“I believe that in this country the press exerts a greater and a more pernicious influence than the church...’’ wrote Thoreau in 1851.

“We do not much care for, we do not read the Bible, but we do care for and we do read the news­paper. It is a bible which we read every morning and every afternoon...a bible every man carries in his pocket, which lies on every table and counter, which the mail and thousands of mission­aries are continually dispersing...capable of exerting an almost in­conceivable influence for good or for bad. The editor is [a] preacher whom you voluntarily support...but how many of these preachers preach the truth? I repeat the tes­timony of many an intelligent traveller, as well as my own con­victions, when I say that probably no country was ever ruled by so mean a class of tyrants as are the editors of the periodical press in this country.” [April 1851 Journal of Henry David Thoreau.]

Today’s “preachers” in the news­ enter every house­hold electronically, wearing nice clothes and disarming smiles. The ingratiating airs and facial expres­sions of some of the reporters help spread today’s Gospel more effectively than the printed word ever could. These nice people, well-trained in the mission of shaping how you and I think and behave, serve a captive audience. If their directors were members of a priestly class, paragons of virtue and wisdom, we should still be insulted by their presumption to “teach” the rest of us how to think and behave. Is it odd that I do not sense any wisdom in today’s mainstream news anchors and superstars of media? Virtually every item of information from them smells of party propaganda.

At a banquet given in his honor in 1880, New York Times journalist John Swinton confessed:

“There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.”

“The business of the journalists,” he continued, “is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”

Corrupt reporting has been with us ever since deception and lying were found to be assets of journalism, something that has gotten incorporated into the training for the job. It may be hard for some to believe, but I remember a time when alert readers spoke of “reading between the lines” and noticing, as Thoreau did in an earlier century, that some newspapers “printed editorials in every column.” It was part of what was called yellow journalism.  

Those of us justifiably put off by falsified news (a.k.a., fake news) might brook the sermonizing in mainstream media if what its ministers preached were morally sound. But most of what they spread is plainly immoral, unnatural, and/or indefensible when exposed to impartial scrutiny.

The overriding fact of the matter is that, regardless of any date in history, honesty will always be in high esteem among fair-minded people – the vast majority – and why accuracy and objectivity in disseminating essential information will always be first in priority, regarding communications.

If the many captive to the homilies of mainline news reporters could know what actually was being preached – over and against the blacklisting and censorship of views that vary from “official news” – the exposed information would in many instances shock them. For clear, straightforward, honest reporting is anathema to the spread of propaganda and death to any program that contradicts reality and harms people.

The passion for justice that drives “progressive” crusaders for reform (advanced in recent times to “transformation”) continues to remain decoupled from the passion for truth. The consequences of this shameless neglect stare us in the face today with increasing ugliness. While no explanation is necessary for those awake, something beyond outrageous has gotten into the politics of recent times: a demand for tolerance from the intolerant.  

The intolerance of false liberals (read, illiberals) has been at the service of trashing the realities of human life for many decades, making them enemies of the people, a designation Donald Trump justly applied to purveyors of “fake news,” the kind of journalism that spreads and hopes to justify falsehoods like:

Boys and girls, women and men, are interchangeable at will, which makes even mutilating their bodies to resemble the opposite sex justifiable; killing babies in the womb is nobody’s business except that of their mothers; science that does not “conform” to agenda is “disinformation”; government has the duty to incarcerate you for noncompliance with unconstitutional mandates on what you may say and do (even if this involves trashing the Constitution) . . .

Coming to the point: Persistence in following mainstream news exposes one to belief in party propaganda instead of knowing what is actually happening. Which flies in the face of the reality that truth is not political, it does not take sides, it is independent of opinions and does not bow to political passion. Fake news ministers know only too well that the facts they refuse to divulge would help everyone remember that the truth will set you free [John 8:32].

Anthony J. DeBlasi is a veteran and lifelong defender of Western culture.

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