Two Veteran Journalists Critical Of Today's Media Coverage

[sled]

Two Veteran Journalists Critical Of Today's Media Coverage

http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/re.aspx?re=F15DAAA6-59E7-40C7-B043-862040BB2724

Objectivity Seen As False Ideal That Hampers Reporters' Work

By KATE MORAN
Day Staff Writer, New London
Published on 12/6/2004

Stonington — What is the state of journalism in this country when the
national press, historically disparaged as the “liberal media,” gets
pilloried by both the right and the left for its flabby coverage of
politics and the war in Iraq?

Morley Safer and Osborn Elliott, two doyens of the news business, met
at the community center Sunday night for a conversation in which they
questioned why reporters cling to a false ideal of objectivity that
prevents them from being critical and skeptical purveyors of the news.

In a talk sponsored by the Stonington Free Library, the two colleagues
and old friends discussed how to fortify coverage in an era when news
outlets are so obsessed with being even-handed that their stories take
the shape of point-counterpoint rather than an incisive examination of
an issue.

“We've heard a lot of criticism of the election coverage — or non-
coverage — by the right and the left alike,” said Elliott, the
Stonington Borough resident and former editor of Newsweek.

(snip)

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[teryang]

1. To groans from the audience?

Does this imply that the audience believes that we're winning the war in Iraq?

I guess this is the same shoot the messenger syndrome we see on Yahoo breaking news when stories about widespread insurgent attacks and casulties in Iraq get 2 ratings. The "feel good" readership just doesn't care to hear bad news.