I wrote recently about the difficulty facing an editor who wants to eliminate bias in his or her newspaper. When you hire liberal graduates of journalism schools, you have to stay on your toes if that’s the goal you have for your publication.
As someone once said, you see things from where you sit, and most journalists sit well out on the left of the political spectrum. Even journalists themselves don’t dispute that anymore. Many see it as their duty to pull society to the left, because that’s progress, in their view.
With that in mind, check out this headline from The News & Observer’s Sept. 10, 2010, print edition:
The story is about how new energy conservation measures passed by Congress in 2007 banned incandescent bulbs effective 2014. In their stead are the curlicue compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) that contain mercury vapor and require hazmat-like precautions should one break.
Now, some people might call the forcible elimination from the market of a product with a century of reliability and consumer loyalty “progress,” but a lot of others wouldn’t. Some might see government encroachment into one’s light choices as a regression, not a progression. That’s why reporters and headline writers should stay away from such loaded and subjective terms.
Then I thought, maybe the headline was written or suggested by The Washington Post, which originated the story. That still would be no excuse for using the word progress like this in the headline, but it might be a mitigating circumstance for a time-pressed copy desk person. But here’s what I found at the Post’s website:
“Light bulb factory closes; end of era for U.S. means more jobs overseas” is a much better headline. There are no value judgments or normative declarations, just the facts. So, we can’t blame The Washington Post for the headline that appeared in the N&O.
My guess is that someone who is on the “green” bandwagon read this story and, with no compunction at all, wrote that the end of the incandescent era was, indeed, some sort of progress because incandescents damage the environment and increase global warming. Everybody knows that, right? They teach it from the elementary grades all the way to journalism school these days. But recent events show serious flaws, and even fraud, in the “science” of man-caused global warming and climate change.
A growing demand for energy once was seen evidence of progress. Growing communities with more roads and bridges used to be called evidence of progress. But then the left decided it didn’t like suburbs with their little boxes filled with ticky tacky, and they didn’t like cars that used fuel and belched noxious fumes. In an ironic switch, the new age Luddites defined progress as any move toward the use of less of everything.
So, you see, progress is in the eye of the beholder. That’s why it’s a loaded term and should not be used lightly in a headline.
Jon Ham is vice president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of its newspaper Carolina Journal.