Why do I ask this? Well he gave a commencement address recently in which it is obvious he has been peering into my bedroom:

“What are your challenges, specifically? Let us begin with, quote unquote, getting a job. Good jobs in journalism have become scarce as newspapers shrink and die, broadcast media fragment to smaller niche audiences and the public appears more and more willing to receive its “news” online from nincompoops ranting in their underpants.”

As both a rant receiver and a ranter I find his intrusiveness disturbing, on the same level that he would probably place the NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program.

Other gems Mr. Weingarten shared with the graduates:

“Vitally important accountability journalism is still being practiced by fearless men and women who question authority and speak truth to power, right up until the time power incarcerates them. The public doesn’t seem to care.”

Would that be the incarceration incurred for ignoring a court order? The only recent cases I can think of where a journalist was sent to jail have been contempt rulings resulting from an investigation that the New York Times editorial pages, among others, insisted on. I guess I can understand his reasoning, journalists like congressmen tend to believe they are entitled to special privileges under the law.

“As a columnist, I am particularly dismayed by the smug, self-congratulatory attitudes exhibited by some of my brethren. We columnists should know better, inasmuch as we are the only people in America intelligent and principled enough to tell people what to think and how to behave.”

*Cough*Krugman*Cough* (That was the patented Animal House rebuttal cough)

“Objectivity is a good thing to strive for in journalism, but not at the expense of failing to confront the obvious. My own newspaper, for example, has written extensively about Vice President Cheney without once pointing out the self-evident fact that he is — and I offer this as a trained professional observer — Satan.”

Leaving aside whether or not the Vice President is really more evil than Hitler, Stalin, Pol-Pot, Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer, Mr. Weingarten has hit on the problem with professional journalism albiet at an oblique angle. There are three definitions of Objective that apply here:

The ability to view something without influence of feeling or emotions.
An unprejudiced or open orientation to information about the nature of the phenomena being studied.
Expressing no particular opinion, neither for nor against, a topic or issue.

When you examine the context and definitions what Mr. Weingarten is really saying is “Truth is fine, unless it interferes with your agenda”. And that is why “The most recent job-approval rankings place journalists between “loan shark” and “ho’-bag skank.”

Media

This entry was posted on Friday, June 2nd, 2006 at 1:25 pm by Chad and is filed under Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.