The media industry has been infested by the rise of pseudo-journalists who go against journalism's long tradition to serve the public with accurate information, Los Angeles Times Editor John S. Carroll told a packed room in the Gerlinger Lounge (at the University of Oregon) on Thursday.Fascinating. Who're the "pseudo-journalists" he's going to excoriate?
Guess.
In a scathing critique of Fox News and some talk show hosts, such as Bill O'Reilly, Carroll said they were a "different breed of journalists" who misled their audience while claiming to inform them. He said they did not fit into the long legacy of journalists who got their facts right and respected and cared for their audiences.Fair? Balanced? Nope, neither of those matter.
Remember? We're supposed to be the bad guys.
Part of the problem of the mainstream media with FNC is that Fox doesn't pretend to be impartial in the same way that many of them pretend to be.
Fox doesn't pretend that the rest of the field is as pure as the driven snow either. Fox dares to cross the line and let everyone else in on the joke: that most of the media are liberal, and that they (Fox) are only providing an alternative.
Does that make them evil "pseudo-journalists," to use Mr. Carroll's terminology?
Of course not! Fox is but an alternative -- and judging by the ratings, an alternative that a significant portion of America is interested in listening to.
It's too bad that Carroll and others like him are so wrapped up in their own self-flaggelation that they don't see that truth.
And if they don't see that; if they only want to report what they feel is "right and just," then the question becomes who actually are the "real" journalists and who are the rumor-mongering "pseudo-journalists?"
(Courtesy Wizbang & blogoSFERICS)
Posted by mhking at May 9, 2004 03:12 PM
We saw the coming attractions for "Troy" last night. I got news for Brad, a superhero he aint. He looked like Brad Pitt, movie star, all dressed up in a costume.
I hope he hasn't invested any money in the Greek clothing fad.
Posted by: erp at May 9, 2004 05:38 PMActually, I think the sentence makes perfect sense if read this way: "The media industry has been infested by the rise of pseudo-journalists who go against journalism's long tradition [in order] to serve the public with accurate information."
It's nice that we have multiple voices to counter the blatant bias that is, apparently, part of journalisms "long tradition".
Posted by: Tisnot at May 9, 2004 09:42 PMJust as every newspaper has it's op-ed page, a cable news channel can have it's op-ed programs. I doubt that Bill O'Reilly thinks of himself as a "journalist" so much as an advocate. He has his opinions and presents them openly.
If John S. Carroll wants to call O'Reilly a journalist just to argue that he isn't a journalist, then I'm guessing that the whole arguement is less about journalism than about cleverly trying to discredit opinions that he doesn't like.
Posted by: Tuning Spork at May 10, 2004 12:35 AMI watch all of the news outlets, but prefer Fox because it's the only one that doesn't tell me what I'm SUPPOSED to think. My God, what a concept!
Posted by: Julie at May 10, 2004 12:42 AMLike Rupert Murdock invented "Fair and Balanced".....gimme a break.
Those libs got fat, happy, INCREASINLY biased, and plain moronic - and now they are getting their heads kicked in....DAILY! By wider & wider margins!!
Ya gotta love it.
What liberals wouldn't be bitchin & moanin...oh, and blaming?? We all know how they operate - and that 's the problem.
Libs KNOW that people are catching on......check the voting trends in the last dozen or so years.
They can flash in the pan every now & then on election day, but intellectual "nothing" is hard to sustain. They - including their media - simply have no better alternatives.
Posted by: Beau at May 10, 2004 08:13 AM