Earlier this evening, I met Brian Lambert, a Minneapolis-based media critic who's been blogging the RNC from The Liffey, an Irish Pub adjacent to the Xcel Center. I just checked out the results of his work, The View from the Liffey—a smart and salty insiders' perspective on the bubblicious pageantry that is the St. Paul convention—and thought this vignette was nicely indicative of the general attitude toward the press that's been on display at the Xcel Center over the past few days:
"What's the matter with you guys? Why aren't you clapping? Are you Democrats?"
My ears were still ringing with the chant of, "Drill, baby drill!" and Sarah Palin was waving to a delirious crowd, so it took a second before I realized the right and honorable gentleman from California behind us—a guest, not a delegate—was talking to me.
My Palin-watching companion, a highly-remunerated icon of Twin Cities newspapers, told the guy, "We're reporters. We're working. It isn't cool to applaud what you cover." The guy looked around like someone who just caught two satanists in the act of defiling the temple and needed a rope and three more able-bodied Christians to tie us to a stake.
Megan, are you seriously going down this road?
When journalists applaud Obama
A couple more years of work like this you can proctor the new journalism class over at Columbia entitled “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic”, because the press is destroying its credibility and its own survival with behavior like this.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/07/31/2008-07-31_when_journalists_applaud_obama.html
It is a very salient point that journalists applauding (or not) at political events is one of the leading causes of the decline of trust and consumption of journalism as a whole. Here we have the story of two journalists, roughly that's what?, 89% of all journalists? who didn't applaud Palin, on of whom might have either a) had a personal standard against applauding and so didn't, or, b) lied about why he wasn't applauding. Demonstrative proof that the media is biased, at least in actions that depict personal preference. One can only conclude then that the great majority of journalists have no ability to write with objectivity. Logic has never been so easy.
Applause for the candidates certainly violates journalistic standards, but to say that's whats destroying the press' credibility? Seems a bit extreme.
I'd say it has more to do with moments like these:
A McCain shill basically tells this Time reporter to buzz off, that he wont be getting access to Palin, and he just sits impotently by. How much longer are professional truth-seekers going to allow this?
Bah:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhgUvX_8Joo
Thats it, tuck your heads into your shells, pull those blinders a bit tighter and bury yourselves a bit deeper into the sand ... all the while saying there is nothing wrong with us!
Incidents like this continue to reinforce widely held perception that the press is biased and more interested in advancing an agenda than telling the story. When you all find yourselves in the unemployment line, or writing bit pieces for online journals for a few hundred bucks a week maybe then you will reflect on why journalists are some of the least well respected professionals in the country.
Applause for the candidates certainly violates journalistic standards, but to say that's whats destroying the press' credibility? Seems a bit extreme.
By itself, no, and I never stated that. As part of a bigger aggregate, most certainly.
Believe it or don’t at your own peril Evan, cause one day even NPR affiliates will have to cut their staff to the bone.
Come on, TDC, surely you're not implying that the amount of money one earns correlates with the amount of respect one's profession deserves. Journalists can be criticized for a lot of things, but I don't think that being badly paid is one of them.
Or maybe you're just saying that, because many journalists are bad at their jobs, they will soon be un- or underemployed and left with plenty of time to reflect on how they deserve their sad and penurious fate.
“What’s the matter with you guys? Why aren’t you clapping? Are you Democrats?”
Holy shitballs Batman! I think they all are.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19113485/
TDC, you're right that there is a widely held perception that the press is biased, but you seem in denial that just as many claim a conservative bias as do a liberal one, and certainly there's evidence to support both claims. I don't quite see the correlation between this perception and some financial decline in the newspaper industry, which has long been attributed to the rise of the internet and bleeding classified revenues. Last night, I turned on Fox News, surely staffed by some extremely well-remunerated journalists, and heard several minutes of straight advocacy for John McCain.
Situations like this are why, though I agree with plenty of what she has to say, I'm fearful for someone like Rachel Maddow getting her own show just to "balance" out the partisan shouting-matches on MSNBC. It's a slippery slope we won't be able to make our way back up.
TDC, you're right that there is a widely held perception that the press is biased, but you seem in denial that just as many claim a conservative bias as do a liberal one, and certainly there's evidence to support both claims.
One is much more widely held than the other, more widely by an order of magnitude, look at any poll on the subject. And the “evidence” of a right leaning media pretty much boils down to freaks like Chomsky and Herman ... If you have to stoop that low you have essentially ceded your argument.
Last night, I turned on Fox News, surely staffed by some extremely well-remunerated journalists, and heard several minutes of straight advocacy for John McCain.
I am sure you quickly turned back to MSNBC to help with your blood pressure. I recall a study not so recently that concluded that Fox was “fair and balanced” http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx
I know, must have been some kind of Scaife funded thing.
Situations like this are why, though I agree with plenty of what she has to say, I'm fearful for someone like Rachel Maddow getting her own show just to "balance" out the partisan shouting-matches on MSNBC.
How does Maddow “balance” MSNBC, shes like a short Olberman with a vagina.
I recall a study not so recently that concluded that Fox was “fair and balanced"
As a European, let me say this: Fox is to the far right of the furthest right media around here. In fact, they would be fined and condemned for violating anti hate speech laws that are common here.
Not that I approve of such laws, by the way, but the relatively few people who have been sentenced through them were guilty of much less than what Fox News routinely does.
As a European, let me say this
Seriously, the last thing I want to listen to are the opinions about "political extremism" from someone from a continent that regularly sends members of old hard line Stalinist political parties to office.
Yuck!
And Meggan, I am bit taken a back by some of what I am reading on Brian "the smart and salty insider" Lambert's column. Lyrics to a song about Palin's daughter getting knocked up is appropriate commentary for a "senior editor" and a big city daily? Whats next, retard jokes? Whoops ... to late. http://downspalin.blogspot.com/
Now that’s change I can believe in!
TDC doesn't understand the first amendment very well. Probably looking for America to form some kind of TASS-like news agency. Oh wait, the Bush administration has tried to manipulate the news for eight years (TDC has a past history of that as well).
TDC doesn't understand the first amendment very well. Probably looking for America to form some kind of TASS-like news agency. Oh wait, the Bush administration has tried to manipulate the news for eight years (TDC has a past history of that as well).
Do you have a more specific point here, or have you miscalculated your self medication dosage tonight?
Just enjoying your usual one-sided hypocrisy, TDC. Free entertainment. Carry on...
“Why aren’t you clapping? Are you Democrats?”
I couldnt help it Meggan .... your ignorance makes it so easy
In the press galleries at the convention, journalists wrinkled their noses in disgust when Piper, Ms. Palin’s youngest daughter, was filmed kitty-licking her baby brother’s hair into place. But to many Americans — including some I talked to in the convention hall — that looked like family church on Sunday, evidence of good breeding and sibling regard.
Hey Meggan, got another one:
Chicago reporters covering the Democratic Convention in Denver were stunned to witness WGN-Channel 9's Allison Payne cheering and applauding for speakers Wednesday night while she was seated with the Illinois delegation in the Pepsi Center.
http://www.suntimes.com/business/feder/1133928,CST-FIN-feder29.article
Even More for the pile on:
Controversial celebrity photographer Jill Greenberg, a self-professed "hard-core Dem," deliberately took a series of unflattering shots of Republican nominee John McCain for the current cover of The Atlantic - and then bragged about it on a blog.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/09142008/news/politics/mac_hater_has_a_lousy_image_129007.htm
I know ... not a "journalist" but interesting that the Atlantic would let this slip past.