Journalists Break Necks Gazing at Navals

New York Daily News ^ | 22 May, 2003 | Michael Peterson

[mtp1032]

From the Blog The Final Frontier...

Man, I'm so tired of the Jason Blair incident. Does anyone out there view the Jason Blair incident as anything other than an isolated incident? The fact that President Clinton lied says nothing to me about the character of Presidents. The fact that Jason Blair lied says nothing to me about the integrity of Journalists.

However, there is a problem with journalism that I've not been able to put my finger on until reading Richard Cohen's inciteful article in the New York Daily News today. Here's the relevant passage:

Why does this happen? Partly it's a matter of pretense. Journalism is alchemy with words. We turn nuances, lies, denials, spin and unreturned phone calls into something called The Truth. Often we succeed. When we don't, we don't want anyone to notice. We would like to appear omniscient. Who will read us if we are constantly expressing doubt? But the public is on to us. Our aloofness, our defensiveness, our sheer inability to concede uncertainty (which goes beyond merely correcting factual mistakes) has cost us plenty. Instead, too often, we add invisible asterisks of doubt to stories and then commend ourselves for our exemplary professionalism. We do a marvelous job.

Amen.

[MEG33]

I had forgotten where the shot and stabbed story originated. CentCom didn't put it out. I'd like Scheer to get slammed for his column about the rescue...again and again.

[Notforprophet]

I think you meant "navels".

NFP

[hemogoblin]

... and the blogger meant "Jayson" and "insightful".

Must be a journalist

[speedy]

Could be navals. This is Fleet Week in NYC. And as for Richard Cohen -- this is now three times in the past month he has written something true and insightful. Has he turned officially? He certainly lost his title (by my rating) as the most obnoxious columnist out there.

[csvset]

[Fawnn]

As an adult college student at a small liberal arts college (now a university) in 1983/84, I had to write an opinion piece about nuclear weapons. I was also assigned which articles I could cite when writing the piece. All articles were anti-nuke, written by Carl Sagan and others. I didn't agree with any of the stuff I was forced to use to back what was to be "my opinion." So....

I chose to write a piece about our need to "protect the peace" through a strong defense. I wrote that I believed our country needed a strong military because "I found no example where the Soviet Union has complied with a treaty...."

That is the closest I've ever come to using a journalistic device in my writing. I was truthfully able to write that "I found no example" because I hadn't looked. ;)

I got an A+.

[Ken H]

Journalists break necks gazing at navals

I think you meant "navels"

Well, I could see how you might break your neck gazing up at some of those ships when they're docked.