Did someone say Al Jazeera?

Jeremy Scahill wrote, "Sami al-Haj, the al Jazeera journalist who spent seven years at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo is preparing to file a lawsuit against former president George W Bush and other top Bush administration officials. al-Haj was repeatedly interrogated by U.S. operatives attempting to falsely link al Jazeera to al Qaeda. al-Haj was also tortured."

Now wouldn't that be something. The USA too afraid to impeach Bush, or charge him after he leaves office, may be upstaged by a reporter from al Jazeera.

Yes, there is journalism in the world but there just ain't any of it here in this country.

He laughed and replied, "I'm only loved because they don't know what I think." (New York, 1980)

From "A Desperate Passion: An Autobiography," by Helen Caldicott (Norton, 1996)
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I lift this quote and attribution from elsewhere on this site [link@sig].

And as a Dylan fan, I argue that Walter was expressing, in a newsman's terse terms, a variation of this:

And if my thought-dreams could be seen

They'd probably put my head in a guillotine

But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.

Glenn's lens is never blurred and there is always insight and a clear moral sense. Please keep on doin.

Can we have some uniformity on the Les États Généraux, please? The first estate is the clergy, the second is the nobility, the third are the commoners. Après ça, the fourth estate is the press, courtesy of Edmund Burke.

He was a great man in many ways. One personal thing, he had a really nice big sailing yacht! LOL..

I heard him tell the story years ago about he had struggled with the pronunciation of Feb rue airy... then he looked it up one day and that "Feb you airy" is just fine.

I'd love to see an old clip of him saying "Feb rue airy"!

I'm just too tired and sad to give this post the depth it deserves. So I'll make it simple.

Fuck. You.

RIP, Uncle Walter.

If people truly believe that the job of the Press is to be "neutral" fact observers who should not express opinions, then they need to shut the fuck up about blogs, bloggers, and blogging. If you truly believe the "Objective" holier than thou crap, then journalists are nothing but fact checking interns for people spouting opinions.

It is hypocritical bullshit to say you are being "Objective" so that the citizens are free to form their own opinions--and then have a complete nervous breakdown when citizens start using your work to form opinions.

Jesus Fucking Christ on a cracker. Why are you people so pissed about bloggers when every Gad Damn day you tell me how the worst sin a journalist can commit is to have an opinion and act like a blogger. You seem so jealous of something you revile so much.

It balances out though, like those British guards, you can insult the Press all you want and they can't argue back--because, OBJECTIVELY, you might be right.

(*) unless she pulls a Brett Favre move (*)

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Just before retiring (*) from blogging, hilzoy points out that Chuck Todd was not only opining in ways contrary to the opinions of most commenters here, but also . . .

. . . Chuck Todd was justifying his opinions by citing "facts" that aren't.

Chuck Todd doesn't give the impression to me of being stupid or lazy, so if he's not learning the basic facts about the biggest political stories of the past couple of years, then it must be because he's part of a culture (the Beltway media culture) in which facts aren't paramount.

hilzoy:

http://washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019126.php

[...] In the podcast with Glenn, Chuck Todd makes (by my count) plain errors on five important factual questions. He is wrong about the kind of prosecutor under consideration, he is wrong to think that what Holder is proposing to investigate is interrogations that conform to Yoo's legal opinions, he is wrong about the duties of Justice Department lawyers, he was wrong about the legal status of firing the US Attorneys, and he was wrong about the state of American public opinion. And those are just the plain, obvious errors: I'm not counting things like his claim that prosecutions would harm our image abroad, or that there's a serious debate about whether Yoo's memos were defensible.

That's a lot of factual mistakes for one short podcast -- enough to make me think that Chuck Todd is not as concerned as he ought to be about getting it right. If he were, and if he could bring some of his colleagues along, we might not have to worry nearly as much about politicization.

We should expect more of our journalists. They need to get the facts right.

[...]

- - hilzoy, Friday, July 17, 2009

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And that's the way it is.

Bon voyage, hilzoy.

When Cronkite worked at CBS, CBS was a news organization, that's it, a news organization. They did not make F-18 parts, and they did not have an electronic warfare division.

Compare that to today when CBS is just another branch plant at Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Their sole function nowadays is to maintain the boot of the oligarchy on the neck of the people.

I don't think that Cronkite could be Cronkite today; maybe he'd have a blog.

A stenographer is objective in a strictly mechanical way: someone's words are accurately captured, providing a reliable transcript for future reference and research.

This isn't journalism, except of a truly basic kind (i.e., court reporters). But it is important grunt work that provides others with critical raw material: politicians, reporters, historians, analysts and comedians all depend on access to dependable accounts of who said what.

The White House Press Corps, in short, is giving an elementary but significant service a bad name.

Honest neutrality, in the sense of attempting an unwavering equal treatment of two sides of an issue, is another form of objectivity, one more complicated than simply capturing the words of others. While it isn't the last word in journalism, it is a step beyond repetition: a neutral commentator or observer tries, as best they can, to present each side of an argument fairly, i.e., framed as strongly as the best advocates for that side can manage. This is the best way to proceed even when the journalist ends in taking sides. (A scientist wanting to argue for a novel interpretation of data must first refute the strongest possible case for the conventional reading.) Beating up straw men may be good exercise. It's just not a very convincing trial by combat, or good journalistic practice.

But truly even-sided presentations also have their place. Particularly where complex legal or technical matters are concerned, this can be a real public service (and many who comment here do this very well). Journalists don't always need to weigh in on one side of a debate to contribute to the process that we hope leads to the discovery or revelation of the truth.

Ultimately, though, a sophisticated and serious journalist's responsibilities transcend objectivity and neutrality. Whether you think getting at the truth fully defines a journalist's responsibility - "finding and reporting the truth is the only job of a journalist",RMP - or you believe it's the initial goal - "Journalism's first obligation is to the truth", "Elements of Journalism", cited by NeilSagan - the journalist of the highest order has to do more than accurately present the literal words of others or fairly capture alternative views in an ongoing controversy.

He or she must make an original contribution to a meaningful public debate by adding to our common store of truth. This is in keeping with these "Elements of Journalism":

2. Its first loyalty is to citizens.

3. Its essence is a discipline of verification.

Independence from sources, freedom of conscience, a lively style, attention to detail and a sense of proportion - all these are key elements, too, at getting at truths that matter and resonate, that have a chance of actually making a difference in people's lives.

"Objectivity" and "neutrality", like many other critically useful concepts, have been co-opted and corrupted by a mainstream celebrity journalism full of children playing in adult's clothing, shirking their full measure of professional responsibility. Mainstream celebrity journalism aims to trivialize discussion of matters of fact or policy, by reducing a once-honored profession to an unholy amalgam of court reporting, reading out loud and soapbox oratory.

By doing so, it disguises the real effort required to get at what's really going on in a complex world full of fallible people intent on presenting their own self-serving versions of the truth.

That doesn't make objectivity a quaint or obsolete value. Nor is objectivity some ultimate state the ideal journalist can perfectly achieve, or the be-all and end-all of the journalistic craft.

As RMP says, the perfectly objective reporter doesn't exist, and those loudest to trumpet their "objectivity" are the ones least to be relied on.

But some journalists are better than others at getting at the untidy, inconvenient, much-disputed but devastating facts that in the end truly make a difference in public discourse, the ones that can change the course of an election or a country. That's one of the reasons why Glenn Greenwald or the late David Halberstam earn our respect, and Chuck Todd and Bill O'Reilly our contempt or derision.

Not because they describe those facts unemotionally - that sense of objectivity is better suited to robots than caring human beings - but because their emotions and consciences drive them to see what's really there with clear eyes and report their findings back to the rest of us.