Hur kommer det sig att så många journalister är icke-objektiva? Den mest grundläggande förklaringen är att de har en falsk filosofi. Det vill säga, en filosofi som inte stämmer överens med verkligheten. Men istället för att granska sina premisser vinklar de sin rapportering så att den stämmer bättre överens med deras falska filosofi.

Men detta gör dem inte nödvändigtvis oärliga. Hur kommer detta sig? Den enskilt bästa förklaringen på detta fenomen kommer från filosofen Harry Binswanger:

A worldview–i.e., a philosophy–is not normally something people look at, but something they look through. A philosophy is a frame of reference for understanding and dealing with the concretes (and middle-level abstractions) we confront in life. It takes a special act of reflection and abstraction to make a philosophy an object of cognition, rather than a means of cognition–i.e., to make it a “what” rather than a “how.”

Unreflective people, which definitely includes journalists, are not aware that they have a philosophy at all. But they are inescapably aware of philosophies different from their own. So liberal journalists think that they are not using any philosophy, they are just looking at and describing events “non-ideologically.” But when they see conservatives coming to what strikes the liberal journalists as “weird” conclusions, they know that the conservatives are led to them by their political philosophies.

I have likened this general phenomenon to the issue of regional accents. Nobody thinks he speaks with an accent. He thinks he just speaks “plain.” But he sure is aware of accents that differ from his own. So a Brooklynite hearing a Texan speak is very aware of the Texan having an accent. But that Brooklynite doesn’t think he has any accent–unless he has been repeatedly told he does by non-Brooklynites.

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