In late October, the Los Angeles Times published its list of candidate/issue endorsements for this year’s general election. Missing from the list: Any endorsement for president. Semafor reports that the paper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, nixed the Times editorial board’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris over Donald Trump.

A few days later, the Washington Post similarly announced that it won’t endorse for president this year or “in any future presidential election.” Once again, NBC News reports, that decision was made by Post owner Jeff Bezos, who vetoed the editorial board’s planned endorsement of Harris.

The stories drew applause from some media critics — unsurprisingly, mostly those associated with the Republican Party — for a supposed move toward “neutrality,” or even “objectivity” (those two words do not mean the same thing) by the Times and Post.

Those same stories, of course, drew condemnation from other media critics — unsurprisingly, mostly those associated with the Democratic Party — over their faux silence in the face of e.g. Trump as “existential threat to democracy.”

Let’s get that “neutrality” and “objectivity” nonsense out of the way first.

American news media are not and never have been “neutral.” Neutrality means taking no side in a conflict. American media —  newspapers in particular — have a long history of identifying with political parties and endorsing those parties’ candidates in elections.

In fact, many newspapers once bore the stamp of their party affiliations in their names (I grew up with the Lebanon, Missouri Daily Record, previously the Rustic Republican) and others still do (for example, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette). They weren’t “neutral.” They took sides.

In the 20th century, under the influence of journalists like Walter Lippmann, journalism began portraying itself as “objective.” While many (including far too many journalists) treat that as a synonym for “neutrality,”  it isn’t. Objectivity means accurately representing reality.

Reality, objectively reported, often implies a better or worse side.

Reality, neutrally reported, just reports the sides and refuses to take one.

In reality, most news media are neither neutral nor objective. Their reportage is biased, just more subtly than openly.

Most journalistic outlets use the more attractive-sounding term for the side they support and the less attractive-sounding term for the side they oppose. Even if a story is accurate in its factual statements, it’s written to make one side sound like the good guys and the other side sound like the bad guys.

Quick example: Pro-choice and pro-life versus pro-abortion and anti-abortion.

Or look at reporting on the war in Gaza. Supporters of one side or the other will mix and match words like “self-defense,” “resistance,”  “terrorism,” and “genocide” to make precisely the same actions sound better or worse depending on which side takes those actions.

We know which candidate the editorial boards of the Times and Post prefer — and which candidate the owners of those newspapers prefer. Silence on both isn’t “neutrality” or “objectivity,” it’s just one preference vetoing the other.

We’d all be better informed if media just went back to wearing their biases on their sleeves.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“The student loan crisis,”  Sabrina Cereceres writes at The Nation, “is a national emergency, and the time to act is now.”

Cereceres makes a good case that the student debt situation in the United States is indeed a crisis. “Crisis” is defined in the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary as the decisive moment or turning point in a matter. Things will go one way, or they’ll go another.

A lot of people (around 40 million) owe a lot of money (close to $2 trillion) on student loans. Those loans will be repaid, or they won’t be. The numbers are big enough and intractable enough that the resolving them clearly involves mass penury, some kind of forgiveness scheme, or a combination of both.

It is not, however, an emergency.

Back to good ol’ Webster‘s: An “emergency” is a “sudden or unexpected appearance; an unforeseen occurrence; a sudden occasion.”

The student debt crisis has been brewing for decades, so it’s far from “sudden.”

Nor was the crisis “unforeseen” by anyone who bothered to pay attention.

In 1965, when the current system of government-guaranteed student loans became law (after eight years of a less universal system), fewer than six million students enrolled in college. Last year, that number was nearly 18 million.

Yes, population has doubled — but enrollment has tripled, even though the US population is getting older and birthrates are down (that is, there are fewer young people graduating from high school).

Why? Because the government made it easy to borrow money for college, while creating a culture of “you really have to do this” around getting a degree instead of taking a job that a high school education prepared one for.

Over that time, the costs of going to college have far out-paced inflation.

Why? Because when demand rises versus supply, prices go up — especially when the government guarantees payment.

And why is a college degree no longer a guarantee of big bucks in the job market? Because when supply rises versus demand, prices (in this case wages) go down, or at least stagnate.

When every 18-year-old in the country gets hectored relentlessly to go to college, more are going to do so — especially when Uncle Sugar’s standing there pretending to be a financially helpful friend.

And when that now-22-year-old’s bachelor’s degree nets him or her a job tending bar or managing a convenience store instead of a tenured faculty position or a gig designing spaceships, repayment can be difficult.

Anyone who didn’t see this crisis coming wasn’t looking. It’s no more  an “emergency” than the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.

My own two-part recommendation on how to handle this entirely predictable, non-emergency, crisis:

First, make student loans eligible for discharge in bankruptcy. They’re far more appropriate for that avenue than a lot of other bad situations people find themselves in.

Second, get government out of the student loan business specifically and the education business in general.

But yes, SOMETHING has to be done. And something surely will be done.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“Politics,” political consultant Bill Miller told (reminded?) us in 1991, “is show business for ugly people.”

The last couple of weeks of a presidential election cycle always put that timeless truth on steroids, especially but not only when one of the candidates is a billionaire former “reality TV” star whose idea of closing the deal is having himself filmed looking befuddled by the process of donning an apron (someone else eventually tied it for him) before glad-handing a few carefully selected “customers” at a (closed) McDonald’s  in a desperate attempt to generate “regular guy” vibes.

That candidate’s major party opponent could have used a few weeks of intensive training with a drama coach to help her move beyond carefully curated answers to softball questions and cackles on cue.

If Kamala Harris manages to come off as ever so slightly less cognitively impaired than Donald Trump, she also comes off as a great deal more boring.

The whole show would represent a ratings bomb if we didn’t let it get under our skins and sell itself as far more important than it really is.

So, a reminder: Outside the political circus tent, the real world still exists.

As an anarchist, one thing I like to point out to friends who still maintain an attachment to the whole idea of political government is that the biggest parts of most of our lives are already separated from that idea.

On a day-to-day basis, how much does it REALLY matter, to your life and how you live it, who the president is or which party controls Congress?

Does Donald Trump tell you what to eat for breakfast?

Does Kamala Harris whisper recommendations in your ear for bets on next week’s football games?

Do you care what the Speaker of the House thinks about music, or which dramedy the Senate Majority Leader can’t wait to see?

Do you love your partner, parents, or children any more or less because some politician lectured you on the matter?

For better or worse, I chose a career related to politics several decades ago. Most of you didn’t.

Most of you are factory workers, fry cooks, engineers, truck drivers, etc., 40 hours a week or more (I’ve been the first two myself).

Most of you are parents, children, siblings, partners, etc. 24/7/365, no matter which politician occupies which office.

If you can’t bring yourself to turn away from and stop staring at the combination train wreck / dumpster fire that we know as politics, at least make sure you don’t forget those other things.

They’re far more important and, really, far more interesting.

The current show will end. Unfortunately, it always gets rebooted. Whether you watch, and how intently, is up to you.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY