What the Journolist 'Scandal' Costs Us All...

[Earl Merkel]

Since posting my previous blog on the Journolist Affair this morning, I've been deluged by private messages (tho oddly, no "public" responses yet). Several messages focused on the need for "one honest (reporter / politician / etc. i>pick one>) to stand up and "lead."

I've selected one of 'em to respond to, but I'm talking to the many. My response is below, names changed to protect myself.

--Earl Merkel

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Your points are thoughtful, (name withheld) --span style="font-style: italic;">grin> see? I'm working on "civil discourse," folks!-- but I'd posit that a central theme within your overall posting is also one of the central problems we face.

To wit: You seem to suggest that we need one or more leader(s) to show us the way. In the media, that invariably leads to ideologues (and at its worst, to demagogues); in politics, it invariably leads to charlatans... and at its worst, to tyrants.

A republic is based on accountability-- to a people's ability to hold to account those we select to govern. To do so, we need valid information on what they do, and a mechanism to voice approval or disapproval regarding those acts. (With luck, we can also vote by... well, voting.)

Still, elections don't occur often enough to trim the sails of an off-course government (and I wouldn't want 'em to; I think they still close the bars on Election Day, no?), and the need for constant vigilance by a responsiblemedia is, presumably, why the Constitution contains the "freedom of the press" clause: to serve as a watchdog on government.

So who watches the watchers?

Today --in the case at hand-- it appears that Tucker Carlson and The Daily Caller did. Tomorrow, we may have to line up Tucker and the whole DC staff against the wall, and shoot 'em for trying to pull one over on us. Today, it was in TCarlson's self-interest to be a champion of truth&justice etc.. But tomorrow? Self-interest is the beast that lives inside every breast (I think I saw it several times yesterday, on The Playboy Website), and buyer-beware is always good advice for us consumers of information. I don't want to anoint Tucker as my "info-leader" just yet, personally. I'm sure you join me in my caution.

But as for the "information" we all consumed over the past couple of years from the Journolist conspirators... hey-- I'm no computer guy, but I know about "GIGO." "Put Garbage In, you'll get Garbage Out." When watchdogs become partisans, advocates (and ultimately) participants in a specific ideology, GIGO is inevitable. That's why "spin" has become so much a part of governance today: if you can control the message, you can control... everything. But it's handy to start with influencing election results.

So what's new, you may ask? After all (at the risk of inflaming any old Lefties who hold sacred their younger, idealistic days) it's arguable that good ol' Walter Cronkite was a hack himself -- for instance, when he allowed his emotions to define as "news-fact" that the Vietnam War was "unwinnable." This, after being appalled at the Tet offensive that --in his opinion-- showed that there was no light at the end of the tunnel... but in variance to the fact that in the weeks after the Tet attacks, the VC and NVA were virtually decimated and (many say, even in today's Vietnam) ripe for the end-game.

But in the words of LBJ, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost the country."

So those you cite --Limbaugh, Hannity, Oberman, et al-- appear have much in common with Cronkite, the "most trusted man in America" on whom you say (and millions agreed, back then) we could "count" upon.

I'd suggest we could not, and still cannot-- not on any single one of them. Information --good, hard factual information-- isn't a one-a-day multi-vitamin. It's not easy to get, even if it can be harder to take.

So what do we do?

Jesus, don't ask me; to eschew any mantle of leadership myself (I don't wanna be no politician) I'd just borrow the evasive answer of our current Leader when he responded to a dangerous question by saying: "That's above my pay grade."

But, if pressed, some possibilities suggest themselves.

Investigate. Read everything you can find, and focus on finding differing (and certainly, opposing) points-of-view. I may (or may not) find Rachel Mallow a screeching harpy, Chris Mathews a political prositute, or Sean Hannity a simplistic one-trick-pony-- but mixing my viewing input of MSNBC with CNN and Fox News certainly gives me several variations to interpret the same "fact." Similarly, expand the type and political orientation of the written works you read.

The American media has been accurately described as the "best collector of raw intelligence ever created;" but as with all raw intel, the basic "fact" inside it must be uncovered and defined... and the interpretation of what the "fact" means being the ultimate objective. I'm a believer in (if not always a practicioner of) the basic common sense most sentient adults possess; I'd urge a trust of it-- certainly, more than a trust in the various "analysis" of leaders, whether in media or in politics.

And go look for yourself, too. Not easy either, no over-the-counter remedy available... but your own eyes and mind, honestly applied, remain the best "BS filter" ever devised. All too often, you'll find that it's not raining (despite the "experts" swearing there's a cloudburst occurring). Instead, you may realize that they actually ARE peeing on your leg.

Oops! Slipped into a sermon there, for a minute. Sorry.

But please, please don't look for a "leader." At least, not one you don't intend to watch like a paranoid hawk, and are committed to hold to account when their clay-coated feet invariably, inevitably try to smash down on your neck.

--Earl "Chex And Balances Make For A Healthy Breakfast" Merkel

[Jon Loomis]

I think objectivity in journalism is possible, at least to the extent that it's possible in any human enterprise. What doesn't work is neutrality. Were Woodward and Bernstein objective when they reported the Watergate story? They reported the facts as best they could, and those facts had obvious--and damning--implications for the Nixon administration. They were NOT neutral--they did not shy away from a story that was potentially damaging to the administration, nor did they report it simply as a "he said, she said" story in which both sides get to apply their partisan sping and cancel each other out, story over. You could argue that Cronkite was, in fact, objective when he reported from Saigon in 1968: in fact it was hard to see, at that point, how the U.S. was going to win the war against an enemy as determined as the Vietnamese. And it turned out that he was right: we left seven years later, soundly defeated--despite having killed between three and five million people in Southeast Asia, or roughly 15% of Vietnam's population--and losing 52,000 of our own, and wrecking our economy in the process. He was not neutral--he didn't just do the easy story the military wanted him to do, which was essentially to report that, yes, parts of Saigon were burning--but most of the city wasn't really on fire much, if at all. The problem with mainstream/corporate print and TV news now, compared to the 1960s, is that it strives to be neutral (i.e., inoffensive to conservatives) more than it strives to actually tell the truth. No wonder nobody reads or watches it anymore.

[Benjamin Sobieck]

You want better journalists? Pay them. Start by buying a newspaper. But no one wants to pay for news. So the layoffs come to the newsroom, and quality diminishes.

So do headlines.

[John McFetridge]

If this can help us to admit that there isn't now - nor has there ever been - objective journalism, that mght make it worthwhile.

[Jon Loomis]

The only thing "we" lose in the so-called "Journolist scandal" is whatever time and effort we put into taking it seriously.