Levin Slams Rise of 'Community Journalism,' Concludes the Press Has Become 'Standardless Profession'

Ryan Foley | November 18, 2019
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Full Measure host Sharyl Attkisson began her interview with conservative commentator Mark Levin, author of Unfreedom of the Press, by discussing a portion of his book where he argued that "the American free press has degenerated into a standardless profession; not through government oppression or suppression but through self-censorship, groupthink, bias, omission, and propaganda." Elaborating on that point, Levin spoke about a "new doctrine that's being pushed in journalism school" for about 30 years called "public journalism or community journalism, which is social activism." Levin explained that a result of the transformation of journalism into social activism, "you have a lot of reporters, Jim Acosta's a perfect example, who create the drama, then report on their own drama." Levin proceeded to contrast the "pamphleteers," the "first printing presses" who "pushed the American revolution and the ideas we read in the Declaration of Independence" with the modern media. After noting that the "pamphleteers" wanted to "fundamentally transform government, throw off the monarchy and create a representative government," Levin argued that "the media today want to do the opposite. They want to fundamentally transform the civil society in defense of an all-powerful centralized government." When asked by Attkisson if the "pamphleteers" were "themselves biased," Levin responded in the affirmative: "they were biased for liberty and they were biased for property rights and they were biased for limited government and they admitted it. They didn't believe in objective news...the press today poses as seeking objective truth when it's not." 

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