CONTEMPT FOR REPORTERS WHO THINK BEING A REPORTER TRUMPS BEING AN AMERICAN

JSCOPE ^ | August 2001 | Kent P. Cassella

[CitizenSailorChief]

This is from the old PBS "ETHICS IN AMERICA" show, but I think it is demonstrative of the attitudes of all too many reporters. Jennings needs to take his journalistic ethic with him when he goes back to Canada.

Moderator: You are safely traveling with an enemy unit as a foreign war correspondent. As fate would have it the enemy unit you are traveling with is about to ambush an American unit.

Jennings: As a reporter you have to make the decision going in that there is a possibility that you may come upon an American unit. My feeling is that, as a reporter, you have to make that decision before you went. And that if you are in, you are in. I would live in fear of coming across an American unit.

Moderator: So if you made that decision you would then film the enemy unit shooting the American unit?

Jennings: (Long pause…thinking) No…I guess I wouldn’t. I’ll tell you now what I’m feeling rather than the hypothesis I drew for myself. If I were with the enemy I would do what I could to warn the Americans.

Moderator: Even if it means not getting the live coverage?

Jennings: I don’t have much doubt it would mean my life. I’m glad this is hypothetical. I don’t think I could bring myself to participate in that fashion, by not warning the Americans. Some other reporters may feel otherwise.

Wallace: Some other reporters would feel otherwise. I would regard it simply as another story I was there to tell.

Moderator: Enemy soldiers shooting and killing American soldiers? Could you imagine how you would report that to the American people?

Wallace: Yes, I can. (Talking down to Jennings) Frankly, I’m astonished to hear Peter say that. You are a reporter. Granted you are an American. But you are a reporter covering combat. And I’m at a loss to understand why, because you are an American; you would not cover that story.

Moderator: Don’t you have a higher duty as an American citizen to do all you can to save the lives of American soldiers rather than this journalistic ethic of reporting the fact?

Wallace: No. You don’t have the higher duty. You are a reporter. Your job is to cover what is going on in that war. I would be calling Peter to say, “What do you mean you’re not going to cover the story.”

Jennings: I think he’s right. I chickened out. I agree with Mike intellectually. I really do. And I wish at the time, I’d made another decision. I would like to have made his decision.

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

Jennings is right about ONE THING.. he has "chickened out". He is a PINKO BEDWETTING COMMUNIST!! I bet he'd NEVER film a fellow COMRADE/Journalist being murdered. Did he show Danny Pearls execution?

[PfromHoGro]

The reporters' questions during this morning’s Cencom briefing (as seen on Fox & Friends of course) was a disgrace. To paraphrase our beloved Ann Coulter, if the Aflac® duck walked in, the room's average IQ would have skyrocketed.

[Darksheare]

I already dispise the press...
Now I think tarring and feathering would be quite a newsworthy story for them to experience personally.
(Maybe come out of it with some rocksalt embedded in their backsides.)

[Helms]

Any idea how much plastic surgery the PhoneyOne has had just to make it through his 60's?

[RobbyS]

I am afraid that if Wallace were to say this in my presence, the only thing that would keep me from hitting him is the knowledge that I would kill him.

[Porterville]

Is this from the Onion??

[TADSLOS]

Jennings is a one lung oxygen thief. He isn't worthy to wipe the camel dung off a U.S. soldiers boot that he smugly reports about.