I’ve always found it interesting that while newspaper and video journalists are supposed to “neutral and impartial” reporters of the news, the same was never really expected for magazine publishers. Is that because there are so few “news” magazines? In the later half of the last century there was really only Time, Newsweek, and US News & World Report.Or maybe it's because magazines were not considered a primary source of news. After all, even those three storied news publications did not report “breaking news” as the cable channels would refer to it in today’s parlance.Most likely, the expectations were different. There are (and were) allegedly "conservative" and "liberal" opinion magazines, but their numbers are and were few. Most magazines fit into very specific niches. What, exactly, is the journalistic "slant" of a knitting magazine? A fly fishing publication? A local bridal magazine?The myth of “impartial” news has always been something of a misnomer. Was William Randolph Hearst, the king of “Yellow Journalism” really impartial? In the 1980’s I recall cringing when national politicians began beating the ridiculous drum of the “liberal mainstream media” right around the time I landed in Chicago. Back then, the mainstream media in town was made up of the three network TV stations, the Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times and public radio and TV.The Tribune was clearly a conservative paper of the white collar class on the opinion page and the Sun Times was allegedly the opposing blue collar working class paper. But when Murdoch bought it in 1983, Mike Royko, the celebrated columnist walked over to the Tribune. But the editors of that paper didn’t change their tune and 39 years later, not much has changed. Back then the local TV stations seemed mostly interested in shootings, robberies, talking endlessly about weather and sports, and occasionally following some poor wretch from the parks or public works department around hoping to catch him sleeping in his van.Like the Tribune, the only thing that's really changed with the local TV news is that there's more weather coverage, especially during tornado season.The news reflects the community, the society, the culture, and more importantly, the owners. I’d appreciate it very much if the politicians would sit down and shut up, the members of the journalist class stop apologizing for doing their jobs, and for op-ed columnists to also sit down and shut up because it’s pretty clear from reading the stuff of the major national opinion writers, they really don’t live lives like most of the country does.
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It's Tuesday: A Look at The World of…
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I’ve always found it interesting that while newspaper and video journalists are supposed to “neutral and impartial” reporters of the news, the same was never really expected for magazine publishers. Is that because there are so few “news” magazines? In the later half of the last century there was really only Time, Newsweek, and US News & World Report.Or maybe it's because magazines were not considered a primary source of news. After all, even those three storied news publications did not report “breaking news” as the cable channels would refer to it in today’s parlance.Most likely, the expectations were different. There are (and were) allegedly "conservative" and "liberal" opinion magazines, but their numbers are and were few. Most magazines fit into very specific niches. What, exactly, is the journalistic "slant" of a knitting magazine? A fly fishing publication? A local bridal magazine?The myth of “impartial” news has always been something of a misnomer. Was William Randolph Hearst, the king of “Yellow Journalism” really impartial? In the 1980’s I recall cringing when national politicians began beating the ridiculous drum of the “liberal mainstream media” right around the time I landed in Chicago. Back then, the mainstream media in town was made up of the three network TV stations, the Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times and public radio and TV.The Tribune was clearly a conservative paper of the white collar class on the opinion page and the Sun Times was allegedly the opposing blue collar working class paper. But when Murdoch bought it in 1983, Mike Royko, the celebrated columnist walked over to the Tribune. But the editors of that paper didn’t change their tune and 39 years later, not much has changed. Back then the local TV stations seemed mostly interested in shootings, robberies, talking endlessly about weather and sports, and occasionally following some poor wretch from the parks or public works department around hoping to catch him sleeping in his van.Like the Tribune, the only thing that's really changed with the local TV news is that there's more weather coverage, especially during tornado season.The news reflects the community, the society, the culture, and more importantly, the owners. I’d appreciate it very much if the politicians would sit down and shut up, the members of the journalist class stop apologizing for doing their jobs, and for op-ed columnists to also sit down and shut up because it’s pretty clear from reading the stuff of the major national opinion writers, they really don’t live lives like most of the country does.