"the true role of journalism" is .............

[donsu]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-tannen15mar15,0,409691.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions


-snip-

Of course a political columnist must be ready to expose wrongdoing, look critically at events and public figures and be ready to offend if necessary. But attack-dog journalism is not the only way to do this, and it probably is not the best way either.

As Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, has put it, we tend to think that if you're not an attack dog, you're a lap dog, taking everything politicians say at face value.

But the true role of journalism should be a third way: a watchdog. And a dog who is busy attacking is not watching.
---------------------------

saw this article at Arts & Letters Daily http://www.aldaily.com/

[Jim Sagle]

1. to boost Republicans and bash Democrats.

[donsu]

2. watchdogs do have to attack in order to defend

nt

[RandomKoolzip]

3. First, define objectivity.

It used to be that there was a standard definition of "objectivity" that journalists adhered to. If a politician in power called for something like Privitization of Social Security, starting pre-emptive wars, defunding public education, etc. they'd be called on it because the standard consensus was that these were dangerous ideas.

They're still dangerous ideas, but now that so much Scaife/Olin/Coors, etc. money has gone into bending the mainstream consensus towards the right via pinpoint marketing of ideas (and the attendant removal of context), the definition has changed. "Objectivity," as it existed thirty years ago, would now be defined as "liberal bias."

The right's media apparatus is governed and funded by ideologues who had their views shaped by the post-WWII paranoia concerning Communism. Any and all leftist thought was falsely assumed to proceed from some shadowy central headquarters in Moscow or Beijing, all liberals were seen as willing dupes of Ho Chi Minh, and the fevered delusion that some evil superpower was pulling the strings was all-encompassing. In reality, leftism is a natural, instinctual impulse which sprung from the first human and grew: the idea that things should be better for everyone, not just you and your immediate family. This is an irreducible idea. Since the dawn of time, the working masses have always struggled to overcome oppression and fight for their rights; Marx didn't invent these ideas, and the USSR certainly didn't dupe most of into thinking this against our will.

To combat what their mypoic peepers saw as a vast left-wing conspiracy, the right invented a counter-infrastructure. The irony is that they constructed a multi-billion dollar tank to do battle with a bow-and-arrow. The left was not funded by international bankers or Communists; they had arrived independently at their conclusions.....again, the irony is that the right created a system by which they would use the techniques they thought their enemies were using. That they would end up aping Communist methods is both deliciously absurd and terribly sad.

Since the creation of the Think Tank/Foundation system, the definition of journalistic integrity has been debased and perverted; the journalist now must serve an ideology, removed from consensus, or more accurately, reflecting the new, artificial consensus of a duped populace. RW journos make much much more moolah than liberals do. The incentive for many upcoming journalists is to find a Foundation sugar daddy to pay the bills while they assassinate character, spread lies, distort statistics, and generally land body blows to the body of democracy.

[jdots]

5. how true and sad that is.

How convenient it has all become to destroy the F.C.C. by hiding in what thet they call conservative values.

[Al-CIAda]

4. a watchdog?

Are they 'watching' what the fuck is happening to this country?
Are they 'watching' the administration tell its lies, spread its propaganda, and exploit its people?

Fuck you Deborah Tannen.

[kentuck]

6. They have to be aggressive enough to keep out the burglars...

and they shouldn't accept dog biscuits from criminal politicians..

[kodi]

7. ...to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable

.

[leftofthedial]

8. to do exactly what the king tells them to do

in the event of the occasional disinfo vacuum, distract the public with irrelevant trivia.

[ElectricIron Sweeney]

9. To be some kind of dog

I don't accept that the press should have the freedom of the press. I don't accept that property, or corporations should have any dammed rights. Rights, and freedoms are for individuals alone. If I have to share my rights with property we will both have to do with out.

[EVDebs]

10. Promoting 'Operation Mockingbird''s agenda. Payola for stories

if you REALLY want to tell the true role of journalism today. Just look at David Broder's promotion of Clay Shaw's Social Security proposal. It is called an "add on" when in reality it is part of the Republican's continuing plan to "carve-out" of existing Social Security enough revenues that will de facto kill Social Security.

This is all dressed up in Broder's column as a reasonable proposal by a rational Republican. If no one knew any better, when Broder finally discloses that the plan would require a loan of $3.4 TRILLION dollars you would think the Red Ink Republicans had a shot at converting some Democrats to this stinker of a plan !

I hope Broder seeks professional help because no one with a bit of sense in the Democratic party would go along with that kind of larding on of debt to future generations in perpetuity ! I take it Broder has no kids in other words.