Print Column: The Problem With Journalism and Politics Is Us
MINOT, N.D. — Between the BuzzFeed catastrophe and the Covington Catholic High School mess, I’ve been thinking a lot about journalism these past few days.
This is a topic I’m not fit to weigh on, according to some. Not so long ago columnist Jack Zaleski wrote that I shouldn’t refer to my reporter co-workers as colleagues, which is an attitude not uncommon in the journalism industry.
To people like that, journalism is a walled garden, and people with right-of-center viewpoints need not apply.
It’s that sort of attitude which has caused American trust in journalists to fall.
“Millions of Americans believe you hate them and that you will causally harm them,” Atlantic contributing editor Caitlin Flanagan wrote recently in the context of the Covington debacle. She was addressing the New York Times, which she describes as “not fair or impartial,” but the sentiment is widespread among conservative-leaning Americans.
Media bias is a real problem, and it’s more visible now than ever.
