Is CBS News Prioritizing Agendas over Objective Reporting?

The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) was founded nearly a hundred years ago. It is sometimes called the Tiffany Network, alluding to its high programming quality during the tenure of its founding. Now, people across the political spectrum are asking, What is going on at CBS?

First came allegations that 60 Minutes edited its interview with Vice President Kamala Harris to favor her. Many called on the network to release a full transcript of the interview; former staffers demanded an independent investigation.

Then came the network’s rebuke of morning anchor Tony Dokoupil after he challenged author Ta-Nehisi Coates’ anti-Israel characterizations and lack of historical context during their discussion of Coates’ one-sided new book on Palestine.

The Washington Post spoke for many in calling the interview good journalism. The chair of CBS’s parent company later admitted that CBS leadership made a “bad mistake” in upbraiding Dokoupil as it did. Gayle King has also been criticized for reportedly giving Coates her questions in advance of her part of their interview.

CBS is also under fire for telling its staff not to refer to Jerusalem as a part of Israel due to its “disputed status.”

Truth or “truthiness”?

We all want to believe that our work matters, that we are leaving a legacy by what we do. Those of us whose work is words especially wonder if we are making a difference.

To this end, many believe that their words can make the world what they believe it should be.

Why?

Our culture has jettisoned its belief in objective truth for what Stephen Colbert calls “truthiness,” defined as “the belief in what you feel to be true rather than what the facts will support.” As a result, some journalists believe that their value no longer lies in reporting the news but in changing society.

Those on one side of the partisan divide think they are saving Palestinians from Israeli “colonizers” and democracy from those who would destroy it. Those on the other side think they are protecting democracy from “wokeism” and socialism. Both are speaking “their truth” unfettered by objective accountability.

There was a day when words could not be published without going through an editorial review. For example, when I wrote a book on radical Islam some years ago, I worked with an editor who had served in the US Army. He corrected several of my statements regarding military hardware even though I was quoting other sources. His expertise made my words more accurate than they would have been otherwise.

Now social media gives everyone’s words unfiltered, unedited access to the world. And the line between objective reporting and opinion journalism has been blurred if not obliterated.

Seeking truth beyond our “horizon”

Our secularized culture can reject objective truth, but this makes truth no less objective. To claim “there is no such thing as absolute truth” is to make an absolute truth claim. The person who denies the sunrise does not harm the sun.

At the same time, we all experience what Hans-Georg Gadamer called the “fusion of horizons”—when we view a sunrise, listen to music, or otherwise interact with the world, we interpret it from our unique perspective. We bring it into ourselves and ourselves into it.

We can therefore either abandon our quest for objective truth, as many do, or seek an authority we can objectively trust.

Such an authority must obviously come from outside our personal “horizon” and be superior to our finite, fallen minds. The good news is that we have such an authority available to us today:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16).

God’s word reveals God’s superior, omniscient mind (Isaiah 55:8–9). As such, “the law of the Lᴏʀᴅ is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lᴏʀᴅ is sure, making wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7). We can therefore know that “every word of God proves true” (Proverbs 30:5).

“A flash of light comes”

Our decision is whether to trust God’s revealed truth or “our truth.”

The latter leads into confusion and spiritual darkness: “If anyone … does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing” (1 Timothy 6:3–4). The former leads to spiritual enlightenment: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105).

Accordingly, Oswald Chambers observed:

All God’s revelations are sealed until they are opened to us by obedience. You will never get them open by philosophy or thinking. Immediately you obey, a flash of light comes. … Obey God in the thing he shows you, and instantly, the next thing is opened up.

Then he adds: