Katie Couric, Meet Becky Johnson

Special to FreeRepublic ^ | 31 March 2007 | John Armor (Congressman Billybob)

[Milhous]

Nevertheless, there is a reasonable expectation that people who choose to be reporters will use their freedom to do good, not to do bad.

Writing do good stories seems easy enough. Reporters just need to create a perceived evil to righteously rebuke. Reporters with looming deadlines can get a lot of mileage out of cardboard villains. (Cardboard characters keep it simple for the masses). The moral of a do good story with a cardboard villain enables the reimagineering of a formulaic ending where the bad guy redeems himself or dies or something.

Unfortunately, given life's complexity, determining exactly who or what "gets to" play the part of the evil cardboard villain quite often becomes a political decision.

[mc5cents]

Nevertheless, there is a reasonable expectation that people who choose to be reporters will use their freedom to do good, not to do bad. I think it is worth applauding when a reporter does good. It doesn't happen often enough.

You know, I would be happy if they would just try to be good reporters and stop trying to "do good". I think they should just try to keep to the "who, what, when, where and how" and be done with it. It is possible to do that and sound important I believe.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The refusal of any organ of Big Journalism to point out these facts and conclude that the "Killian memos" were fraudulent partisan hit by CBS News is a mark not of the "objectivity" but of the solidarity of Big Journalism.

The biggest smoking gun I've ever seen... and the fact that no prosecutor took it upon himself to delve further is mind-boggling.

There is no occasion for a prosecutor to involve himself. After all, the First Amendment does not say that the press has to be objective or fair - it says that the government cannot impose its version of "fairness" on the press.

That doesn't apply to the licensees of the FCC - but then, the FCC is (theoretically) in charge of requiring its licensees to be objective. Which is why it is my opinion that the FCC and its licensees should have their socks sued off in civil court. IMHO that is the only conceivable remedy - and given that all but one justice of SCOTUS listens to broadcast journalism, it is a slender reed to have to rely on.

In suing broadcast journalism, you would have to request as part of the remedy specific protections against broadcast criticism of SCOTUS in order to give the members of the court the freedom to judge without fear or favor. That is not dangerous because it would not reach the press - printed journalism and printed books and, I would certainly argue, the Internet and FreeRepublic.

The Internet differs fundamentally from broadcasting in that the requirements for entry into blogging, FReeping, or podcasting are entirely negligible in comparison to the barriers to entry into broadcasting.

Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

[imintrouble]

I believe Katie Couric peaked out on the NBC Today Show - her role there was her acme. She lacks intellect, honest inquiry without personal bias, and she just isn't curious enough to present the story right without a skew.

Is that journalism? No Way!

She is a personality - a lightweight personality.

Nothing more.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

determining exactly who or what "gets to" play the part of the evil cardboard villain quite often becomes a political decision.

I actually think that the "cardboard villian" is fixed. The "villain" is anyone who raises his profile by actually accomplishing something. Accomplishment threatens the primacy of the criticizing class - reporters most especially, Democrat politicians, unionists, plaintiff lawyers, and (all too often) teachers. People who actually accomplish things set themselves up for second guessing; it is always possible to see in retrospect "where," as Teddy Roosevelt put it, "the doer of deeds could have done them better."

So in that sense the "political decision" of who gets mercilessly criticized by journalism is not so much driven by the desire of the reporter for a particular outcome as by who makes the juciest target for being knocked down a peg or two. And that is always the businessman or the doctor - or the cop or the soldier. Hence, "objective" journalism and its running dog, "liberalism," attack those targets.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Katie Couric . . . is a personality - a lightweight personality.

Nothing more.

. . . but then, what else are journalists? Celebrities "don't exist" apart from PR, and neither do journalists. A journalist who breaks the cardinal rule of solidarity with the herd of "objective" journalists loses his standing in the guild and becomes "not objective, not a journalist."

Therefore journalists are creatures of PR, and the individual journalist is not powerful, the individual journalist is merely a celebrity. And I'm not merely speaking of anonymous journalists - I'm talking Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather when I say that.

[imintrouble]

Agreed. If there were however only intellectual journalists and diarists, the public would pay scant attention.

The lightweight celebrities in the media only feed the need - the great maw of gossip.

[Milhous]

I actually think that the "cardboard villian" is fixed. The "villain" is anyone who raises his profile by actually accomplishing something.

With exemptions for old mass media "pets" such as The Tribune Company who is currently stealing its employees' pension fund right under the very noses of media watchdogs. As we all know The Tribune Company also enjoys yet another exemption from criticism (a double indemnity so to speak) as one of the good old boys in big old mass media.

[SevenofNine]

ROFL OH MONK and Dr Raoul LOL!

[Robert A Cook PE]

Careful, unbiased reporting would expose the democrat-socialists for the frauds that they are....

But note that that the fraudulent votes cast from the trailer park (bad/faked witness signatures from people bot witnessing!) were FOR a democrat. Implied of course, since the 82-year old who signed was a democrat, but not explicitly stated.

Now, where is the Justice Dept investigation of this?

Where is Gonzales when there IS a crime?

[MHGinTN]

Katy Cholic is functioning just as See BS wants her to ... she’s an extension of the dnc propaganda machine. She need not be faithful to any norms or talent of a specific kind so long as she reads what they feed her and follows the talking points accurately.