TV news readers and print jockeys are blatantly biased to the Left. How did this happen?
It began around 1965 in universities and colleges. The radical students and their mentors formed groups to demonstrate against the Vietnam War, with special emphasis on the draft. It was confusing to keep up with all the causes: feminist rights; black power; gay rights; American Indian claims for land; birth control; animal rights. Collectives were born, merged, or went way. Or enthused young Boomers engaged in acts of terror, like Bill Ayers and his inamorata Bernadine Dohrn and their Weather Underground apparat.
In 1970, the shooting of four student demonstrators by the Ohio National Guard galvanized the anti-war movement. Those who chose to remain in academia to seek graduate degrees were angry and definitely critical of their country. They interlaced radical ideology in lectures and class discussion. Several were granted tenure, the golden fleece for academics: a job for life, sabbaticals, setting schedules, teaching at will and espousing anti-American, semi-socialist theories with no adverse consequences from the administration.
Now ranking members of the liberal arts faculty, the radicals began to exercise power by seeking out those in their department who clung to the 4,000-year efficacy of Western learning. One by one, the radicals identified and targeted promising tenure-track professors who had dared not change their antiquated ways. Before he or she knew what was happening, they were smeared and tainted as racist, chauvinist, or imperialist in front of the faculty tenure committee. By the late 1980s, nearly all the faculty was composed of like-minded teachers. It was now easy for the radicals to vet applicants to assure they toed the party line.
Imbued with power to go to the next step, radical professors banished the General College, two years of required courses, taken sequentially, to assure centuries of Western learning were inculcated into the minds of young students. From General College, students learned college-level study habits and a broad-based concept of civilization good enough to confront life – even without two more years of college. Professors were not wasting class time in remedial studies for unprepared juniors and seniors, a common complaint today.
Under the radicals, required courses were either eliminated or re-jiggered around the new curriculum guidelines – emphasizing women’s studies, black studies, gender studies. In all liberal arts courses, the denigration and ultimate destruction of Western culture was espoused. The new courses were non-sequential, lacking substance, and unabashedly left-wing. And out into the real world came little PC automatons full of opinions and very little education.
Where the most harm occurred was in journalism departments and schools. Not until the mid-1950s. with some exceptions, did colleges anoint these trade schools for news writers as full members of the university family. Until then, J-schools were two-year programs, like nursing, excluded from the grand eminence of legitimate departments. J-Schools, previously housed in their own buildings, continue to be segregated today on campus, expressing their superior attitude, when actually the departments are below par academically.
During the 1960s, college newspapers, operated by J-school students, had something to write about amongst the issues flying around them. Without real studies in authentic subjects – beyond learning the inverse pyramid and asking who, what, when and where – kid journalists were easily duped into left-wing views. Efforts to beef up journalism studies did not lead to in-depth required courses in history, geography, political science. Instead, all those empty hours were taken over by radical scholars and old Beatniks who espouse Marxist interpretations of history, civil rights studies, sociology, race relations, affirmative action goals, and the burgeoning reality of politically correct and multicultural interpretations.
The first waves of the new J-schoolers, indulged yet opinionated, were naturally enthused by the Woodstein syndrome. Journalists were raised to the rank of super-heroes, where they remain. However, researcher Max Holland has uncovered evidence that Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post were not entirely honest in their Watergate reporting (go to www.washingtonuncoded ). Then came Janet Cooke, also at the Post, whose fabricated feature story began a long and shameful series of fake stories, cooked-up data and unattributed sources. Not only are journalists since the 1970s poorly educated, their political views are tainted to the Left
There it is then. Radical scholars remove truth from studies and emphasize an agenda of victimization. J-schools produce biased, unethical, and vainglorious journalists dedicated to left-wing opinions. Unquestionably, higher education is the root cause of the dangerous decline of standards in America. Tearing down and starting all over again is the only solution.