the thing about false equivalence on both corona and climate (and everything else) is that oil companies didn't just leverage, weaponize and benefit from false equivalence ... they deliberately helped to create it. I know I'm repeating myself, but seems to not have sunk in (1/?)

The best example of this is Herb Schmertz, Mobil's VP back in the 1970s and 1980s who really pioneered the idea that you could bully journalists into covering your side of things if you accused them of bias and reminded them of the value of "objectivity"

Quote that best sums up Schmertz's strategy: "In terms of attacking them [the press], it was a tactic to get them to present my point of view or my decision...to get them to present Mobile's point of view by attacking them on on the accuracy and reliability of their reporting."

Before Schmertz, back in the Ivy Lee/Edward Bernays days, the false god of objectivity was a weapon against journalists. As @LewisPants points out, it was used to undermine Ida B. Wells' reporting on lynching. It was used to discredit Ida Tarbell's reporting on Standard Oil too.

The great @KendraWrites noted on @RealHotTake recently that climate and race are both seen as "activist" beats, so if you're working on both that's a problem for so-called objective media. But I think there's a growing recognition amongst journalists that this a load of crap

Why is a CEO a more reliable source than the head of an NGO? Why give equal weight or credibility to a contrarian viewpoint with far less evidence behind it? Why lend credibility to a known charlatan just to present oneself as a "balanced" or "objective" journalist?

And how much do our identities and egos as journalists play into this mess? I've been grappling with this myself recently, as I think we all should, over and over.

There's a great story in Schmertz's autobiography about a meeting he demanded with then-WSJ editor Fred Taylor to complain about "unfair" treatment of Mobil. He gets like one bullet point into his complaint and Taylor says "everything you're saying is bullshit" and walks out.

I mean RIP Fred Taylor, a real one. But also, I think journalists need to be less afraid of having that sort of combative relationship with those in power. The pendulum has swung waaaay too far toward access journalism and this apologetic embrace of "objectivity."

This, of course, is also why it’s such a problem that journalists have few jobs to choose from, most of which pay badly, while media outlets are more beholden to advertisers than readers.