A beautiful demonstration of the MSM lack of objectivity was on last night’s news when Andrea Mitchell was doing a hatchett job on Palin’s book and brought up a passage that disparagingly referred to Mitchell herself. The fact that she was even allowed to do a story on a book that made fun of her speaks volumes about the disappearance of even the most basic effort to achieve objectivity in modern reporting. Once upon a time, journalistic ethics (yes, they DID exist at one time) would have prevented Mitchell from reporting this story.
Absolutely.Once upon a time, journalistic ethics (yes, they DID exist at one time) would have prevented Mitchell from reporting this story.
Considering how well the behavior of journalism can be explained by the self interest of journalism and by a skeptical, if not indeed cynical, reading of codes of journalistic ethics, I confess I have my doubts.It actually wouldn't have mattered if any other journalist reviewed Palin's denigration of Mitchell or any other "objective" journalist - all journalists have the same self interest in promoting the credulity of the people WRT the claim that all journalists are objective. So it actually doesn't matter whether it is Mitchell herself or some other journalist discussing the subject. None of them are any more objective about that subject than Mitchell herself.
(I'm not sure how I failed to respond to your post on November 16, 2009 when you posted it. Except that I obviously got pretty involved in writing a response to wku man's #8, and just dumb forgot. But better late than never . . .)