Tucker Carlson: the Sad State of Modern Journalism

Criticizing the state of modern journalism, Tucker Carlson told AIM that journalists’ obsequious behavior, blatant bias and monolithic worldview have compromised the integrity of the nation’s fourth estate.

Carlson, a member of the Fox News team and a veteran journalist who co-founded the Daily Caller, asserts that many journalists bask in the presence of “the powerful” and are “…afraid to challenge anybody in power.”

“That’s kind of exactly the opposite of what you want. I mean the whole reason that journalists have a special kind of place in American society is because they’re entrusted with this job to kind of keep the powerful honest and to speak on behalf of the population and the second they go over to the other side and start sucking up to politicians for example, is the second they’ve betrayed that charge.”

Questioned about the media’s election coverage Carlson opined, “I don’t think by and large they have been covering it, they’ve been advocating on behalf of one candidate against another.”

He explained that regardless of the election’s outcome, the media’s advocacy has destroyed its claim to objectivity.

Pointing out that a conflict of interest will arise if Trump wins and the largely anti-Trump media must report on his presidency, he said, “ … how are they gonna cover that, the administration? Can they? Haven’t they discredited themselves?”

“By the way,” he continued, “if Hillary wins, same thing. They’ve been working for her election and now they’re in charge of telling us what her administration is doing, can we trust them with that? I don’t think so.”

Condemning the practice of journalists who air their opinions on social media accounts, Carlson noted the corrosive effect this has on the public’s trust as they can easily discover a journalist’s political leanings.

Carlson says that while he values diversity, within the modern field of journalism “ … everybody has the same experience, they’re all from the same world, they all have the same assumptions, they all went to the same schools.”

He described journalism school as an “indoctrination center” that perpetuates the lack of diversity of thought in the media industry.

“ … journalism school is just another sameness factory that pumps out people with identical opinions, and by the way, it’s only accessible to a certain kind of person — the exact kind of person we don’t need any more of in journalism — affluent, entitled, activist.”

Carlson believes journalists should seek the truth, “even if it leads them into uncomfortable places and especially if it leads them to places they didn’t expect to arrive … that’s what I thought journalism was, pursuit of what’s true, of accuracy, but not just accuracy, of truth.”

Alex Nitzberg is an intern at the American Journalism Center at Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Photo by Gage Skidmore

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