I was drinking my coffee yesterday morning, watching the news and on a local station, a local news reporter from that station was participating in the Ironman competition. The anchors went on and on about his participation in the event and how he would be tweeting from time to time.
Switching over to NBC, Brian Williams was talking about his network’s coverage of hurricane Katrina five years ago. They were running clips from the early days of the disaster and making comments how none of the news organizations had any idea of how devastating the storm would be. The amount of footage reporting on their reporting was amazing.
When Tim Russert of NBC died, you’d have thought he was the president. Or at least the pope. The amount of coverage on his death was mind-boggling. They did specials on him-and, oh, who do you think would be selected to replace him?
This brings me to the question: is news about the news, or is it about the people that bring you the news?
The news used to be about the news, nowadays, not so much. In our celebrity culture, those people behind the desks now want their 15 minutes of fame.
Glenn Greenwald, a blogger for Salon, wrote about a garden party at the home of Joe Biden this summer. A number of White House reporters were invited and participated in some of the water follies that were going on. This one reporter twittered every few minutes and was so obviously pleased to be a part of the event that one has to question how objective his reporting had been in the past and would be in the future. His tweets sounded like some giddy pre-teen.
Mr. Greenwald also has written about the curious story of Michael Hastings, the Rolling Stone reporter who wrote of the insubordination of the staff of Gen. McChrystal in an article that brought down the general and Laura Logan of CBS who thought such an expose’ was, well, unamerican. To me it is so curious that Ms. Logan’s reasoning is that if you print the secrets that you are told, you won’t be told any more secrets. But the obvious question is, “If you’re not going to print it, what difference does it make if you’re told more secrets anyway?” Do you not print just so you can remain in that exclusive club? A portion of Mr. Greenwald’s article is as follows:
" Yesterday, Hastings was interviewed on CNN's Reliable Sources about the criticisms he has received from media figures over his article, and that was followed by a segment with CBS' Lara Logan, who lambasted him. I really recommend watching these two segments (video below), as they illustrate the two poles of journalism: those who view their role as exposing the relevant secrets of the powerful (Hastings) and those who view their role as protecting those secrets and serving the interests of those officials (Logan). Amazingly, Logan sounds like the most devoted member of McChyrstal's P.R. staff or even his family: so furious is she that Hastings would publish an article that reflected negatively on this Fine, Great Man (whom she supposedly covers) -- so devoted is she to the interests of this military official -- that, at one point, she drops the neutral journalist mask and shows her Bill Kristol face, and actually spat: "Michael Hastings has never served his country the way McChrystal has."
" These two segments should be put into a museum, or a journalism class, to illustrate what journalism is supposed to be (Hastings' views) and what it has actually degenerated into (Logan's). That's why the passage in Politico which ended up being deleted -- on how regular beat reporters would never have published these McChrystal quotes out of fear of losing favor with their subjects they cover and due to an oozing identification with the powerful -- was so revealing. Logan has done good and courageous reporting over the years, but she clearly sees herself as part of the government and military, rather than an adversarial watchdog over it, and that's what makes her views so illustrative... "
Locally, now retired Judge John Potter was once obviously disgusted with the attention that attorneys and the media were focusing on his efforts to uncover a secret deal between plaintiffs and defense attorneys in the Westbecker case. His comment went something like this: “when you are looking under a rock, the attention should be on what’s under the rock, not who picked it up.”
I think it was last year, the New York Times did an exposé about the high-ranking military officers that had been used by the networks in the run-up to the Iraq war and afterwards for expert commentary, and their undisclosed ties to various military contractors. Many of the generals were on the board of directors of companies or otherwise financially tied to firms which were supplying military equipment or intelligence for the war. It was really shocking to see the many conflicts of interest that were allowed, and not reported, by the major news organizations. General Barry MaCaffrey who did commentary for NBC had several paragraphs devoted to his conflicts of interest.
I was anxious to see how the networks would respond. They didn’t. I don’t think any of the major networks either acknowledged the article, or tried to respond to it on the air. The only defense I saw was a blog entry by Brian Williams, which basically said, “I know Gen. McCaffrey, and he’s a fine man.”
When the Times article won a Pulitzer Prize, I was really interested in seeing how the networks would respond. Answer: they didn’t – they completely ignored the news of that prize.
I often wonder what would happen if there was another story like Watergate unfolding today. Are there any reporters who would dare go against the system in order to inform the public of a scandal? Is the idea of a free press reporting on the excesses of government a completely lost idea? For the only business which has its own constitutional amendment, aren’t they letting it go to waste?
What is being taught in journalism today?
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