Writer says war unleashed against U.S. journalism

San Antonio Express-News ^ | May 21, 2006 | Sheila Hotchkin

[RayChuang88]

Marie Brenner, a writer-at-large for Vanity Fair magazine whose reporting career began against the backdrop of the Watergate era, said Saturday that war is being waged against this nation's press and journalists must stand together to turn back assaults on their freedoms.

Her speech opened the two-day San Antonio Express-News/Poynter National Writers' Workshop, one of several such journalism conferences held around the country each year.

In her speech, Brenner drew parallels between the Watergate era of the 1970s and today's "Plamegate" era, in which the disclosure of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity led to a criminal investigation that saw courts compelling reporters to reveal confidential sources. New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed for her initial refusal.

[Gator113]

Oh no....there goes our advantage of surprise!!

[pollyannaish]

Hmmm. The WOJ. Has a ring to it.

Although it most accurately would be described as the War on Partisans masquerading as Journalists. WOPMAJ. Just doesn't have the same whimsy.

[Paladin2]

WOP'D. War on Partisan DemocRATS.

[MeanWestTexan]

"If you can’t make it in the marketplace, get a job at NPR."

That would make a great tagline.

[avacado]

Look lady [Ms. Brenner]! If a journalist during WWII had "leaked" national security of the US cracking Germany's codes that journalist would have been swinging from an oak tree!

You people are NOT journalists! You are traitors to this great country called the United States of America!

[atomicpossum]

(Panicked) Dinosaur Media Alert

[polymuser]

Darn those free-market forces.

[Lion Den Dan]

This article with reference to the "covert CIA agent" pushed me over the edge. The only reason Plame might have been covert is that she was so useless that no one knew she even belonged to the organization.

[IronJack]

Yep, nothing closes the ranks like a common enemy ... even one you have to make up. But then again, fiction is a journalist's stock in trade these days.

[basil]

This article with reference to the "covert CIA agent" pushed me over the edge. The only reason Plame might have been covert is that she was so useless that no one knew she even belonged to the organization.

You hit the nail on the head! She is repeating the lie right her!

[abb]

Ping. Dinosaur Media Extinction Bellow Alert! Hear what a dying dinsouar sounds like!

[bert]

Life as she knows it is over and has been for some time. She is an anachronism and a blight on American society.

She longs for the days of journalistic excess and malfeasance.

The wheel has turned enough that she is facing the fire and is feeling the heat. She will not be released before toasty.

[SkyPilot]

Marie Brenner

The truth is that the liberal media and liberalism have been waging a war against Republicans, Christians, Conservative Jews, the Military, and Capitalism for years and years now.

Finally, someone is fighting back, and she and her accomplices don't like it.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Cry Havoc, and let slip the blogs of war.

Thanks.

[Ole Okie]

I might add that a very large fraction of journalists are stupid people...

Well, it's fairly obvious that very few (if any) are scientists or engineers.

They'll fall hard for any scientific scam.

I presume that not one of them ever took a course in chemistry, physics, or mathematics.

[Milhous]

They unleased a war against the US and it's soldiers first.

Amen!

Gn 22:17 your descendants shall take possession of the gates of their enemies

Newspaper sale$ decline should be blamed on the Journos

. . .

People who work at journalism full time ought to be able to do a better job of it than people for whom it is a hobby. But that's not going to happen as long as we "professional" journalists ignore stories we don't like and try to hide our mistakes. We think of ourselves as "gatekeepers." But there is not much future in being a gatekeeper when the walls are down.

[PA Engineer]

Marie, you are the occupation media and this is a war of liberation. Get over it.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

At the same time, she said, newspapers are facing declining readership, and all members of the mainstream media are seeing their credibility attacked on Web logs, or "blogs."

"This many-headed ombudsman" can serve a useful purpose by acting as a rapid-response fact-check team and demanding accountability from the press, Brenner said. But bloggers often put forth the news with a partisan slant, she said, and "more and more Americans now receive their news through these partisan channels."

Jefferson and Hamilton sponsored competing newspapers in which to wage their partisan battles; those newspapers can almost be thought of as the seeds of political parties. It wasn't until the advent of high speed presses that newspapers started trying to mass-market themselves; only then did they hit on the idea of projecting a nonpartisan image to attract the widest audience.

The trouble with claiming to be objective is that

• it's inherently impossible to prove that you are objective if you are the one who chooses what your own topics; nobody tells the whole truth and half the truth can be a big lie. And,
• objectivity is a virtue, and it is arrogant to claim a virtue.

So it is actually more virtuous to admit openly that you have a POV, and that that POV undoubtedly colors your discussions. Like a blogger, and unlike a journalist.

[april15Bendovr]

[pollyannaish]

Works for me!