I Cogitate
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It's called journalism for a reason
Something jumped out at me when reading E.J. Dione's latest column. Here it is:
Inserting Politics Into Justice
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Saturday, March 24, 2007; Page A17
"...Bush knows something else: The Washington conventional wisdom machine always defines "fairness" as a carefully calibrated point exactly between the positions of the two parties, no matter how outrageous one of the positions might be..."I enjoy EJ Dionne and agree often with his musings but he isn't quite correct here. He deserves accolades for even writing about "the Washington conventional wisdom machine' when so many other media figures and institutions just ignore it, pretend it isn't real or even deny its existence.
However, '"fairness" as a carefully calibrated point exactly between the positions of the two parties, no matter how outrageous one of the positions might be" is just not the typical major media standard operating procedure.
The presidency of Bill Clinton did not receive this sort of careful calibration as many in the mainstream D.C. and national media resented his arrival from the get-go--'an outsider from the hicks and not one of us'--and the meme became just that, artfully fed by the GOP.
The same with Al Gore's presidential run. Look at the slanted and derogatory coverage he received--pompous, a know-it-all. a windbag--compared to the 'straightalking' Texan who was opposing him.
But check out the 'carefully calibrated fairness' exhibited towards Dick Cheney. Whenever he mouths off about how swimmingly things are going in Iraq, the media dutifully covers his spiel regardless of how cockamamie his utterances are. Name the last major media figure who called Cheney out on his insane and nonsensical verbiage--not just disagreed but called b-------t? (Jon Stewart doesn't count) And 'we can't so openly challenge the office of the vice-presidency because that would be disrepectful' is utter camouflage and uber-insulting to those who have died and been injured in Iraq. Cheney spits on their graves and wounds of those each time he is give a free pass to speak his lies.
But don't take my word for any of this. Read Eric Alterman's "What Liberal Media?:The Truth About Bias and the News" in which he factually lays out media bias.
Secondarily, read Eric Boehlert"s "Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush."
You can argue with their bias and such but that is just more obscuration. Do also take on the task of diminishing the facts and events that Alterman (especially) and Boehlert present.
Too many in the D.C. and New York media elite prefer the prestige and comfort they enjoy but worse, the access they are afforded, in lieu of the role they should be playing and the duties they should be performing. Access, especially, should not come at a price--that's performing public relations and not journalism. One is no longer a journalist after deciding to become one of those theoretically being covered. One is also no longer a journalist when calibrations enter the equation.
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