Intellectual Prostitution and the Myth of Objectivity

[marmar]

from truthdig:




Intellectual Prostitution and the Myth of Objectivity

Posted on Apr 3, 2011
By Christopher Ketcham


In this rotten business of freelance magazine writing there’s almost no assignment in which the issue of objectivity fails to rise up like the miasma it is. Any writer who puts his mind on the matter knows that no human being is objective, which is the reason writers sit down at the page in the first place. The writer, an inherently subjective force, will not be divorced from the writing, though God knows there are quacks in the news business who are trying. Computers might achieve this end. Also, certain types of house cats are objective: They know exactly what the truth is, and it is them.

So whence the delusional obsession with “objectivity” in the journalism schools and the pages of the Gray Lady et al.? The pretense and veneer of objectivity is the goal. This renders idiot mistakes and outright falsities so much easier to sell to the public. After all, the marketer of the junk is presented as the all-seeing eye, an authority no less unerring than the babblers at Delphi, no less the product of superstition. Whether we like it or not—whether we recognize it or not—the culture credits “objectivity” in the journalistic establishment as the product of powers greater than known. The news-clown jabbers on screen, says this or that is so ... and, lo, it is so. More likely it’s “All the News That’s Shit to Print.”

Let’s not forget that this sleight of hand gets innocent people killed and maimed—see The New York Times’ “objective coverage” of the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. If there’s a lesson here, it’s that whenever you hear of governments and organizations fomenting, preparing for or making war, be prejudiced on the side of peace; this is un-American, I know. Whenever you hear a government spokesman speak, your objective assessment should be that he’s lying—this is only logical consistency. Be prejudiced, in fact, against persons associated with organizations large or small, be they members of government, private industry or a block association. Be biased in favor of the lone man against whatever or whoever colludes against men acting alone. For my part, I’ll take the word of the skankiest street hustler over the police commissioner, the buzzing of the gnat over the scream of the 10 gorillas.

Perhaps the most poisonous delusion that today blinds the magazine business in particular is the notion of the so-called news peg, which is the Trojan horse for beating out the competitors and selling ads while attempting to inform the public (this last not a necessity, perhaps even an afterthought). Ron Rosenbaum, in his collection of magazine work “The Secret Parts of Fortune,” sums up the problem. “The peg—for those blessedly unfamiliar with this innocent looking but insidious little magazine-jargon word—is shorthand for the topical rationale for assigning or running a piece,” writes Rosenbaum. “Most often, lately anyway, shorthand for what about-to-be released movie does this story tie into, and can we get the piece before the movie’s release date because we won’t care about it afterward. The peg is, I believe, the bane, the self-destruction of magazine journalism.” Why? Because magazine articles, like good books, are supposed to make news, bring out into the open the unheard of, the strange, the new. Rosenbaum continues: “I’m just against the doctrine (that) defines topical in the most obvious way—the way most attached to the timetables of the publicity-industrial complex. I prefer things that become topical because some obsessed writer cares about it enough to compel attention to it.” ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/intellectual_prostitution_and_the_myth_of_objectivity_20110403/?ln

[Buzz Clik]

1. I want my news objective.

The cynicism in that article is awful.