Marjorie Pritchard

Journalists Are NOT the Friend of the People 

The most dangerous enemy of truth and freedom amongst us is the compact majority—yes, the damned compact Liberal majority…

—Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People

We are not their [the people’s] enemy. But nor can we claim, until we chase our own bias out of the news, to be the honest watchdogs they need us to be.

—Nolan Finley, Detroit News

he following counter-editorial was rejected via form letter by The Boston Globe.  Journalists realize they have a huge voice, unlike plebes like me, and thus do not simply want to report objective facts.  They want to express their opinions.  And they do… far, far too often… overwhelming the front pages of their “newspapers” to the extent they severely blur the line between objective and subjective reportages.  

    The Boston Globe’s call for press criticism of Trump’s criticism of the press, “Journalists Are Not the Enemy,” is risible because the result has largely been nothing but press backslapping and press self-congratulating.   Add to that its egregious failure to address its egregious pro-Democrat-Party bias.  The press should not be in the business of endorsing political candidates.  The Boston Globe constantly does that on all levels (e.g., “the Globe’s editorial board endorsed Ayanna Pressley over longstanding incumbent Michael Capuano for the Democratic nomination in the Seventh Congressional District primary”).  

    "We are not the enemy of the people," argues Marjorie Pritchard, deputy managing editor for the editorial page of the Boston Globe.  Journalists, however, become the “enemy” when they purposefully fail to cover stories that counter their favored narrative and stories that might disfavor their friends and other elites of their elite community. "I hope it would educate readers to realize that an attack on the First Amendment is unacceptable,” writes Pritchard.  “We are a free and independent press, it is one of the most sacred principles enshrined in the Constitution.” 

    When citizens do not personally test the waters of the press to determine just how open or closed or free or dependent it is, then they might end up swallowing the self-glorifying comments of journalists like Pritchard.  My own personal probes have largely indicated the press and journalists to be a lot more my enemies than friends.  

     The Advocate (Baton Rouge) refused, for example, to publish my account of being beaten and robbed by three blacks in Baton Rouge.  Why?  Likely because that countered its black good/white bad narrative.  The Cape Cod Times refused to publish an account of my being permanently banned w/o warning or due process from my neighborhood library.  Why?  Likely because that questioned and challenged a favored member of the local community elite.  The Concord Journal refused to publish an account of my arrest and incarceration for a day in Concord due to a non-violent dispute with a park ranger at Walden Pond.  Why?  Well, perhaps such news wouldn’t be of interest to the local chamber of commerce, which pimps Thoreau and Walden to push local tourism.  Over the years, I’ve sent a number of op-eds and cartoons critical of the editors of the Boston Globe, Cape Cod Times, Inside Higher Ed, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Barnstable Patriot et al. Without explanation, they were systematically rejected.  Sadly, student newspaper editors seem to follow in that light, uh, darkness.  Indeed, over the years, I’ve sent them many critical essays and cartoons regarding their professors. The norm has been one of non-response.  On a rare positive note, The Telegram (Newfoundland) has published a few of my critical letters.   

    Because of my testing of the press waters, I’ve come to the conclusion that far too many journalists and editors are thin-skinned to the point where they are unable to bear any criticism with their regard.  Journalist Nolan Finley seems to agree:  “Our feelings are hurt in the news media. The president of the United States is calling us the Enemy of the People and we don’t like it.” 

   Moreover, how can the press continually proclaim to be free when it is ideologically and corporately-bound like the Boston Globe?  Arguing it to be free is purposeful hypocrisy and self-glorification. Rather than issuing self-congratulatory statements and entire editorials devoted to how great journalists and the press are, perhaps journalists ought to look in the mirror and deal with their egregious faults. Rather than a holier-than-thou mission to “educate readers,” perhaps it is time they educated themselves.  After all, it is more the fault of journalists, than of Trump, that public esteem for them has been so low.  

     Although journalists might not necessarily be the enemy of the people, they clearly are not necessarily the friend of the people.  How, for example, can I, a common citizen, consider them friends when they constantly reject my opinions and stories?  As editor of a 501 c3 nonprofit literary journal, I not only brook, but encourage and publish in each and every issue the harshest criticism received with my regard.  Why do most editors not do that?  In fact, I cannot think of another editor who does.

     “Today it [the free press] is under serious threat,” argues Pritchard with the other Globe editors in lock-step groupthink conformity.  But what has Trump actually done to the press?  Didn’t Obama constantly denigrate Fox News?  Did the Globe call him out for that? And why does Pritchard not mention the biggest threat to freedom—certainly far greater than the alleged Trump threat—posed by Google, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook? A common ideological connection might be the only explanation.   

   Pritchard and the other Globe editors argue:  “And it’s not a coincidence that this president—whose financial affairs are murky and whose suspicious pattern of behavior triggered his own Justice Department to appoint an independent counsel to investigate him—has tried so hard to intimidate journalists who provide independent scrutiny.”  But what about Hillary’s financial affairs?  And what about the Steele dossier and the Hillary connection to it?  Why that egregious omission?  What about the egregious bias of Mueller and the other investigators on his team?  Fair and impartial?  Hardly!  

   Pritchard and the other editors conclude, “The greatness of America is dependent on the role of a free press to speak the truth to the powerful.”  But what happens when press mandarins are part of the “powerful”?  Then the role of a free people is to speak the truth to the press. “To label the press ‘the enemy of the people’ is as un-American as it is dangerous to the civic compact we have shared for more than two centuries,” argues Pritchard and the others.  But when the press becomes the Pravda for the left, then it is the enemy of those who do not share its ideological bent.  Indeed, the term enemies of the people was used by left-wing Stalinists to demonize those who did not share their ideological bent.  

    Like the Boston Globe, the Cape Cod Times published its own editorial, “Identifying the real enemy of the people,” as part of the Democrat Party-media’s effort to backslap and self-congratulate, while denigrating Trump.  The editorial like the Globe’s is absolutely devoid of any attempt to address the press’ own fundamental fault: egregious Democrat-Party bias.  It characterizes, not objectively, Trump’s criticism of the press as a “vitriolic stream of hatred.”  The press has manifested over and again its incapacity for objectivity where Trump is concerned.  And that is the crux of its own problem.  “Hatred” is a highly subjective term, which is why hate speech, for example, is not and should not be separated from free speech in accord with the First Amendment.  Hatred for thee is perhaps satire and criticism for me.  Editor Paul Pronovost needs to eliminate the subjective inferences and insults and provide concrete, accurate facts. He argues that “Today, the Cape Cod Times joins newspapers across the country in calling attention to this onslaught on the media to highlight the danger to democracy that occurs when a self-styled demagogue uses his access to the same media he proclaims to hate to sow seeds of confusion, discontent and distrust.” 

   But how can Pronovost be so blind as to not notice how incredibly anti-Trump the media has been from day one?  And why didn’t he call out Obama’s self-styled demagoguery? And what about the “confusion, discontent and distrust” sowed by Obama via the media (e.g., health care, Benghazi, Fast and Furious and on and on)? 

   “Still, the vast majority of journalists have toiled and continue to toil faithfully in pursuit of nothing other than the truth,” boasts Pronovost.  But again the media is controlled by its corporate owners and their ideological bent.  Pronovost and others don’t give a damn about the truth.  They are ideologues. Hypocritically, Pronovost proclaims, “And like you, we care deeply about what happens locally, nationally and internationally.”  And yet he sure as hell does not care what happens locally when it happens to his friends or elite community members, which is why he refused to publish news about a local senior citizen (me!) permanently banned from his library. Pronovost is a hypocrite! He cannot bear to be criticized, which is why he would never publish this counter op-ed, let alone respond to it.  

    Instead, he oozes more self-glorifying bullshit, distant from reality:  “We research the truth. We hold the powerful accountable.”  Then he echoes the new press mantra:  “No, the American press is not the enemy of the people. The true enemy of any democracy is ignorance, and the only way to battle ignorance is through the acquisition of knowledge: a single set of well-researched, incontrovertible, unbiased facts.”  The press is not the friend of the people when it consistently reports with bias and is not inclusive.  It is an enemy of democracy because it has been purposefully pushing ignorance, for example, regarding Islam.   Thus the only way to battle the ignorance pushed by the press is to battle the press.  Pronovost concludes again hypocritically, “We welcome that scrutiny and look forward to continuing to provide you with the facts.”  Clearly, he does NOT welcome that scrutiny!  In fact, he will not even contemplate it, let alone respond to it. And I have sent out plenty of letters to his deaf ears.  

   Finally, how can we, the people, have confidence in the press when editors openly/officially back one political candidate over another?  How can we have confidence in the press when far too many of its journalists partake in the ideology of identity politics and Islamism?  Clearly, the Boston Globe is not a free and independent press, nor is the Cape Cod Times!  An ideologically-bound editorial board will never be independent, let alone free.  Today, newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe are focused on their ideology more than ever.  Has anyone ever read a positive piece on Trump in those papers?  Has anyone ever read a story in them on a black man who killed a white cop?  When the press is actively engaged in creating an alt-reality by willfully highlighting stories that fit that narrative, while willfully suppressing stories that counter it, then it behaves as an enemy of democracy and should be called out for that…  
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NB:  The Boston Globe has refused to publish any counter-opinion like the one above that I've sent to it.  That too is a problem of the elite press journalists today.  

On the Ad Hominid

[N.B.: Interestingly, a journal distributed to libraries will be publishing my previous blog account, which is embedded in a much longer essay on my experiences with librarians. When published, I shall mention here what journal published it.]

He [man] has invented a complete catalogue of vile and scabrous epithets which he is ever ready to sling at those who think and act differently, that is, think and act as he himself would like to, if he had the courage.
—Henry Miller, "When I Reach for My Revolver”

Often, an ad hominem insinuates that there is a connection between the character traits of a person and the ideas or arguments that the person is putting forward; it is an attempt to discredit a proposition by discrediting the person who articulates it. It involves pointing out characteristics of the person being attacked that the audience, real or assumed, will tend to perceive negatively, and then concluding that because of these negative traits, the person's arguments and ideas, especially those which were the object of discussion, are also toxic. [...] When an ad hominem is committed, this pertinent link [between the person and his ideas] does not exist.
—Normand Baillargeon, A Short Course in Intellectual Self-Defense

To those in power, all whistle-blowers, dissenters and boat-rockers are obnoxious, at least while they remain lone rebels... The ideas that rebels expound tend not to be attacked by those in power. The latter are inclined rather to kill the messenger by character assassination. For example, one rebel was said to be a womanizer... bitter... disloyal... and even, in the words of one accuser, dangerously mentally ill.
—C. Tarvis

What makes me different from most of those trying to “succeed” in the academic/literary established-order milieu is that I've tended to put “success” on the backburner, while truth telling in the forefront. Unfortunately, in academe, that makes for a disastrous carreer. Today, I am essentially unemployable because of it.

Thus, I am not only highly critical of that order, but also do not make it a habit of arguing via ad hominem, a widespread form of vacuous rhetoric, once the argumentation of predilection of children, but today that of so many, many “educated” adults.

Logic is my weapon of choice, while ad hominem seems to have become that of the established-order milieu and those seeking to become part of it. After all, how can such persons possibly explain themselves and the corrupt order they so admire with logic? In fact, Mather Schneider, a poet autodidact, recently argued he didn’t “give a damn about logic!” Now, that’s honesty, a rarity indeed!

Certainly, I succumb, from time to time, to the common modus operandi, for is it not so much easier to simply dismiss a person and his arguments by calling him a “fucking moron,” as that fellow who didn’t give a damn about logic called me? Nevertheless, I’ll readily admit my errors in judgment—my weak moments—and rectify them. After all, ad hominem is a knee-jerk reaction. I do have such reactions but, unlike most, I am quite aware of them and consciously attempt to replace them with logical argumentation. Indeed, a certain amount of intellectual energy is required. The lazy prefer not to expend it.

Miller was partially right that the ad hominid tends to lack courage. However, I disagree with him that ad hominids would like to think and act as I do or he did, that is, as brazen critics of society. Likely, it is the shock of sudden, unexpected, and in-habitual criticism that overwhelms the ad hominid’s ability to reason with clarity. Fragile ego is another factor, for the ad hominid tends to be bathed in positive feedback. That is what the milieu does. It seeks to spread false happy-face positivism and ignore anyone or anything poking holes in that shiny veneer, or at best dismiss the criticism with ad hominem. The sudden shock of unexpected negativity thus provokes knee-jerk anger and subsequent childish name calling.

Nearly all of the criticism I’ve received over the past several decades has been of the ad hominem variety. Sadly, such rhetoric is commonly used by academics, editors, and poets, amongst others, too intellectually indolent or incompetent to counter-argue with convincing logic. In fact, it is so common that one ought to be disturbed by the trend and wonder how and why both higher and lower education have managed to fail so egregiously with regards the inculcation of the importance of logical thinking and argumentation. Evidently, logic is not the friend of corrupt systems, including and especially the educational one.

Very few literary journals publish negative critique. Instead, they tend to publish self-congratulatory commentary. In that sense, The American Dissident is quite different. In each issue, the editor publishes the harshest comments directed at the journal and/or editor. By the way, the editor has never stated nor implied that he is a revolutionary, a great writer, or a brilliant poet. It is amazing the things ad hominids will say when a citizen simply stands up and speaks his mind against the herd. As for egotistical, any writer who puts up a website, publishes a literary journal, or sends out his or her writing could easily be accused of it. That epithet is as vacuous as the rest. Indeed, when the fellow who “didn’t give a damn about logic” stated I had an “enlarged ego,” I argued: “If you were not an egotist, you would have a purpose besides simply getting published.” His response deflected the point made: “I never said I wasn't an egotist, I said that you were an egotist. It's not the same thing.” Yet, isn’t it? Deflection is what ad hominids do best.

Another aspect of the ad hominem phenomenon is to call the argument itself names, as in "rant" and "diatribe." Again, that rhetorical tactic avoids dealing with the argument. The editor of Journal of Information Ethics, for example, wrote the following regarding an essay I’d submitted on librarians: “it is a personal diatribe based on a limited experience at a limited institution. It is not publishable.” When I brought to his attention the ad hominem phenomenon, he argued: “A diatribe is an aggressive talk or lecture or essay that insists very vehemently on a point caring little about counter-arguments or even fairness. For me it is not a pejorative term.” Websters.com defines it as “a bitter, sharply abusive denunciation, attack, or criticism.” How can an intelligent person possibly argue that “diatribe” is not a pejorative term? By the way, one of the arguments in the librarian essay was clear and entirely avoided by that editor: the free speech of a citizen was truncated on the whim of a librarian in a public space without due process. To any responsible citizen in a democracy, that fact ought to be pertinent. To that editor, however, it was simply a diatribe. Besides, reality is based on single such experiences and, more importantly, never did I even remotely suggest all librarians behaved thusly. Just the same, rotten eggs, like that librarian, should be exposed, not condoned via indifference. Later, I discovered that editor had been a careerist academic librarian!

Finally, one might easily fall into the trap of thinking that if so many people have dismissed my arguments, then maybe they're right and I’m wrong. Such people are urged to read Henrik Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People.” Indeed, Ibsen argued "The majority never has right on its side. Never, I say! That is one of these social lies against which an independent, intelligent man must wage war. Who is it that constitute the majority population of a country? Is it the clever folk or the stupid? I don’t imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over."