Lippmann and The Wall Street Journal

Per Allan Sloan of the Washington Post (Wall Street Journal’s Net Worth Isn’t In Profits: June 5, 2007), he’s concerned that the Wall Street Journal’s reputation of fairness and balance could be in jeopardy if Rupert Murdoch owns it and puts his own political and economic interests in its news pages saying, “Yes, the Journal's journalistic reputation is Dow Jones's primary asset. But that doesn't mean Murdoch won't try to skew its journalism. He is what he is.”

I couldn’t help but think about Lippmann’s Public Opinion as I read this article. His assertion was, “I argue that representative government…cannot be worked successfully…unless there is an independent, expert organization for making unseen facts intelligible to those who have to make decisions.”

Sloan appears to cast the WSJ in that role but would Lippmann look at the Wall Street Journal as an independent, expert organization? Would he have any such veneration for the WSJ? Or since Lippman believed “political science” should be the “formulator” of public opinion, not the press itself, would he consider the WSJ as undeserving of the honor and respect Sloan gives it?

This leads to a question: If not the press, who in today’s world, would Lippmann consider qualified to determine public opinion?

We receive information from so many places but how do we know who formulated the message or what spin has been put on it? Who can we trust to provide accurate, impartial information to us – the WSJ?

Have you ever read the WSJ? I feel guilty as I confess I haven’t.

Have we become so accustomed to being fed opinions in 30-second sound bytes, that we are unable or unwilling to thoroughly research our opinions? Does that confirm we are part of the group Lippmann thought were not capable of understanding the intricacies of government?

Can we be “critical thinkers” or are we victims of media frontal lobotomies?