“Why Most Journalists are Democrats”

Psychology Today – Why Most Journalists Are Democrats: A View from the Soviet Socialist Trenches:

As far as investigating the dark side of the Major Issues, there’s a critically important concept that students of journalism are rarely taught.  It’s easy to find any number of targets to write about in capitalist societies with an open press.  But totalitarian governments are journalistic black holes. Journalists can tickle their self-righteous neurocircuitry every day (and many do), by exposing easy-to-find faults in democratic societies.  But beyond their event horizon is the bigger story that often remains untold as it occurs—the horrific deaths of millions in totalitarian regimes like the former Soviet Union, Communist China, North Korea and, yes, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.  That’s why, when Robert Conquest was asked whether he wanted to retitle his updated The Great Terror, about the Soviet purges, his answer was: Yes, how about I Told You So, You F—king Fools?

This reminds me of the naive articles and documentaries about Castro’s Cuba, where a free press isn’t allowed and dissidents are imprisoned or worse. Reporters regurgitate the Cuban government statistics on infant mortality and such as if there’s no reason to ever doubt el presidente’s numbers. Those are the same people who believed the Soviet reports on tractor factory output and wheat production and were shocked when the USSR collapsed.