highlighting the allegations of President Trump’s collusion with Russia but burying the conclusion that evidence disproved the allegations. Support for President Trump found expression in giving prime time to hallucinatory claims of electoral fraud while ignoring 61 court decisions proving the contrary.
The media is now suspect across the board—megaphones for liberal or conservative bias.
Mr. Berliner’s article elaborates on NPR’s unusual reliance on Congressman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), President Trump’s greatest foe at the time of the Russia collusion investigation, as a major source for their reporting on the issue. Mr. Berliner counts around 25 Schiff interviews, and laments, “But when the Mueller report found no credible evidence of collusion, NPR’s coverage was notably sparse. Russiagate quietly faded from our programming.”
The Hunter Biden laptop reveals a similar bias. The laptop contained possible evidence of Biden family influence peddling that was dismissed as Russian disinformation by relying on Biden intelligence poodles. NPR fumbled. It did no independent verification. Mr. Berliner states that, “During a meeting with colleagues, I listened as one of NPR’s best and most fair-minded journalists said it was good we weren’t following the laptop story because it could help Trump.”
And finally, the COVID-19 lab leak theory—the supposed right-wing conspiracy theory that the virus causing COVID-19 may have leaked from a lab in Wuhan and that it might not have had natural origins was similarly dismissed by NPR’s science team. According to Mr. Berliner, their reasoning was related to “the Bush administration’s unfounded argument that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, apparently meaning we won’t get fooled again.”
Journalistic malpractice is epidemic, whether about Russiagate, claims of electoral fraud, Hunter Biden’s laptop, or COVID-19. Speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil about anything disturbing to a journalist’s liberal or conservative dogma.
Newsrooms today seem to have been weaponized to advance a partisan political agenda through propaganda. Whatever happened to Sgt. Joe Friday in “Dragnet,” “All we want are the facts, Ma'am”?
Journalists were once a proud few who fought back against tyranny and the lies that governments told. Now, many seem to have become party political agents ready to be summoned into service at a moment’s notice.
