Objectivity Is a Mirage in News and Culture

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I’m often asked if I’m familiar with those entities that tell you how to think about certain news media. Which ones are fair, which are balanced, and where they are on a pretty dated left-to-right scale, or being in some way “accurate” versus “opinionated.”

I’ve always been skeptical about this, simply because telling people whom to believe and whom not to believe has always been a major goal of establishment propaganda.

The truth is… objectivity is a mirage.

I thought of this recently while examining a Top 100 Restaurants list from The New York Times.

Quite a few places they ranked highly are holes in the wall in what are known as the outer boroughs of New York City. Now, I personally love simple places serving cheap, good ethnic food, and I make a practice of exploring every nook and cranny of a city. And yet I viewed this list with skepticism, in part because it felt like the folks who put this together were leaning heavily on proving how cool and alternative they are.

And many clearly outstanding places were not mentioned. Personally, I am most delighted by longstanding places that somehow have avoided the scourge of the influencer — like a tiny place dispensing cheap, steaming, jammed dumplings out of a window in an alley in New York’s Chinatown. I might tell you the name if I could remember it, but then again I might not!

I was pondering the tyranny of big-brand judges when I came upon a commentary on the Times’s list by another publication that assesses chomperies and gnasheries. In Eater, Hilary Pollack wrote:

What are the metrics by which a restaurant is “best”? Is there some sort of scientific apparatus capable of objectively measuring the value of a bowl of pho against that of a foam-and-caviar tasting menu? Can a tiny Taiwanese strip-mall spot be “better” than a three-Michelin-starred French dining room? Is sentimentality part of good criticism, or a corruption of it? …

I’ve had unforgettable meals that cost $19 and deeply forgettable ones well into the triple digits. When it comes to determining which restaurants are “best,” even the pros are ultimately just trying to articulate a feeling.

After describing picky readers’ opposing views in the Times’s comments section, Pollack concluded that “what many of these complaints share is a resistance to the central truth of restaurant rankings: Objectivity is a mirage.”

There’s also a certain irony about people employed by elite brand news organizations who go out of their way to associate themselves with the simplest, earthiest enterprises.

The same holds true with entities judging news organizations. They love to heap praise on the small ones that produce specialized category work, say, for a specific ethnic community, or laboring in the provinces, providing basic news coverage to those who otherwise would not know what’s going on in town.

Less lauded by legacy media are those that consistently outdo the luxury news brands at figuring out and articulating what’s actually going on and anticipating where things are headed.

They’re “left” or a bit “biased” — until the consensus gets around to concluding, with lots of quotes from experts, that, well, ahem, yes the worst has actually been unfolding and yes, well, we probably better do something about it.

I Spy a Lack of Privacy

Did you happen to see the item reporting that, out of 17,000 foreign diplomats based in Vienna, fully 7,000… are spies?

I suspect that makes it a most interesting place to live, if you’re one of the spies, one of the slight majority of actual diplomats, or anyone of interest to a spy.

Imagine that, as you go about your life — shopping, having a chat in public, getting a massage, talking to a shrink, going out for an afternoon cup of coffee mit schlag, or, especially, doing anything that might make you vulnerable — other people are deeply, deeply interested, if for no other reason than that they’re looking for something that might make you likely to want to help them in some secret project, or something to hold over you.

Of course, one might argue that this is, in fact, a bit like the way all our lives are headed, with the constant digital surveillance, the cameras mounted everywhere visibly and invisibly, the growing dependence on and intimacy with artificial intelligence.

Is there some movement among our country’s leaders to get this urgent matter — among so many other urgencies — in hand, while we may still maintain a modest expectation of conducting at least part of our lives out of the public eye?

White House Budget Analyst: ‘We Have to Get Rid of Trump’

Trump brought along to China a gaggle of oligarchs — unsurprising, given how he openly embraces the idea of government as serving their interests. One person who was left out until the last minute was among the most logical to have been included: Jensen Huang of Nvidia, the US-based world leader in making the chips that power AI computing.

As reported by The New York Times, Huang was suddenly invited as the party set out from DC, and rushed up to Alaska to hitch a ride.

Without getting into all the pro and con particulars of giving China access to Nvidia’s advanced AI chips, the mere fact that he wasn’t top of mind for the White House when it devised the passenger list raises questions concerning how decisions are made.

More and more, we see signs of chaos at the top — though legacy media has been slow to highlight this matter, perhaps hoping that if it doesn’t headline too aggressively that the emperor has no clothes, he won’t be too wrathful as these media conglomerates make their own business moves — especially those involving fat government contracts.

Enter an unlikely hero: the right-wing, hidden-camera scoundrel James O’Keefe. Long known for seeking to embarrass Democrats, liberals, and others whose politics he opposes, O’Keefe has increasingly turned his ire on Trump, whose administration has denied him and his team press credentials.

O’Keefe recently released candid footage in which White House staffers grumbled about Trump. As summarized by Raw Story:

“We have to get rid of Trump,” Benjamin Elliston, a senior budget analysis and financial manager for the White House, unknowingly told an undercover reporter, thinking he was on a date with someone he met online. “Seriously, he’s a mess. He’s f— it up for everybody. Everybody!”

Elliston was particularly upset with Trump’s ballroom, saying that the president wants to add a “secret basement for the military.” He was worried that the ballroom was “all being funded by private donations. No one knows where the money is coming from.”

Maxim Lott, a special assistant to the president on domestic policy, told an undercover reporter he thought was his date that lower-ranking White House employees make decisions for Trump, assuming what his response will be.

“In theory, everything should sort of come from the president, but it might come from the level below him, where they’re like I think I know the president well enough to say what he would say on this,” Lott said. “There’s no like, ‘Well, this will cost $10 million, but save people $20.’”

Lott added that “there’s no cost-benefit” analysis in these decisions made for Trump, and said that “the overall tone” inside the White House is “a little bit uncontrolled. It’s not gonna fix itself.”

Leave it to people who actually wanted to work in the Trump White House to badly understate what a hash their guy is making; but nonetheless, one gets the point that even they now realize the scope of the country’s disaster.

When this will be declared a full-blown national emergency — and what exactly can be done about it — is another matter.

Adjacent to these worries is the recurring theme of the administration’s rampant giveaways to the rich and the self-dealing on the part of the Trump family and its coterie.

The Distinct Smell of Corruption

I smell the stink of corruption in almost everything having to do with this administration. Take Trump’s removal of Food and Drug Administration chief Marty Makary.

It’s hard to think of something good to say about anyone whom Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. brought in to work under him, but it turns out that Makary was apparently on the people’s side on at least one issue. (And Kennedy’s chief spokesperson resigned over the same issue.)

The coverage of Makary’s removal was disappointing, to say the least. It toted up aspects of Makary’s reign that irritated Trump, including how Trump didn’t like Makary resisting candy-flavored e-cigarettes. (Neither did Kennedy, who also pressured Makary to quit — and has actually promoted e-cigarettes and nicotine.) But the legacy media made little mention of why Trump decided to approve vaping.

Now what’s that about, I wondered? Why does Trump kowtow to big tobacco? That’s simple enough. He does it for the same reason he does with big oil and most other industries: it’s a quid pro quo, and he was generously supported in his bid for the presidency because he gladly does what they want.

His vaunted independence and fearlessness, pushed by his media allies and illustrated by highly selective examples, contrasts with the larger reality. The Democrats and legacy “liberal” media have not done a great job of continuously reminding the public of this — or how it affects them. This is not something to periodically write about. It is the constant daily reality of our government under Trump.

In September 2019, Trump announced a plan to ban most flavored e-cigarettes, saying, “We can’t allow people to get sick. And we can’t have our kids be so affected.”

But just five years later, in 2024, Reynolds American (maker of Camel and Newport), was the largest corporate donor to Trump’s presidential campaign, contributing $10 million. And big tobacco is on the list of donors helping fund Trump’s East Wing teardown and ballroom boondoggle. Here’s a quick guide to Trump’s quid pro quo:

January 2025: Withdrew proposed FDA rule banning menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars.

April 2025: Dismantled the Centers for Disease Control Office on Smoking and Health.

November 2025: Terminated the “Tips From Former Smokers” campaign.

May 2026:  Authorized fruit-flavored e-cigarettes and pressured Makary into resigning.  

On May 8, 2026, The Daily Beast published a story with the headline “Trump Backs Vapes After Susie Wiles’ Tobacco Pals Visit White House.” But, in fact, most if not all of Trump’s favors to big tobacco mentioned above are likely thanks to the influence of Wiles and her deep ties to the industry.

How is this not a bigger issue? If we keep avoiding saying out loud what needs to be said about the wholesale auctioning of our government to the highest bidders, how can we ever get the country back on track?

Beans and Cults

I read a decent piece in The New Republic about soybean farmers and their struggle to survive. Trump’s policies have made this much harder for these farmers. And yet they continue to stick by him politically.

What I didn’t see was a good explanation of why they do — and of course that gets into deep psychological terrain, as well as questions about education, and about how people inform themselves, and think about this information, and make decisions in (or against) their own interest.

What is wrong with a big part of the American populace? No one seems willing to ask and to probe.

One thing is sure: We are a country of cults. Americans just love to fall in love with someone or some entity that supposedly knows much more than they do about how to do things, how to live, how to think. The soybean farmers figure that, well, Trump has some plan. The right-wing media, funded by agenda-driven moneyed interests, naturally are only too glad to perpetuate that counter-factual assumption.

Fat chance, of course, that Trump has any kind of plan — but how are you going to wake them up?

One good way is to start local. Build good local media that cover local bread-and-butter issues and introduce factual presentations in a way that people of varied political beliefs and diverse brain wirings can still agree on.

Soybean farmers need local papers reporting on farm issues and on community board meetings. A lot of that gets them more grounded, away from inflammatory rage-bait issues hammered by Fox News and its ilk that have no connection with the problems the farmers actually face.

Farmers are hardly alone in being cerebrally programmed into supporting politics that run crossways to their interests. I’ve recently been talking to smart, thoughtful young people about politics. One thing I’ve learned is that, surprisingly, some of those who are the most knowledgeable and interested in history, current events, reading — also don’t bother to vote.

This obviously presents a huge challenge to those trying to generate turnout for the midterms. It is not surprising that those who are tuned out, or those who are “low information” voters, are unlikely to vote. But if some of the most discerning and thoughtful people from the emergent generation are also not motivated to vote, this country is in real trouble.

Seems that with all of the money and polls and strategies, the political class could manage to work on this.

Unfortunately, our leading publications, trying to keep and grow an audience, sometimes have to go low to climb high. For example, the oligarch-owned Washington Post just published an article that takes pet psychics seriously and says they can commune with your pet to see how they’re feeling about being on a trip with you — or while you’re on a trip and they’re at home. The good news is that readers overwhelmingly expressed contempt for the paper publishing said article.

Fortunately, one still finds a lot of serious journalism there. Not a day goes by that I don’t read something in The Washington Post and immediately want to go on social media and share it. So bravo to the hardworking, smart, serious folks who hang on there. Like the one who told this important story of Russia’s drone warfare against Ukrainian civilians, and the remarkable boy who stopped one such attack on his family.

Corrections That Self-Praise

I often get a chuckle from the way that publications like the Times call attention to their errors. That’s because they so rarely admit to large errors, like the fact that the writers have no idea what they’re talking about, or are clearly being hoodwinked by smart-sounding sources, or are pushing some line someone high up wants pushed.

Instead of admitting to these egregious flaws they let you know that some microscopic detail was a mistake, the idea being that, well, they’re so precise over there that the slightest speck of dust gets earnest scrutiny. Here’s one on a very interesting opinion piece about AI and competition with China:

A correction was made on May 13, 2026: An earlier version of this article misstated the number of children the influencer known as Ballerina Farm has. She has nine children, not eight.

Oops, there I go again with those outrageous opinions. Biased! Not to be trusted! Rating: 3.2 out of 5!