05/07/2019
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn is a favorite here at VDARE.com. His saying that "nations are the wealth of mankind" is often quoted here.
Yet in his Harvard address, he also, perhaps inadvertantly, predicted how journalism would be practiced today.
The press too, of course, enjoys the widest freedom. (I shall be using the word press to include all media.) But what sort of use does it make of this freedom?
Here again, the main concern is not to infringe the letter of the law. There is no true moral responsibility for deformation or disproportion. What sort of responsibility does a journalist or a newspaper have to his readers, or to his history — or to history? If they have misled public opinion or the government by inaccurate information or wrong conclusions, do we know of any cases of public recognition and rectification of such mistakes by the same journalist or the same newspaper? It hardly ever happens because it would damage sales. A nation may be the victim of such a mistake, but the journalist usually always gets away with it. One may — One may safely assume that he will start writing the opposite with renewed self-assurance.
Especially on Twitter, one often observes the media’s practice of "shout the lie, whisper the retraction." Spectacular claims about President Trump colluding with the Russians or some prominent person making an outrageous statement receive widespread coverage. Any corrections receive far less coverage.
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