From Columbia University’s Journalism School’s website, a statement of their purpose for training journalists:

…finding out the truth of complicated situations, usually under a time constraint, and communicating it in a clear, engaging fashion to the public.

Similar rhetoric from NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute:

Serious journalism begins with an ideal of public service, a commitment to truth, accuracy and fairness, and a belief that democracy can work if people know what is happening in their world.

Sounds wonderful… but think twice about attending these schools, at least as a lucrative career choice.

I’d argue that a journalism degree is not necessary to be a member of today’s American mainstream media; all you seem to need is a willingness to chug lefty Kool Aid faster than Frank the Tank pounds beer bongs full of crappy, American adjunct lager. This means an obsession with class, race, gender, and a progressive world view. Legitimate issues?  Of course they are, and ones I’m often interested in as fields of study, but when the issues become tied with political aspirations long after the state has done everything possible to address them, an incessant focus on past injustices becomes not only counter productive but also transparently political… mere grabs for the keys to the government in order to effect social change. (more…)

Recently Orville Schell, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley from 1996 to 2008 and prolific journalist/author, mourned “the cascading effects of the slow-motion downsizing of one of the planet’s most magnificent landforms,” the Himalayan glaciers.  In an LA Times opinion piece surveying what no longer works in the U.S., Schell cited areas like the environment, education, and transportation, and found American hopelessness, especially compared to contemporary China.

Schell’s “studying of melting glaciers” was likely related to a much-hyped warning from the World Wildlife Fund, which was revealed to be a sham, based on an anecdotal report.  But Schell’s warnings, along with his list of American failings, suggest a general ideological bias.

A recent challenge has been identifying the bias of the mainstream media.  Oddly enough, exposing ideological bias has long been a favored project in communication studies, usually practiced by leftists.  One method, much used by recent multicultural leftists, has held that consciousness and meaning are contingent social constructs.  Following such post-modernists as Lyotard, these folks regard discourse  as a composite of  linguistic, social, and cultural formulations.  One need only examine these to reveal the consciousness or mentality of an author or work. (more…)

For those in the mainstream media committed to report the false and libelous narrative of “Watergate Jr.,” “wiretapping” and “bugging,” I predict much egg on your J-school grad faces. In your rush to judgment to convict James O’Keefe and his companions, you vengeful political partisans of press forgot to ponder: “Was Mr. O’Keefe up to one of his patented and obvious clown nose-on hidden camera tricks, trying to make his subjects look foolish?” Blog commenters seem to be quicker on the uptake than six-figured Washington-based pundits these days. And I predict there will be tape to vindicate these four pranksters, too.