Tag: journalism

For those of you who don’t know, I studied journalism in college. And in my defense, I was young, dumb, and in love. Now, I’m old, dumb, and in love, but that’s besides the point.

I bring up that therapy-inducing memory to ease you into this week’s Lexicon entry involving journalism. During my studies, the Associated Press was one of the gold standards in the news game and was generally considered a neutral source of information. Oh, how times have changed.

This past week (please check local listings for the week in your area) the AP broke the cardinal sin of journalism by becoming the story rather than reporting it. And it’s all over a body of water, the Gulf of Mexico/America. President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order renaming the Gulf, but the AP refused to acknowledge it. As a result, the White House barred an AP reporter from an Executive Order signing ceremony and other events and trips on Air Force One, which of course lead to the AP suing members of the Trump Administration for the act.

And you thought high profile divorces were messy.

Anyway, for its efforts to gain my attention, let’s take the Associated Press on a tour of Leftist Lexicon Land!

the Associated Press

What the Left thinks it means – a trusted news source and vibrant defender of the free press

What it really means – another water carrier for the Left, this one masquerading as a wire service

To complete my old curmudgeon cosplay, I must invoke the “back in my day” power.

Back in my journalism days, there was an expectation of neutrality in news reporting because journalists at the time believed personal biases would get in the way of the public interest. This commitment to serving the public before advancing an agenda is what helped build a stronger, more intelligent society.

Then Watergate happened. The country’s eyes were opened to the dirty corners of our halls of power, and it created a rise in the interest of journalism as a form of activism. Now, instead of just reporting the news, reporters would seek out the news related to a particular evil they wanted to expose and uproot.

There is nothing inherently wrong or unethical in this, mind you. But it opens the reporter up to letting emotions (and possibly greed) taint the end result. Yes, you’re still trying to meet the public need for information, but you also have a personal stake in the outcome. That leads to potential conflicts of interest.

Not that modern journalism has any problems with that. This may come as a surprise to you, but our media sources tend to lean left more than a runner trying to avoid getting tagged out at first during a pickoff attempt. In other news, the Chicago Cubs are already eliminated from post season play before spring training, but that’s not important right now. By taking a side, journalism has gone from being watchdogs to lapdogs, and as much as I love lapdogs, I would prefer journalists play it straight.

The Associated Press used to do that, but has since moved more towards the Left, as slight as some think it has. Even if it’s considered to be factual and, thus, credible, the bias still poses a problem because it can lead to misinformation.

Of course, the AP and its defenders will say it’s fighting against misinformation through fact checks, even the slightest implication that is supported by an extrapolation of the fact checks they do can be misinformation in and of itself. Take the fact checks the AP does and who tends to be the target of those fact checks, namely conservatives. Leftists claim fact checkers have to do more fact checking on the Right because they lie all the time, but there’s one tiny problem with that.

It’s a little thing the kids like to call confirmation bias. When you have a set of beliefs as we all do, you tend to reject information that contradicts those beliefs and accept information that conforms to them. So, when a certain allegedly credible source of journalism decides to fact check the Right more than the Left, that gives the impression that…wait for it, kids…the Right lies more than the Left.

But it also gives the impression the AP covers up the lies of the Left more frequently.

Of course, Leftists and the AP would never admit that because it would expose the misinformation they both agree with, but that’s that’s neither here nor there. The point is the AP has a credibility problem.

Which brings us to their lolsuit. (And, no, that’s not a typo.)

The AP is arguing their ban violates the First and Fifth Amendments, more specifically the freedom of the press and due process, specifically. Not to be pedantic, but both arguments are bullshit to anyone with even a Schoolhouse Rock level of Constitutional knowledge. Or anyone who can read, which might be over the journalism class’s pay grade, but here we go.

The freedom of the press argument doesn’t work because of five little words from the First Amendment. Sing along if you know the words:

Congress shall make no law

Since this beef is between the White House and the AP, Congress doesn’t have a role and, thus, the First Amendment doesn’t apply. Even if you accept the notion freedom of the press is being violated by the Administration, there is a secondary problem, that being access. Just because you’re a reporter doesn’t give you a VIP pass to go where you want for a story. You see, the freedom of the press doesn’t equate to a right to access. What the AP’s First Amendment argument tries to do is establish they have a right to be where the President is.

Of course, if I were advising the legal team defending the Administration officials, I would limit that access to only when the President is in the can, but that’s just me.

More to the point, the press pool tends to be rotated and cover various beats, so the AP being excluded from certain events isn’t as egregious as they want you to think it is. And what’s more, there are these things called pool reporters who compile the news from multiple sources and pass it along to those media outlets who didn’t get the luck of the press pool draw. This doesn’t impede the AP’s ability to distort…I mean report the news, so there is no violation.

In short, get that weak-sauce shit outta here, AP!

Now for the Fifth Amendment. Let’s start with the text itself.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness agThe ainst himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The AP’s argument in this case is based on the “due process of law” element, suggesting their ban was put in place without being allowed a day in court. Aside from all the reasons I cited above as far as access, there’s also another pedantic but vital detail: there is no allegation of a crime. This whole thing, as fucking stupid as it is, surrounds the name of a body of water. Even if the Gulf of Mexico self-identifies as the Gulf of America, it matters not. The AP isn’t being denied due process so much as it’s being denied a spot at the table over a disagreement outside of any legal constructs.

No allegation of crime? No violation of due process.

Checkmate, bitches.

Of course, the AP and its defenders will try to argue the contrary and may actually score a court victory depending on which Leftist judge gets a chance to shit on the Constitution to give them a victory over the Evil Orange Man. Which will give them reason to crow…at least until the case makes it to the Supreme Court or gets laughed out of court by a judge who reads beyond an AP reporter’s grade level.

How the mighty have fallen. From globally trusted news source to the punchline of a blogger’s weekly journey into Leftist madness.

Seems they’re getting off a little light, don’t you think?