"Reporters"......HA !

[democrank]

Good freaking grief. Is it just nasty cynicism on my part or are we witnessing the most shallow herd of reporters ever to waste the width of the tv screen? What did they do? Get a fake diploma from Acme School of Journalism then race on down to D.C. for an interview for Bush`s Freedom Corps? For the most part, I`ve not watched corporate media since November of 2004, but I`ve read enough here and elsewhere to know that something is right putrid with the mainstream media.

Most "reporters" use White House talking points as the noteworthy news of the day. No digging, no investigating required. No beating the pavement looking for a regular person to interview. Simply repeat Karl Rove`s list of truths and you have an instant news program. Any straying from these truths is frowned upon, so to avoid the "liberal" label, reporters pretty much stick to the script and toe the red-state line. These same people are going to report on democracy in Iraq?

My eyeballs are starting to spin. A big herd of reporters are camped out in Aruba. Not Darfur, Aruba. The rest of them are all dressed up standing in front of hay bales in Crawford. They aren`t even Official Bush Ranch Hay Bales, but do they tell the viewing public? No. "Reporting from the president`s ranch"....The only thing missing is Laura braiding a rug. This fake backdrop thing really bothers me, but what the heck? This is the land where war is peace and record national debt is prosperity.

Did someone announce a big rules change while I was busy clipping coupons? Did some big producers break out of Hollywood and set up shop at CNN or MSNBC? It`s like a movie: big stars, some stuntmen, cameo appearances, big budget, brain-grabbing imagery and presto....Katherine Harris wrapped in a flag, retired generals telling Iraqis how free we`ve made them, Jessica Simpson describing her baby pictures, live shots of the Runaway Bride`s community service lawnmower. I honestly can`t make sense of any of this. You mean the story of the guy up the street with the broken truck and the empty refrigerator is as outdated as a Leave it to Beaver rerun? The Guardsman on tour number two is a bit ho-hum? Maybe a new America is emerging, one where we trample over our neighbor to get a new Harry Potter book or buy a yellow magnet to prove we`re patriots. No wonder Joe Scarborough has his own show. No wonder AWOL Bush can bellow "Bring it on" and get an ovation.

[Southsideirish]

1. They are probably "J school" grads - very timid bunch, interested in

not stepping on toes and advancing their own careers. Sorry lot!

[despairing optimist]

7. Please don't paint with a broad brush. This J-school grad resents it.

It's easy to find whores in any field. Brown-nosers and casting-couch sleepers are in all corporate environments, and everyone has his own reasons for being in a particular occupation at a given time. If someone wants to sell out, journalism is a dumb way to do it. He or she is much better off selling out in management, investment banking, law, medicine, or politics. The pay is much better there. Most people in journalism work behind the scenes for average paychecks like everyone else. Careerists everywhere avoid antagonizing people who can help them advance their careers.

[SteppingRazor]

12. So does this one. But I'm used to journalist bashing by now. n/t

[Gyre]

2. Huge pack of windsocks worried about their paycheck.

Worse than a herd of loser frat-boy MBAs. They even rate even below defense attorneys and insurance salesman as far as I'm concerned. All except Amy Goodman and the "Democracy Now!" crew.

When the tide turns watch how they try to claim they were the vangard of democracy.

Gyre

[Child_Of_Isis]

3. If they don't stay in line,

they get calls from the White House. I was watching Joe Scarborough one night and he said the White House called and demanded a retraction on something he said. He hasn't strayed from Aruba since.

[despairing optimist]

4. Just my opinion as a journalist, FWIW:

The web and "live" news streaming on cable networks have opened up the world of news gathering to millions of people who formerly relied on reporters and editors to distill and regurgitate what they can now hear for themselves in press conferences and read for themselves in the same handouts that most press people get. So it's easy to see the present time and herd of reporters as particularly weak when in fact the majority of news people have been mediocrities; it's just that no one noticed as much in the old days.

There have always been the lazy hacks who put through press releases and rewrite them into news stories for their bosses, and then there are the outstanding few who dig deep and raise hell. That those latter stand in starker contrast than they used to is also a function of the greater interactivity of the Internet and the savvy of its better-educated participants.

This is a terrific thing for democracy. Whereas in the past the citizenry had to rely on journalists to decipher the news, people are now empowered to assemble the facts and judge for themselves as well as to hold journalists accountable when they fall short of expectations. If the pundits want respect, they have to keep earning it and showing they deserve it; and now we can confront them with questions when we are armed with at least as much information as they are.

Keep holding the powerful accountable, whether they're in government or in the news/information "profession." When they fear the people, as Jefferson said, there is liberty. When the people fear them, there is tyranny.

[Berry Cool]

6. Are you guys so busy posting here

that you missed David Gregory and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC tonight?

I guess so. It might mess up your theories a bit.

Keith even interviewed Cindy Sheehan tonight. Too bad you missed it. Oh well, you can always catch the rerun at midnight ET.

[despairing optimist]

8. Theories not messed up at all. Funny you should criticize people posting

so no one gets a free ride. So journalists are damned if they post here and damned if they don't. Sounds at least as bad as the complaints about journalists to me.

[Berry Cool]

9. I did not criticize people posting. Nor "damn" them.

What I criticized was people so busy posting to complain about what the media are NOT doing that they are not even paying attention to what the media ARE doing. Especially when it happens to counteract what they are saying in their posts.

People who actually watched Gregory on Hardball tonight or Olbermann on Countdown might actually have seen a couple of journalists doing their jobs.

[despairing optimist]

10. My post didn't complain about the media. It invited people to become media

themselves and keep the pressure on the professionals, especially those who they think aren't working hard enough. I know lots of journalists who do their jobs; they're the majority and unfortunately they don't always enjoy the limelight.

This thread, and unfortunately many others on DU, lambastes journalists as an undifferentiated mass, and that was what I was referring to in my post. There have always been good and bad journalists; it's just that now it's easier than ever for the general public to see how stories get selected, written, and edited. I said that I thought that was a good development, and I got criticized for that comment. Being that many of my colleagues would have taken me to task for straying beyond the flock and spending time trying to communicate here, I was disappointed to be told, in effect, to go back where I came from. Small wonder why there is so much misunderstanding between the parties involved.

Why aren't I doing my job? Maybe checking out DU from time to time is part of my job, and maybe supporting its goals falls in there somewhere too. Not all journalists have by-lines or go on the air. For every one who does, there are probably a dozen people helping behind the scenes. If progressives want people to be open-minded, they had better hold their own counsel.

[Berry Cool]

11. It's fine to invite people to become media--good, in fact

so they can see just how hard it is.

I would just rather see it without, as you said, the lambasting, and the ridiculing of all the professionals lumped together, or J-school graduates (I happen to be one).

I am surely not meaning to criticize you for pointing out that we can better see now the good and the bad. I think you are making excellent points--that it's easy to sit back in your armchair at home and tell the journalists they are not doing their jobs. And sometimes they do need to hear that. But they cannot all be lumped into the same category, nor is doing that job an easy one. You know that, and that's a good thing.

Edited to add: And you're right, people who want to be lazy and get rich are fools if they go to J-school and become journalists! It's a bad way to "get rich quick with little effort" if I ever saw one. You'd do better off to try the old Internet "MAKE MONEY FAST" chain letter!

[pretzel4gore]

5. 911 was like a movie.....

although there were thousands of live witnesses (certainly to the 2nd plane hit) and millions witnessed the collapse of the towers etc, the entire thing was really staged on tv, (most people refresh their memories as to what they witnessed through the media!) and that is the vision that lives in the public consciousness....david copperfield once made the statue of liberty disappear, and he was just a run of the mill magician....the bfee had billions and vast corporate enterprises and nuklear police powers and so goddam much hatred- a hatred for liberal america that transcended anything the american people have ever experienced, a hatred that has eagerly dragged the world's premier democracy down to banana republic moral standards....and a hatred for truth that only gets worse when it becomes evident truth is gonna destroy them (maybe)