The Press: Black or White?
We now live in a world of black and white. Either you are for something or you’re against. There are no nuances, no middle roads.
Jeremy Rosen
And nowhere is this more obvious than in 21st-century politics and the media. We are surrounded by prophets of doom, soothsayers of a single true path, and dogmas. Electoral campaigns are replete with dirty tricks, lies, and deceit.
Who does one believe? Who does one trust? The fact is that broadsheets, town criers, newspapers, television, the internet have always offered us tainted goods. However, neutrality is often condemned as a dirty word, a cop out.
I was once told that we had to vote because if we did not, we were actually giving a vote to the other side. But what if we despise both sides? Are both in their different ways weak or dangerous, personally or nationally? Or what if we like one half of a candidate’s platform but not the other? Do we hold our noses and vote for whoever we think will best support our specific private agenda?
We know there are biases on both sides. The Guardian, in England, the New York Times in the USA, are not interested in objectivity even if they claim they are. And I don’t expect them to be. Billionaires line up on both sides of the spectrum pouring their millions to support their preferences. Money talks if that is the only language you speak.
I recall that at university, we would debate the politics of the left and right. The right condemned Pravda and Izvestiya as mouthpieces of the Communist Party, which decided what was printed in support of Communism. Meanwhile, the Press magnates of the West, such as William Randolph Hearst, decided what would make them more money. We knew we couldn’t trust either. Some of us read both and tried to find a balance.
All this is relevant now. The Democratic American media is up in arms over the Washington Post’s decision not to endorse a candidate in the coming US presidential election. The Post is now owned by the world’s second richest man, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.
Some argue that by pulling The Post out of endorsements, Bezos appears to be sidestepping a key function of the Fourth Estate: the scrutiny and accountability that endorsement brings. The point of a newspaper’s endorsement isn’t to manipulate elections but to evaluate candidates rigorously and impartially for its readers, setting a standard of accountability that reaches the highest levels of power. They claim. Sadly, this is not the case in much of the world’s press.
Are news organizations obliged to endorse political candidates? Many do, some don’t. Does a news organization’s endorsement make much difference to the outcome of any given election? It might once but less now. And what about the internet where not just billionaires but foreign governments are routinely trying to influence what we read and how we vote. Are we all so stupid we cannot work out when we are being gamed?
It is the pretence of objectivity that I find so offensive. I don’t expect it. I do not trust the New York Times or the BBC because I can see how biased they are and that they are not interested in objectivity. And will not even challenge, say, Hamas’s lies about casualties. I’d rather read a range of different views from left and right because I do respect certain individual positions and experts.
I suspect that some of the anger directed at Bezos, and his British-born publisher William Lewis, stems from a sense of disappointment that the Post (like its West Coast rival the Los Angeles Times ) no longer wishes to mix it in the great game of electing the leader of the free world.
But this is not a new situation. Less than a month before the 2022 mid-term elections the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Boston Herald, Orlando Sentinel and San Jose Mercury News announced they would no longer back politicians in state or national elections.
In a chain-wide editorial, the group’s manager said, “public discourse has become increasingly acrimonious, common ground has become a no man’s land between the clashing forces of the culture wars.” It added: “With misinformation and disinformation on the rise, readers are often confused, especially online, about the differences between news stories, opinion pieces and editorials.”
The case against Bezos is that newspapers take the time ( or they should in theory) to evaluate candidates and produce an informed view based on evidence and public interest. By stepping back, Bezos risks suggesting that The Post is unwilling to engage fully in the democratic process, which readers rightly expect it to do. The truth is that the anger directed at Bezos is the fear of the possibility that his retreat will hand Trump a win. Isn’t offering different views without necessarily supporting one candidate the best position to hold in an imperfect world? Political influence and media independence are often at odds, but as they say, “Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.” It goes both ways. The critics of the refusal to endorse a single candidate ignore another option. Let the papers print both points of views on the issues of the day, leaving it to the reader to decide what position to take?
Of course, Jewish journals will be biased. But I still expect them to consider the wider issues. We Jews who care about Jewish survival, whether in the Diaspora or Israel, are as divided as anyone else over what is best for Israel and the Jewish people. Since Moses, we have never been able to agree. But at least as individuals, we can express our preferences.
Don’t we have agency and choice? And doesn’t choice include not choosing too? Or choosing with reluctance one side as being the lesser of two evils?
I am going to hold my nose and vote and pray that whoever wins, Israel will survive him or her.
Rabbi Jeremy Rosen lives in New York. He was born in Manchester. His writings are concerned with religion, culture, history and current affairs – anything he finds interesting or relevant. They are designed to entertain and to stimulate. Disagreement is always welcome.
