Objectivity Hunter

Is there a thing called "objective news"? It seems that it's fair to say that this is something we all long for, yet we somehow know that it doesn't really exist. This hunt for "fair and balanced" news, and the failure thereof, has come floating to the surface during the 2020 election cycle, and is exemplified by the reporting on the Hunter Biden scandal.

Reporting on the information found on a laptop that contains many personal and incriminating e-mails by Joe Biden's son, shows us just how biased the mainstream media is; Fox News goes all out on making accusations in the hopes that it will increase Trump's chances, while the "liberal media" refuses to report on it for fear it will hurt the chances for their preferred candidate, sleepy Joe Biden. You can watch the first linked video to see just how pathetic the reasons are, given by the liberal media for not reporting the corruption-related facts. Mind you, I'm not making a judgement on the veracity of any of this, I'm just illustrating how the media deals with their inherent biases And in this case both sides, Fox and the rest, could have just reported on the e-mails while also reporting on the corruption and nepotism that's apparent in the Trump family; highlight both sides for a "fair and balanced" end result...

But even highlighting both sides would keep open the opportunity to maintain a clear bias, for example by framing reporting or questions in a way that favors the preferred side. This method also has the danger to legitimize pure nonsense; this happens for example when media invite pro and con guests on a subject that's already been settled by science. When you invite one guest who believes the earth is flat, and one guest who believes the earth is a sphere, you give equal credence to both sides, when one side is clearly representative of pure nonsense. Same goes for climate change deniers versus climate alarmists. The host could correct this somewhat by attacking the nonsensical side with more critical questions, give them more push-back, but the mere fact that the nonsense-peddler is invited has already done most of the damage.

Objectivity in news is something we've hunted after through the ages; in the early days "the news" was simply that what the King wanted his people to read and hear, never critical of his own position of course. This has never changed; today "the news", no matter on what side of the political spectrum their bias resides, serves the interests of the corporations that own the news. That bias is always there. This is why I have great difficulty when Americans equate the "liberal media" with "leftist media"; there is no such thing as leftist media in America and many other countries; all media has a right leaning bias, the question is only how far right. Sure there'll be some politically correct pandering to subjects of identity politics, but even that is done only to the extent that big businesses pander to their targeted markets and demographics, and of course when it's necessary to keep up the appearance that the Democratic party actually DOES something for those demographics, which isn't true of course.

Objective and unbiased news is something we've never had and will never have, unless we want to count AI services that do nothing but report facts; as soon as there's any kind of human filter between those facts and the recipients of the news regarding those facts, that news is inherently biased. And a legitimate question is: do we even really want objective news? The below linked video delves into the question if we even want objective media, and it arrives at some surprising conclusions. I'll leave it to you, dear reader to come to your own conclusions, so please enjoy watching it!

Thanks so much for visiting my blog and reading my posts dear reader, I appreciate that a lot :-) If you like my content, please consider leaving a comment, upvote or resteem. I'll be back here tomorrow and sincerely hope you'll join me. Until then, keep safe, keep healthy!