I think the most likely reason for this is not what you suggest, but that they want to resist what you say below: "In substantial measure, the news coverage makes this real." The desire to resist that (obviously true) fact comes from the implications: if news coverage makes politics go, than it's impossible to be an independent journalist in the way many of them want to be.
Yes, I think that's right. Or impossible to deceive oneself about being part of the news--but that is precisely why the fantasy of objectivity (and its corollary addiction to false equivalency) is so bad for journalists--it's a delusion that leads them to perpetually misunderstand why people are critical of them. Not for failing to be objective, but for pretending that they are when they haven't been.
I think the most likely reason for this is not what you suggest, but that they want to resist what you say below: "In substantial measure, the news coverage makes this real." The desire to resist that (obviously true) fact comes from the implications: if news coverage makes politics go, than it's impossible to be an independent journalist in the way many of them want to be.
Yes, I think that's right. Or impossible to deceive oneself about being part of the news--but that is precisely why the fantasy of objectivity (and its corollary addiction to false equivalency) is so bad for journalists--it's a delusion that leads them to perpetually misunderstand why people are critical of them. Not for failing to be objective, but for pretending that they are when they haven't been.