Margaret Washington Quotes
… there was partisanship in the newspapers …. Newspapers were not neutral. Newspapers were the political vehicle of a particular group and sometimes they were the cultural vehicle as well. It is also important to keep in mind that some of the newspaper editors were very friendly with … political leaders
Margaret Washington, Historian, Interview, PBS “The Time of the Lincolns”, The American Experience
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Catledge came to California to cover the gubernatorial race between incumbent Republican Governor Merriam and writer Upton Sinclair, an avowed socialist who was running neck and neck. Palmer was then the Political Editor of the Los Angeles Times and his newspaper never covered anything Sinclair did for the campaign and only covered Merriam. Catledge observed that this was not only unfair but poor journalism.
Until the 20th century almost all American political media were shamelessly and overtly biased—left or right. Political Parties had their own de facto publications much like Fox News became for the Republicans in the 21st century. In the 20th century journalism developed into a profession that evolved standards of objectivity in reporting. That norm then prevailed for about 70 years. With the extreme polarization of the later years of the 29th Century the right wing began to accuse much of the media of a left wing bias, and the media tended to react as Krugman describes in this quotation. The model of having spokespersons for “each side” of an issue works for highly subjective political preferences with a two party system, but where it broke down is with scientific and technical issues. On these, there often really are not two scientific points of view, but there is a scientific consensus of the vast majority of scientists and almost all the prestigious and accomplished scientists are in accord. However, there may be some who have a cultural, religious and/or political concern for some science and its implications for society. They in turn find a scientist or two, often one who is unaccomplished and not recognized in the scientific field to argue a different point of view. The media have tended to equate the two and have a “debate” as if there were two sides to the science when there are not. These issues tend to cluster around scientific medical issues involving sex and birth control methods, environment and conservation, evolution, the age of the earth and the method of creation of the universe. The problem is particularly exacerbated by the general scientific illiteracy of the American population and the relatively few journalists who themselves are scientifically literate who can explain scientific issues well.
Ailes suggested plan was not implemented by President Nixon. However. Ailes, an arch conservative who has always believed the media was biased against conservatism, later implemented his idea very successfully. This idea was the intellectual forerunner" to Fox News, which Ailes launched as a "fair and balanced" news network in 1996. The Nixon Administration however, concerned about the extremes of many of his recommendations finally fired him, which turned out to be very positive for Ailes career thereafter.
Margaret Murray Washington was an American educator who was the principal of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, which later became Tuskegee University. She was the third wife of Booker T. Washington. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1972.
