Update (9/30): 101 comments: That’s a record!
Addendum: New visitors and commenters please read this.
It’s a shame that the media and regular citizens seem to be enemies. It doesn’t have to be that way, but when I read articles like this one (registration req.), “Cries of ‘media bias’ hide sloppy thinking”, I can’t help but think: “This pompous journalist is still in denial!”
Chris Satullo, editorial page editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, thinks he has a finger on the pulse of the blogosphere, but he’s clueless. His tone is a little too superior for me, but the beginning of the column is readable:
The ruling spin on Dan’s Big Blunder seems to be: Rather exposed as a biased hack; mainstream media exposed as arrogant, obsolete gatekeepers; the blogosphere rules!For any journalist who understands his real job — helping the public life of this nation work well — the rise of citizen comment on the Internet should be something to celebrate.
The blogosphere is a dynamic expansion of things newspapers have long done to aid democratic dialogue, from letters to the editor to experiments in civic journalism.
Many bloggers are citizens who care about facts and ideas. (Some are narcissistic boors, but let’s ignore them.) Good bloggers devour information, making then a smart, skeptical audience. Any journalist who would not welcome that is a fool. Given a choice between a world of nonreaders zoning out with MTV or a posse of tart-tongued digital watchdogs, I say: Up with blogs!
Although I don’t like his parent-talking-about-his-rebellious-kids tone, he recognizes there are good bloggers out here. But then he descends:
Yet, many bloggers disdain my type as clueless dinosaurs. The blogosphere is declaring its independence, even as it relies on us fogeys for its daily grist.The sensation is vaguely familiar. I am, after all, the father of two teenagers.
Here’s what bothers me: Rather’s meltdown could be a clarifying moment for journalism. But the event is being hijacked by propagandists of Orwellian agenda. Their cover story: We’re challenging the bloated corporations that own the biased mainstream media. This strikes a chord with the hype-weary youth who’ve made the Internet their own. But the real goal of the propagandists — with their shouts of Bias! Arrogance! Monopoly! — is to destroy journalism.
Why? Because journalism is the sworn enemy of propaganda.
The rest of Satullo’s piece reeks of arrogant, elitist, condescending denial. He accuses us dissenting citizens of wanting to spread propaganda (“The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause.”), as if newspapers don’t do that every day!
I can’t tell you how much it unnerves me that liberal journalists believe they’re not doing what they accuse us of doing. Satullo’s newspaper has an agenda. The New York Times has an agenda. There is no such thing as objectivity in the media, especially with liberals — most of whom cannot hide their distain for George Bush — covering, writing and editing news stories.
Admit the bias! Bloggers are not hiding who we are and what we do. I’m an unabashed conservative, and thank goodness there are a lot of good conservative bloggers who stay on top of this stuff hourly.
Satullo wants us to believe that journalism is some sort of noble profession, and our calls to put slow, transparently biased, leftist dinosaurs out to pasture are “Orwellian.” And he accuses us of hyperbole?
Satullo says “media conglomerates” and journalism are not synonymous. Who said they were? Let’s be clear on this. Corporations don’t write and run the stories; they just own the various media outlets. The editors set the tone and agenda of the newspaper, consciously or subconsciously.
Conservative bloggers forced CBS’s hand. That is key, people. Conservatives are the ones dissecting stories as soon as they’re posted because we know from experience that reporters are pushing a leftist agenda, and we’re going to call them on it. Satullo’s attempts to lump all bloggers into one big rebellious group — some good, some bad, some narcissistic — fall flat.
Check out this conclusion:
Rather’s mistake was sad, but no watershed. This aging anchor is no more the embodiment of journalism than Paris Hilton is a typical farm girl. Mainstream media is a term so loose as to disqualify any assertions that follow it. Let’s, by all means, discuss how journalism falls short. Let’s explore how it can flourish in media new and old. But let’s see the screaming about media bias for what it is: at best sloppy thinking, at worst Orwellian poison.
Isn’t that rich? What is more Orwellian, please tell me, than a journalist asking us to pipe down about media bias, when he has a clear conflict of interest in doing so? He’s a left-leaning journalist at a left-leaning newspaper, yet he wants us to get off the bias kick and “discuss how journalism falls short?” That’s what we’re doing, Mr. Satullo. The first point of the discussion is that mainstream media are biased!
Satullo’s snippy column is just one more example of an exalted “journalist” who thinks he knows what’s best for the rest of us, and his patronizing piece compelled me to blog on a Sunday morning, something I try never to do.
Update II (9/28): Did a Power Line reader persuade the AP to change on of its slanted-left headlines? Wow.
Update: Reader Steve S. pointed this out:
I also found THIS statement interesting:“For any journalist who understands his real job – helping the public
life of this nation work well…”It is EXACTLY this sort of mindset that is rotting journalism from the
inside out!It always seemed to me that the object of journalism was to simply
report events — all that who-what-when-where-how stuff — as accurately as possible. The concept of “making a difference” would be left to others acting upon the information provided by the journalist.If a journalist comes to the conclusion that his or her job is to help
the public life of the country work well, it is inevitable that their
biases about how the country should be run will infect their journalism.The author of this piece seems to have shot himself in the foot — inadvertently offering yet another bit of evidence AGAINST “journalists” of the mainstream media.
I’m surprised you didn’t pick up on that!
More stuff: This is what I’m talking about. More of the same tripe from Reuters: “U.S. Air Attacks in Falluja Kill 15 in 24 Hours.” If the title doesn’t bother you, the story will.
I’m surprised that only 15 people were killed. This is war. The U.S. should have done this from the beginning. I’m so glad most journalists seemed to use common sense during WWII. Hitler would have a field day in 2004 feeding information to these leftist America-haters.
*****
Links galore: Michelle Malkin notes the ideological diversity on the radio talk show circuit. Slant Point and Allahpundit comment on an article in the New York Times‘ Sunday Magazine about blogging…that leaves out conservative bloggers.
BeldarBlog issues a challenge to the media. Read about more bias from the moderate Joe Gandelman.
INDC Journal snags an impromptu interview with Bob Schieffer, host of CBS’s “Face the Nation”, on the streets of DC. Joanne Jacobs cashes in on Dan Rather’s sloppiness.
Idler Yet comments on the comedy that is CBS. Read Power Line’s “Clueless in Manhattan.” JustOneMinute takes on the Times.
