In his email Mr. King claims:

"The interview was mainly to get a couple of questions to him on his thoughts on the role of government when the economy is teetering on the edge of recession"

Am I missing something ? I don't see any questions about the economy in his interview ?

@Reality-Based Lefty - re: Questions For King To Put To McCain

-- Dirigo

Yes, there are probing and important, non-softball questions that could be asked that go deeper than "cheating on your sixth grade test". Someone should tell John King. He'd be gobsmacked.

hi bystander ... this is a good discussion. thanks ...

you wrote:

The point I want to make is, what constitutes professionalism? Lots of occupations make a claim to having a professional status, and it means little more than the sports distinction between being a paid or unpaid player. Profession isn't tied to having an employer. It is tied to those endeavors for which a code of ethics, and an accountability to that code, is not voluntary. There are standards of practice which you breach at your peril. If John King wants to be considered a professional journalist he doesn't get to point to a voluntary code of ethics when he defends his occupational status, and then ignore it when it interferes with his reporting style.

What I get from the John King personalities is their deep desire to be opinion makers. I'm not smarter about a thing when they get done with me, I've simply been manipulated. No professional worthy of the distinction ever manipulates you. That's one of the first items in any profession's code.

i actually agree with you on most of this. what i'm calling for is some understanding of the work/business environment that "reporters" and all of us operate in. this isn't to claim that the ethical standard should be attached to an employer ... but to hopefully evoke some sympathy to our colelctive plight, and to elicit brainstorming from this smart group. to simply say "john king is an idiot" is perpetuating a blame syndrome (who is bad now? ... bush is bad! ... now clinton is bad! ... now reporters are bad! ... now jeff olson is bad! ... now glenn greenwal;d is bad!). it is this blame syndrome, and it's intitutional context that seems to be eluding many here.

take, for example, the idea that you are a young, eager doctor. accordingto the ama, these are some of your ethical guidelines:

Principles of medical ethics

A physician shall be dedicated to providing competent medical care, with compassion and respect for human dignity and rights.

(snip)

A physician shall respect the law and also recognize a responsibility to seek changes in those requirements which are contrary to the best interests of the patient.

(snip)

A physician shall recognize a responsibility to participate in activities contributing to the improvement of the community and the betterment of public health.

A physician shall, while caring for a patient, regard responsibility to the patient as paramount.

A physician shall support access to medical care for all people.

It's not only "drivel" it's outright biased propaganda.

King needs to go back and look up the definition of propaganda and reread his old textbooks from Goebbels.

That the Media Research Center, as vacuous and trite as their content is, serve a valuable right wing purpose. They give a shield to journalists to defend themselves against attacks from "the left" (read: "anyone concerned with objective, skeptical journalism")

They just have to generate enough noise, that morons will think that they and Media Matters are just flip sides of the same coin. None of the complaints need any merit whatsoever, as long as they make enough of them.

Glenn is as 'filthy rich' as Che Pasa.

They'd just spend the dough hanging out with sysprog, W.T. L.W.M., Pedinska, and so many more here (DCLaw!, kovie, bamage, bethincary, jacka'a'roo, Jkalos, Martin Happy's blog, musician like deceased Wagner, J.S. Bach, Joseph Haydin, Robert Schumann, or the live-rural grease-spoon on blue-gene-knee ensembles?

There are many honest and benevolent people who would steward and disburse the ~$~ wisely? Also:

there are many other's here.

Just sing cheerful Cheers with Arne, P. Dirks, and Moltissimo geshwind, sensa misura, alla Mazurka's, Serge Prokofiev (sp), and try to not mess up the Allegro tempestuous. huh. I tease.

I'd not send money-cash. No! Never ever.

Send cash to Frderyk's Chopin's siblings?

Send cash to child 'pianist' or the poor farmers.

Send donations to the great Peabody Conservatory.

The North Carolina Symphony did travel to Brazil.

Pedinska knows locals in need of cash for legal bills.

Pedinska is married to a gentleman from the land of music-ship, and once left the old city of Prague when their version of Right-Wing-Goofs hated the independent and oppressed the 'dissidents'...Keep caring, and give to concerned good analytical citizen critics honest causes.

I hope Glenn and others are richly supported.

Send rusty nails and chide the fakes neocon spikes.

If they don't see they are seriously, real hazardous,

and severely, emotionally, and brain-damaged, we are in big time serious trouble.

Balsee, I wish I could have more short-brevity statements. I hate porn, and I hate war. How lonely men are who visit the right-wing-hate-war-prone, Porn Sites. As was mentioned so cleverly by a 'commenter' here, False GOPs do Blow.

~

Don't blow your money away. Don't send cash to fix Mount Rushmore, either. Buy some new socks without holes in them for Glenn at the China dollar store? But Glenn a new toilet seat and a Old Testament bible with a Greek text of the apocrypha?

There are many new names I'm still figuring' out if they need a free used-stale eclairs handout from The Dunking Doughnut Apple Bobbing Stores.

What 'goofy' days we share.

What if Greenwald were just a CNN viewer writing in to criticize King's sycophantic "reporting"? Would he have responded in the same condescending way? I doubt it. Then again, maybe he would, because he's an asshole.

(dammit, i wanted to preview instead of post)

to continue ...

what is you are a doctor and bound by these ethical guidelines. what is most places to gain employment as a doctor are at hospitals or insurance companies. what is these companies ... as a result of public demand to keep costs down ... create rules and structures that you feel comprimise your ethics. what do you do? if you blow a whistle, you may be fired or blacklisted. if you try to change the system from within you will be met with resistance and/or dismissal. of course these things aren't always the case, but the /system/ is as much or more to blame than the individual. blaming individuals, without examining the system, is wrong and spreads more of the problem.