The Globe and Mail's opinion section was today given over to a celebration about how great and vital a free press is. I don't disagree with that. But I think a lot of the self-congratulatory twaddle I read there today misses the point.
In twelve pages of supposed journalism we are treated to innumerable references to Donald Trump, but one solitary passing reference to Julian Assange, and that was in the Discuss section, in an email exchange between two non-journalists. Unless there erupts a public furore over Assange's kidnapping from the Ecuadorian embassy, he's on his way to Donald Trump's USA, where he can expect to spend the rest of his life in prison.
That furore is unlikely to erupt when our "free press" refuses to acknowledge that the persecution of Julian Assange is the signal current event defining how free our free press is allowed to be, which is very free, so long as your journalism hews to approved parameters. That's why once acclaimed journalists like Robert Parry and Seymour Hersh are no longer affiliated with mainstream media; they crossed that line.
They've been reduced to writing blogs after they got carried away with "speaking truth to power."
Much is made of the fact that some thirty journalists died on the job in the past year. I think they missed a couple in Israel, but our free press misses a lot of stuff that goes on in Israel. Be that as it may, thirty is not a big number. That stat tells me that professional journalists are far more likely to die of complications from alcoholism than they are as a result of their journalism. Farmers and construction workers face far greater mortality risks than professional journalists do.
As for Trump, it should be beyond obvious that POTUS 45 doesn't actually have a lot of clout in terms of decision making in the Exceptional Nation. Generally, once Trump announces a policy initiative, the opposite happens, unless of course it's a tax break that the billionaire class can live with. Beyond billionaire-friendly tax breaks, Trump doesn't get to decide much beyond whether he'll have KFC or a Big Mac for lunch.
The stand-out story in those twelve pages was by Steve Adler, editor-in-chief of Reuters. The sub-head of his article is "Journalists must take steps to restore public trust in the work that they do."
That's exactly right. The credibility of journalism wasn't destroyed by conspiracy theorists and it wasn't destroyed by Donald Trump.
It's been eroded over a long period of time by shoddy journalism produced by professional journalists working at the most prestigious titles in news media.
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