Anyone surprised? Nope? Good.
I come from a journalism family. My grandparents were journalists, my uncles were journalists, and a deep and pervasive understanding of what makes for good reporting was instilled in me and my sister at a fairly early age. I took journalism in high school and learned what I didn’t want to do with my writing life.
I have to say, the level of what passes for journalism these days is revolting. Re. Volt. Ing. It makes me sick. It makes me scream. Ask me sometime about dogs on the radio– you’ll get an earful.
To claim that journalism has a left bias is ludicrous.
The Jeff Gannon scandal, combined with all the other “we’ll say anything if you pay us enough” so-called journalists is far, far worse than Dan Rather getting a little overambitious with a single conservative news source.
I will not go so far as to say that journalism has a right-leaning bias, but rather that anyone who has “access” in Washington is either right-wing, paid off, or both.
And don’t say “that’s as it should be.” The President is a PUBLIC FUCKING SERVANT and needs to get the fuck over himself and realize he’s here to serve. Not. Rule.
I would say that journalism has a fluff bias, preferring the easy story to the real one, avoiding actual research and thinking “spokesmen for X did not return our calls” counts as “follow up.”
And I’m sure I have more to say on this subject. Mostly, though, I want to see people go to jail for this kind of crap.
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My parents ran a newspaper together for 14 years (my dad ran it alone and into the ground for another 3 or so). They had access to Washington even though they were a local (conservative) weekly newspaper.
You know, this is why I like having a King. He *knows* that he can’t use his power.
the King could reassert his power at any time. Look at Nepal, the last few weeks. Basically, he fired the government.
I haven’t heard about this one. I spend most of my news time on either the business news or EuroNews. I only watch CNN for contrast, to find out about what Americans are not being told.
Don’t the newsies still lust after the Pulitzer Prize? What was Pulitzer famous for again? Lessee, Pulitzer, Gould, and that dude that built San Simeon, that’s a fine and “honest” bunch of journalists for you. ;P
Have a look at this distinguished peace of journalism
Sorry.
Huh, didn’t even know about this guy until you brought it up.
There are plenty of “news” organizations that are essentially nothing more than partisan hacks for both sides. None of them are actually controlled by the parties or the politicians, but they blindly side with their faction and so become allies of a sort. Some of them get better access than others, and I can understand why the President would call on someone whom he knew would not give him a tough question.
And one other thing that I see in the media today (and really for as long as there has been a media) – the unbiased journalist is at best an unachievable ideal, but more likely simply a myth. Every journalist comes to the table with their own prejudices and positions. Editors further skew the pieces their reporters produce. For a while, I got the SJ Mercury and the Wall Street Journal. Each of them had their own obvious slants, particularly when reading about the same story written by two different people. The SF Chronicle, which I get now, is very blatant in its choices of events to cover and its political leanings. And Fox News is really just as obvious.
Most of Europe, to my understanding, has media which doesn’t pretend to be unbiased. They all go after the story, and if it is universal enough, they tend to cover it similarly. But most political coverage is slanted towards their readership, and they make no bones about it.
The White House Press Corps is the #1 most prestigious journalism job you can get. Since they have a greater amount of access to the President, they have to go through a screening process. You’re familiar with the kind of background check that might be required. You can probably assume that it’s at least more thorough than, say, the background check to get a teaching credential, given the high security surrounding this president.
So, what I have to ask is, why is a male prostitute (in a state where prostitution is illegal) with an assumed name able to get that kind of access? I’m thinking that, just possibly, this isn’t just a case of “they’re more partisan.”
In the last 3 weeks, there have been multiple stories breaking about “journalists” who were paid by the Republican Party to write favorable opinions on various issues. These “journalists” were definitely and secretly on the payroll of the party, and definitely wrote and published op-ed pieces in major newspapers praising the party’s actions and policies. This is a breach of ethics. Journalists have bias– they are human, after all, and their newspapers have bias as well to cater to their readership. However, this goes waaay beyond simple human bias and into highly unethical reporting practices.
In this case, the big deal is that the White House Press Corps is not there to write just op-ed pieces, but is also there to report the news from the White House, to ask the hard questions (the press corps has to share their question time, so each softball question basically detracts from getting to the real story, real investigation that reporters have a responsibility to the public to perform).
It’s a smoking gun. Maybe it causes people to ask “what’s the line, though?” in reporter bias, but the fact is, the line was crossed, many times, and apparently has been crossed, stomped on, and tap-danced upon by the current administration.
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