I don't want to hijack here but I beg of you all to click on my signature link (my moniker) and watch the video of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) tell a group protesting America's use of torture and rendition that, because they don't support these illegal and fundamentally un-American policies, he hopes their families "suffer the consequences." Now what do you suppose he meant by that?

Get angry folks. This guy should be out of a job by the end of the week.

I haven't had a chance to read all the comments yet but has Timberman stopped by to explain how the media isn't disseminating propaganda because this "information" doesn't meet the strict definition of propaganda because the MSM is not being directed by the official Ministry of blah blah blah?

No?

Well I am sure he will be along shortly.

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The most telling part of this...

...is the dialog between Moyers and Pincus at 1:08 that beginning back in the Reagan era the press gave up on reporting the facts, and turned to covering "both sides" of an issue as a substitute, essentially substituting "objectivity" or lack of "bias" for factuality and reporting the truth. Back 10 minutes from that Walter Isaakson and Dan Rather tell Moyers that this is due to "journalism on the cheap" -- pundits and "experts" are cheaper than fact finding and reporters on the ground.

-- ondelette

Yes I think this was the most important single idea to come from this documentary also. The belief among "journalists" these days that they are simply there to report what both sides are saying rather than seek out and publish actual truth. Russert basically said as much. He wants those mid-level people to call his lazy ass if they have a disagreement with the provided talking points. He certainly isn't going to make phone calls to try and ferret out the truth. Why, that would entail actual journalistic WORK!

Glenn addressed this on Feb. 21:

Besides, (Richard) Wolffe patiently explained that bloggers who are criticizing journalists have no understanding of the real function of journalism, just as the NYT's Michael Gordon lectured Democracy Now's Amy Goodman when Goodman had the audacity to criticize Gordon's pre-Iraq War "reporting" on Iraq's aluminum tubes. Gordon sniped: "I don't know if you understand how journalism works." Wolffe similarly enlightened the confused, misguided critics of journalists as follows:

They want us to play a role that isn't really our role. Our role is to ask questions and get information. It's not a chance for the opposition to take on the government and grill them to a point where they throw their hands up and surrender.

See, all journalists are supposed to do is ask questions of their friends -- like that great guy, Tony Snow -- and that is how they "get information." Then, they pass it along. That's it. That's their job (that echoes what Gordon told Goodman: "the way journalism works is you write what you know, and what you know at the time you try to convey as best you can").

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Elephantman = Bart De Palma

--Anonymous

Anon,

Do you know this for a fact or are you merely speculating? It's the same con BS I'll give you that, but then they all sound the same. So is this troll actually Bart?

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With regard to the "journalists" who attack the quality bloggers... what this all boils down to, I think, is that people like GG and Digby, and most of the folks that comment here at UT for that matter, are simply more intelligent than the Joe Kleins and David Broders of this world. More intelligent, committed and concerned with things such as fact and truth than the majority of "reputable journalists" and pundits out there. This scares them. They now have to deal with a voice(s) that point out just how lazy, stupid and corrupt they are. Their defensiveness is telling in and of itself.

They could act pro-actively and actually do some investigative journalism (some of them have eg. Savage, Priest, Moyers, the two fellows from Knight Ridder, etc.) and thereby quiet the unwashed masses, but they won't. They won't because they are comfortable in their bubble. They are comfortable in their belief that they are doing their job by merely being stenographers. They have lost their credibility and are unwilling to do what is necessary to regain it. They simply don't care and their pushback directed toward bloggers such as GG is really just a tantrum where they hold up their middle finger and scream "Fuck you, we are the deciders! We decide what is newsworthy and how it should be reported!"

So I say good riddance. Let them wither away. People who actually want fact and investigative journalism will find it. There will always be people who have enough interest, integrity and gumption to go out, seek fact and report it. Investigative journalism will not die.

As for Yoo, his reasons are completely different. He hates bloggers because they are dangerous. They represent something closer to true democracy and he is as opposed to democracy as one can get.

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