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Saturday, March 8, 2008 12:00 AM

Tucker Carlson unintentionally reveals the role of the American press

The MSNBC TV personality attacks a British reporter for doing something "hurtful" to the powerful.

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  • Saturday, March 8, 2008 05:06 AM

    Let's not romanticize UK reporters, either

    I do my best to listen to BBC World Service, and especially to give me the news that National Public Radio silently ignores or glosses. However, it's important to not think that Jeremy Paxton or Claire Bolderson are typical journalists, that Peev is an everyday journalist. It's true that BBC and British papers will take a more adversarial and interrogative stance with officials than the fawning, utterly worthless, US press will, but it is not "British standard" any more than the Daily Mirror gutter press that Carlson wants to be "normal" is. Furthermore, the US does have journalists, and it does have true interlocutors for people in power. The problem is that, in the US, such persons are sidelined to the "alternative press" or demoted, while the most intelligent and persistent reporters in Britain get, of all things, promoted and become the stars of their services and papers.

    You know about Paxton because the BBC is careful to highlight them, and you know of Peev because The Scotsman sent her to a high profile world event. We don't know the names of our own good reporters because, other than a very few (mostly left over from Vietnam reporting), they get shuffled off, silenced, or sidetracked as bad for profits.

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