This is an excellent commentary on the problems with our MSM ~ I strongly support the concept that when a reporter does not correct a misleading or flatly false statement, that reporter is at least tacity supporting the falsity ~ Sooz

January 12, 2012 2:15 PM
Answering the Public Editor's question
By Steve Benen

Arthur Brisbane, Public Editor of the New York Times, has a piece today asking, “Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?â€

Absolutely agree.
They can quote a statement in context and let readers decide or, if paraphrasing, point out the inaccuracies.

[i]Brisbane's real question, he wrote, was how aggressively reporters should rebut “factsâ€

When they're spoken by a Republican. Like Perry who doesn't understand what "theory" means in science- In his pea brain we're free to dispute gravity because it's only a theory- then what happens? kerplunk
goes the doubter.

So the idea is to turn the entire MSN into Fox News.  Using the "apology tour" reference in the opening post, if I happen to be a reporter who agrees with the comment should I insert a comment somewhere in the story saying that Romney was referring to Obama's apology tour of 2009?  If I happen to be a Christian do I insert a paragraph in a story about one of Santorum's rants quoting the bible as an authority and the absolute truth.

Reporters report what is said.  Editorialists, bloggers, commentators, etc. can interpret and argue with it.  The minute reporters start interpretting their own stories they cease to be reporters and become part of a propaganda machine.

i had exactly the same reaction as Cenk. this is the kind of question a THIRD GRADER ASKS, and the answer is YES.

if the answer is NO, you turn in your press badge and go work for Koch. that is how i see it.

I have no problem with a reporter questioning his subject or going out to find someone with a different opinion to comment on what his subject says but, at the end of the day, I don't give a damn what the reporter's opinion is.  I want to know what the news makers' opinions are becasue they are the ones who are going to influence my life.  If I want a reporter to tell me what to think or, more importantly, what he thinks is true I'll start getting my news from Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh.

I'm definitely with Jim on this one. There is journalism and then there is opinion journalism. I've heard conservative media folk referring to themselves as "advocacy journalists." Whichever you call it, it belongs on the opinion page or the commentary page.

A major tenet of the conservative media in the past 15 years is that there is no such thing as neutrality or objectivity. The premise being, from their point of view, "If you are not telling our truth, then by ommision you are telling their lie." If we buy into that, then it all becomes propaganda. No thank you. There needs to be non-opinion, non-advocacy, non-propaganda information about what's going on. There's ample opportunity to rebut what is reported for those who disagree. If a news story reports that Romney said Obama had an "apology tour", the news is that Romney said it. Not that Obama did it. The next story, if the system is working right, is that Obama said, "Bullshit!"

The new journalism is the Foxian journalism of having reporters explain how wrong their news subjects are.  Old school reporting is the one where the reporters report what is said.  You are right, the new journalism is leading to the public being pathetically misinformed and it will become more misinformed when reporters interviewing scientists about the theory of evolution are also bound to report the "truth" of intelligent design in the same story.  

I think what you want to see is more feature writing and investigative journalism but even that has it's drawbacks since the writers aren't looking for truth, they are looking for something that supports what they have already decided is the truth. 

  

i agree with that, as well- but that is not what the OP is saying, unless you think that opinion and reporting are the same thing.

i disagree.  reporters in days of yore ONLY reported on what was said if what was said was not OBVIOUSLY FALSE.  their professional reputation meant something.  but that, of course, was when the profession actually meant something other than having a loud voice and enough arrogance to handle a camera.


willfully disseminating less than truthful information is conveying propaganda.  it is beneath journalism to do so.

it is beneath journalism to do so.

Journalism?
What's that?

feel free to read most of what i wrote as tongue in cheek.  i think that "TV" and "Journalism" don't belong in the same sentence.

Of course, if the reporters political leanings went the other way he would write:   "This morning in Greenville, NC Mitt Romney reminded listeners of how much Obama hates America citing that scum sucking foreign born fraud's early "apology" tour to Muslim foreign capitols that so disgusted real patriotic Americans."