«Unbiased» Journalists and «Greedy» Capitalists

Testo disponibile solo in lingua inglese.
In this essay, the author analyses the relationship between the media and capitalism, partly on the basis of his own experience as editor of the great American daily, The Wall Street Journal. More specifically, he seeks to explain why, despite the fact that it is an eminently capitalist institution, the press is often perceived as being hostile to capitalism. News is influenced by three decisive factors: the need to explain events through stereotypes, the impact of different literary formats and the fact that journalists form a self-selected, often co-opted elite, to some extent “alienated” from common passions such as politics and profit. Their critical approach to capitalism (and, especially, towards certain capitalists) is the fruit of these three factors, innate in the very function of the press, and not of prejudices or preconceived adversities vis-à-vis the market system. In the United States, however, as a result of the emergence of “new” media and reflection inside the traditional ones, journalists have seriously begun to ask themselves whether they may not be, perhaps, over-isolated from the rest of society.