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Monday, December 15. 2008

Obamamania and the Press

Bernard Goldberg's amusing speech on Bias Like Never Before. One quote from the Q&A:

My first job, four days out of college was with the Associated Press. In those days, it was, "Just the facts, ma'am," kind of news organization. Now, they actually have a policy. It's not by accident. It's a policy that they want their reporters to inject what they call accountability journalism into pieces. Accountability journalism, in plain English, is opinion journalism. And I've read stories on the AP wire that are as biased as can be. Nobody would argue, but that's what they want.

So when the AP, which is 162-year-old organization, decides that objectivity is old hat, it's yesterday, it's not exciting enough, I'm telling you, there's not going to be much left of the mainstream media to throw over the side of the ship. They're doing it themselves.

But that's another point, if I could make it briefly. When they finally are so irrelevant that none of us really give a damn about them, you know who they're going to blame. They're going to blame all of us, that we somehow poisoned the well, that conservatives turned the public on them, but the final wound will be self-inflicted. They're doing it to themselves.

Posted by Bird Dog at 14:28 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

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Love Bernard's assessment: "I think they didn't put a thumb on the scale, but they put their big fat asses on the scale this time, and they wanted him to win, and they made no bones about it."

What rankles me most is the arrogance of the incoming administration, as demonstrated in the statement from Transition Communications Czar Pfieffer: "At the direction of the President-elect, a review of Transition staff contacts with Governor Blagojevich and his office has been conducted and completed and is ready for release."

Is it necessary to capitalize transition? We already know there is no such thing as an Office of the President-Elect, yet a thoroughly compliant and obsequious media runs with whatever issues from the mouth and/or minions of The Øne.

How about this issuance from the Stuttering Øbfuscator: "What I want to do is to gather all the facts about any staff contacts that I might — may have — that may have taken place between the transition office and the governor's office."

Øne can hide a lot of truth in those slight, er, um, utterances, er, what I mean is, we may have meant something that you might think I, er, we meant to say, but for purposes of protecting the integrity of an ongoing investigation, I, er, um, we will not comment at this time.
#1 The Distributist on 2008-12-15 16:26 (Reply)
Speaking as a person who made her living as a writer and editor [I hate the word journalist, just as Jules Crittenden does; he prefers 'reporter'.] I think Mr. Goldberg is 'dead on' about the mainstream media's honesty problems. They have long ago abandoned any effort toward objectivity, and the younger ones don't even have an idea of how to do an in-depth investigative story. You have to know how to investigate to do that, and deep research is a skill they have forgotten, if they ever knew anything about it. [Sorry, News Junkie... you are the exception that proves the rule]. It's the downfall of the Second Oldest Profession, from reporter to propagandist.

And they aren't even ashamed.

Marianne
#2 Marianne Matthews on 2008-12-15 19:44 (Reply)
Not only not ashamed - they see themselves as heroes.
#2.1 bd on 2008-12-15 19:53 (Reply)

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