I submit that it is not required that we initially prove each and every step involved regarding the systematic failures of our major news producers before we can understand the systematic nature of the failure.

A classic learning experiment is called a "black box" problem, which may be an actual experiment or a thought experiment.

What it means that you are given a device which is hidden away from your inspection. I.e., as though it were put in a "black box" in which all you can see is (1) What goes in, and (2) What comes out.

Occam's razor is also involved, sort of. If you know that you have a voltage going in and that the voltage coming out is halved, there could be any number of things going on in the box, but in the end, the only relevant factor for you at the moment is that the innards halve the voltage.

Inside that box anything could be happening, you could have an incredibly simple device composed of one element, or you could have an incredibly complex device which does a million things, only one of which is the halving of voltage.

The major news producers consistently act like these "black box" systems, whose operations may or may not be hidden from prying eyes, but whose output is systematically measurable just the same.

The major news producers consistently fall in line and fail in their basic journalistic responsibilities nearly every time the Executive and other power sources make very serious moves toward hawkish foreign policies.

They do so in ways which are childishly predictable and which are largely immune to most of our complaints.

They have done so all of my life, and they have done so fairly consistently for pretty much the last century.

Further, somehow the major news producers have fairly successfully suggested that these failures should only be examined by themselves or sources they trust (as opposed to independent academics, etc.), and that the default assumption we must all make is that somehow 'accusations' of 'bias' (i.e., simple measures of their mind-numbingly consistent and massive failures in favoring hawkish policies) face far larger burdens of proof than lazy assumptions of general good will.

Isn't this amazing?

Wouldn't you expect that, in hypothetically sane societies, such institutions of concentrated power such as major information and 'news' disseminators would bear the responsibility of proving their reliability?

If we were anthropologists studying the information disseminated by some ancient priesthood, would we face some huge challenge or higher burden of proof to suggest that the priests and their underlings tended to believe things and disseminate beliefs related to the structure of their priesthood and the measurable interests of that priesthood?

Rather than seeing our major news producing institutions as some sort of presumed objective information sources, we must protect ourselves from those who demand we not see them as cultural institutions, institutions which are embedded in relations of power and beliefs just like any other institution we set out to study.

For example, we might note that in the news production business, a valuable personal commodity is "agency", or autonomy -- it is considered (for sensible reasons) invaluable that journalists make their own decisions, unlike some other hired writers who labor in other fields.

Therefore, anthropologically, we could expect to see the evolution of systems of selection and control by these institutions which seemed to preserve "agency" or autonomy, while still ensuring institutional influence over the content being produced.

That is that hiring & selection & promotion process discussed on here earlier.

When you have direct intervention by powerful interests, it seems an exception. When the New York Times' Ray Bonner accurately reported on Reagan's 'foreign policy' (hired slaughters) in El Salvador, this displeased all sorts of powerful interests (Reagan, right wing flack groups, the Wall Street Journal), and the NYT responded by removing Bonner from that 'beat'.

They did not tell him to change his opinions, or his content, or any such punishment which would undercut their valued image of preserving the autonomy of their journalists.

They simply removed his ability to report on the entire topic of his professional focus. The fact that 10 years later in the wreckage of bodies massacred by Reagan's friends, the anthropological evidence confirmed Bonner's reporting, and the NYT graciously re-hired him -- precisely too late for it to matter to the powerful interests who wanted him silenced in the first place.

So I suggest to Glenn that although, yes, we should be curious as to the particular activities and organizational features give rise to news producers' measurably systematic output, it should not be our first responsibility.

Like the black box problem, our first responsibility is to carefully observe what goes in, and what comes out.

The secular priesthood of the major news producers and their related intellectuals may complain that we do not know the amazingly complex processes hidden within the box, and that we must know this before we proceed any further, but we can answer that, no, we can measure what goes in the box, and what goes out, and, just like engineers, we are free to hypothesize the simplest possible explanations for what goes on inside to create the measured output.

When Sowell went to write the sentence "some on the left believe that [people] are innocent even after being proven guilty," a basically functioning brain should have alerted him to the fact that he and his ideological comrades constantly do exactly that

Right, there's your problem right there.

I can't seem to locate this "basically functioning brain" of which you speak.

I keep finding some Reagan-speak generating circuitry, and some Milton-Friedman engines, but brain matter, hmmm, I'm poking around, but, I just don't see it.

I am hoping, hoping against hope that this story may get some of the attention it deserves. Thank you Glenn.