Posted on 11/13/2005 7:35:05 AM PST by Roscoe Karns
I was watching Maureen Dowd on Larry King last night and something she said jumped out at me. Read the quotes in bold below. One is from Maureen Dowd and the other is from Mary Mapes. (Both were on Larry King last week-but not on the same day). Obviously, journalism standards change from story to story depending on how they can be used to smear a Republican president:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0511/12/lkl.01.htmlKING:[talking about Judy Miller] Was she doing her job or was she caught up in it?
DOWD: I think she was too creditable. And too, you know, investigative reporting is not stenography. When your sources tell you something, that's the beginning of your work. Not the end of it.
KING: So you even question your source?
DOWD: Of course. And Judy's sources all had agendas, Choliby (ph), you know, "Scooter" Libby, the neo-cons. They all had specific agendas. And if they had a "New York Times" reporter who believed those agendas in too creditable a way, they were able to use that to then further their agendas.
Ok. Now read Mary Mapes' quotes. It seems she thinks that, no, reporters shouldn't question their sources too much...
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0511/09/lkl.01.html
KING: But wasn't the commission that investigated it, weren't they fair, weren't the independent?
MAPES: Well, I don't know, Larry. I mean if your work was being judged, wouldn't you like your work to be judged by people who did the kind of work you did? I mean I don't know what Dick Thornburgh knows about journalism.
I suspect he knows as much about it as I know about being a securities analyst or attorney, which is what the other attorneys were, securities specialists or internal corporation investigation specialists.
I think it was a very legalistic approach. You know they even said we had put Ben Barnes and his story on that he had gotten Bush in the Guard and he was sorry and they ruled that I shouldn't -- we should not have put that on because we couldn't prove it.
Well, if that were the case, we'd have blank newspapers every day and there would be nothing on the news because the news is what people say, what they think. I mean you go to a presidential press conference and when the president says something you don't only put it on if you can prove it, you put it on because it's what's being said and because it's relevant. [in other words, when we've got an evil Republican president to take down we reporters SHOULD be stenoghraphers]
So the dowdie one says newspapers print gossip as news, but only if they have sources.
The trouble I find with that attitude is that they fail or are slow to widely disseminate the truth once is has been proved to them, and they are resentful and belligerent about it - ala Buckhead.
This is another variation on the double standard we see in the MSM.
It is because they are not driven by a search for truth, but by an agenda of forming the world that they want.
Thus, the standard becomes: How can we spin the information that we have to advance the Agenda?
When we look at MSM reporting with this in mind, much is explained.
Democrat leader: "The Republicans want to foul the air, pollute the water, and starve the elderly."
MSM in unison to the President: "Why do you want to foul the air, pollute the water, and starve the elderly?"
The only source the dowdy one uses for her Hate GW opeds is her over drugged/whacked out brain.
"Warning - it is not our practice to determine truth of our reporting. It is the sole responsibility of the consumer to do the fact checking."
Failure to post that warning should make these people personally liable for libel suits.
Good work!
Gee, sounds like both of these weirdos are parsing their words. Kinda goes back to the meaning of the word "is" is.
What crap they spew!
What an incredibly stupid thing to say. If the president says something at a press conference one can report on that because that is what he said...if you do an investigative report about a claim regarding the past you have an obligation to actually seek the truth and not just report what is said. These are two DIFFERENT types of reports and for someone who is supposed to be a reporter to fail to understand the difference...well, she needs to go back to school and take journalism 101 so she has a grasp of how reporting is actually done.
Alright, you know the rule: bring out the CZJ pics.
Thanks for sticking to the rules, however we need a bigger picture to confirm!
I still love Matt Drudge's comment on journalism. It's a trade, not a profession. Talk about putting these arrogant asses in their place.
Joseph Pulizter was brilliantly insightful. Too bad the MSM isn't.
Well, there you have it... "News=Opinion". That explains it all, doesn't it?
"Real women have husbands, not petty newspaper jobs."
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