Once upon a time in America, LYING by any Media institution was rare and correctable. The biographical life of William Shawn, Editor of the extremely prestigious New Yorker Magazine, overlaps the good period of Truth and Integrity which evolved into the habitually biased and dishonest world that we have been living in – with Common People and Truth and Integrity subjugated by the unrestrained EVIL SCUMBAG PRESS – ESP – (aka Main Stream Media, Corporate Media or Legacy Media).
The Sullivan Rule stare decisis catastrophic SCOTUS mistake of 1965 (or 1964) changed the structure, although it evolved into ever-greater EVIL decade by decade ever since. (As I have written on this website several times, Libel lawsuits became virtually impossible for the Victims to get ‘Justice’ with ‘Due Process of Law’ in a courtroom.)
William Shawn, originally named CHON, was an Ashkenazic Jew born in Chicago in August 1907. (He had had two years education at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and then dropped out.) He married Cecille Lyon in 1928. In 1930, like many ethnic Jews, Italians and other minorities, he anglicized his name legally to Shawn, a name the publishing world (and all other public institutions) might require to avoid Actual DISCRIMINATION in career aspirations.
In 1932, the couple moved to NYC to gain access to the then-flourishing publishing industry. His wife was hired first by The New Yorker as a FACT-CHECKER and, by 1933, he too was hired.
William Shawn worked his way up to an Assistant Editor position and, by December 1951, became the EDITOR – a job he kept officially until February 1987 when he was ‘forced out.’
(In 1985, a corporate structure called Advance Publications bought the New Yorker.)
Back in 1932, when Shawn’s wife Cecille was hired at the New Yorker, the many ‘Fact Checkers’ in the media industries fulfilled a critically important function for two powerful reasons.
Firstly, any inaccurate slanderous information was vulnerable to a rational Libel search for Justice by having the victim bring a lawsuit, requiring the publication or broadcaster to bring their two so-called ‘Sources’ into court to testify under oath and be cross-examined before a jury of peers who had the sole power of legal judgment – not a Holy Judge nor an anonymous Governmental Bureaucrat nor any ‘prestigious’ Editorial Director from the ESP.
The second motive for an extensive internal bureaucracy of Fact Checkers was to forestall a competitive rival institution from ridiculing their incompetence and thereby diminishing their ‘Authority’ in the eyes of the Public.
[The parents of the writer Nora Ephron wrote a screenplay adaptation of a Broadway play called “Desk Set.” A few years later, in 1956 or 1957, it was made into a comedic movie starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Katharine Hepburn plays the role of the Head of the Research Department at the fictitious Federal Broadcasting Company. She runs a department in a remarkably efficient manner, researching facts, both for her employers and for general public inquirers. Spencer Tracy plays an early computer-age ‘Efficiency Expert’ who is hired to computerize, and thereby expedite, the researching of facts. Getting the Facts correct was even more important to a Federal government licensed broadcasting business than to a printed publication. Broadcasters can lose their licenses for lying. A private lawsuit is not necessary. But all of that (rational world behavior) disappeared with the SCOTUS catastrophic stare decisis error called the Sullivan Rule.]
The term ‘Fact Check’ fell into disuse for decades until the 21st Century. It was during the Obama Regime that I first noticed the arrogant ESP interrupt political speeches by anyone outside the WWSOG=BOG attempting to speak directly to the public.
Between the ESP’s lying and disruptions, I do not see how reliable Integrity in Political Speech can possibly exist.
