Posted on 07/28/2010 7:34:42 AM PDT by EQAndyBuzz
This may be the most embarrassing thing I have ever written — and looking back on my writing, there is a lot of competition for that dubious distinction — but when I became a reporter, it was almost a holy calling.
We really believed we were doing good. We informed the public and helped make democracy work. We exposed wrongdoing wherever we found it. We reported without fear or favor. As a columnist, I tried to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
I warned you that this would be embarrassing.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Was Chuck Todd on the list?
...hypocritical idiots...
Geez, I was expecting the tried and true explanation of all socialists: “I was only following orders.”
But those days are long gone and won't return during your lifetime.
Right there, long ago in the Good Old Days, is the start of the problem. If reporters reported facts, and let people make up their own minds, that would be fine. If reporters said, "I'm a Democrat, and here's our party line ..." that would be fine.
But to pretend to be an honorable, even-handed "journalist" and yet to maintain an agenda of identifying the "comfortable" so that you can "afflict" them, or to find victims so that you can "comfort" them, is to engage in Activist Journalism.
It's a bad road.
“We reported without fear or favor.”
When was that?
And…
We exposed wrongdoing wherever we found it.
Tell me, Roger, what "wrongdoing" were you exposing when you wrote a column for the Baltimore Sun in which you advocated car drivers intentionally running over motorcyclists?
Sure, it was a LONG time ago, but then again I’ve been a riding for a long time -- and I’ve yet to see a retraction by you.
The bottom line is, if you have ANY sense of decency at all this new column is, at worst, only the SECOND-most embarrassing thing you have ever written.
Reporting without fear of the truth ever emerging from our narrative, which was always unAmerican.
These people are so full of themselves
You are another loser writing for a hack website because the venerable print outlet in Chicago you wrote for has already been sunk by your biased lying. Your journalistic integrity is further laughed at by your constant appearances on MSLSD.
No half-assed mea culpa will do anymore, the genie is out of the bottle now.
I only hope the Roger Simon takes time to read the comments, as they completely show what a sham his "mea culpa" article is---and pretty much give it to Chuck Todd.
Chuck Todd’s tweets on why he cannot sleep at night:
For those wondering, the context that I’m seeing JournOlist, it’s in the same week that Breitbart pulls his latest stunt. There is this belief with conservatives that there is a liberal bias in mainstream journalism. There isn’t. You can argue geographic bias and even cultural bias but the idea that any LONGTIME, legitimate news organization is actually advocating for one political party or ideology is absurd. But JournOlist gave the conspriacy theorists about the media an “a ha” or “gotcha” moment that actually, when one looks closely isn’t there. There aren’t a lot of mainstream journalists involved in this JournOlist but there are enough that work for longtime mainstream journalistic enterprises to give the tabloid conservative provocateurs something to run with — a sledgehammer, if you will, to yell “told ya so.”
So in short, what’s depressed me and caused me to lose sleep was the both incidents coming so close together; the fact Breitbart is taken seriously by so many and has outlets to push his agenda, combined with too many on the left deciding that the best way to fight this rise in conservative media outlets to is actually create a liberal type of campaign or organization. In short, it makes me wonder, what the hell is happening to journalism.
They’ve gone so far around the bend of hypocritical that they’ve come full circle and stuck their heads up their own @$$e$ again...
In my day it was an article of faith that reporters kept themselves out of the story. If "A" told you one version of events and "B" told you another, it was your job to report them both as even-handedly as possible, regardless of your personal opinion.
The notion of journalism as some kind of holy "social justice" mission has probably always existed. But the New Left socialist revolution in the 1960s and 70s exalted it, especially after Watergate. The Holy Roller Leftists took over the schools of journalism back then, which they continue to operate as their own little socialist fiefdoms.
Given that situation, journOlist, or something equally despicable, was inevitable. Leftists in the Alinsky mode are not inhibited by any sense of fair play. When given the keys to power they unlock the door and enter. "By any means necessary" is their motto.
“There is this belief with conservatives that there is a liberal bias in mainstream journalism.
“
Walter Cronkite.
FBI files
Vietnam
Tet Offensive
In about 1880, as a preeminent New York journalist, Swinton was the guest of honour at a banquet given him by the leaders of his craft. Someone who knew neither the press nor Swinton offered a toast to the independent press. Swinton outraged his colleagues by replying thus:
"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print.
I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.
The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?
We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."
Research reveals that Swinton, after moving to New York, wrote an occasional article for the New York Times and was hired on a regular basis in 1860 as head of the editorial staff. Afterward holding this position throughout the Civil War, he left the paper in 1870 and became active in the labor struggles of the day. He later served eight years in the same position on the New York Sun and later published a weekly labor sheet, John Swinton's Paper.
Source: Labor's Untold Story, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, published by United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, NY, 1955/1979.
I recently quoted this to a journalist, and he was nodding as I quoted it, and said, "Yes, my friends know that if they don't write with a particular slant it will be sub-edited into that, so they just follow the line."
The entire article was loaded with internal contradictions.
The bottom line was his use of liberal and conservative, left and right, etc.
If the author was a “true journalist” we would have never used those terms. Nor would he defended the developer of that web list. he would have reported what had happened and defended the list's developer by identifying those who subverted the developer's intentions (as other blogs have already done).
He is only sorry that the changed nature of the blog was reported and its future usefulness destroyed.
Jerk. You got caught. That’s the mea culpa, not because of anything you wrote.
Try the pandering on your own way left group because no one else is buying what you sell.
Absolutely right on the mark. This brand of gotcha journalism is the hallmark of the drive by media. They attack without consideration of the truth or consequence of their typically vicious assaults.
By becoming the handmaiden of the ruling class the driveby's have added obsequious to their litany of ethical lapses.
...which is a big part of the problem.
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