I formerly believed reporters don’t tell the public what to think. Instead, they tell the public what to think about — as if that made claiming “objectivity” while misusing your influence an acceptable practice.
Experience disabused me of that erroneous notion. For as Martha Bayles observes, “What [the media] does is condition us, gradually and over time, to accept, or at least view as normal, attitudes and behaviors we might otherwise reject."
