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2012-04-08 -Obits-
Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes is gone
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Posted by Besoeker 2012-04-08 11:30|| || Front Page|| [336101 views ]  Top

#1 ...I did not agree with his politics and quite often his style, but he had a style...

Mike
Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2012-04-08 11:51||   2012-04-08 11:51|| Front Page Top

#2 Sorry, can't generate much sadness except for his family. Wallace helped create the MSM in its current mode of lefty noise machine / DNC propaganda ministry. The closest I can come to a positive comment is that the journos spawned in his wake are lazier, dumber and infinitely more partisan.
Posted by Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) 2012-04-08 12:23||   2012-04-08 12:23|| Front Page Top

#3 ..we do forget somethings. Like exposing the Nation of Islam to the light of day.
Posted by Procopius2k 2012-04-08 12:44||   2012-04-08 12:44|| Front Page Top

#4 With respect, Procopius, I disagree. The piece in question was done in 1959; by 1969 or 1979 Wallace would never have put his name on something like it, even if the network would have allowed it to see the light of day.

This 1996 article from The Atlantic shows Wallace in his full detestable, holier-than-thou, partisan hackery. Money grafs, about a panel discussion / thought exercise on a PBS panel show about ethics:

(Professor) Ogletree pushed Wallace. Didn't (Peter) Jennings have some higher duty to do something other than just roll film as soldiers from his own country were being shot? "No," Wallace said flatly and immediately. "You don't have a higher duty. No. No. You're a reporter!" Jennings backtracked fast. Wallace was right, he said: "I chickened out." Jennings said that he had "played the hypothetical very hard."He had lost sight of his journalistic duty to remain detached.

As Jennings said he agreed with Wallace, several soldiers in the room seemed to regard the two of them with horror. Retired Air Force General Brent Scowcroft, who would soon become George Bush's National Security Advisor, said it was simply wrong to stand and watch as your side was slaughtered. "What's it worth?" he asked Wallace bitterly. "It's worth thirty seconds on the evening news, as opposed to saving a platoon."

A few minutes later Ogletree turned to George M. Connell, a Marine colonel in full uniform. Jaw muscles flexing in anger, with stress on each word, Connell said, "I feel utter contempt." Two days after this hypothetical episode, Connell said, Jennings or Wallace might be back with the American forces—and could be wounded by stray fire, as combat journalists often had been before. When that happens, he said, they are "just journalists." Yet they would expect American soldiers to run out under enemy fire and drag them back, rather than leaving them to bleed to death on the battlefield. "I'll do it!" Connell said. "And that is what makes me so contemptuous of them. Marines will die going to get . . . a couple of journalists." The last words dripped disgust.


And that, my friends, was the real Mike Wallace. "You don't have a higher duty! You're a reporter!" should be engraved on the bastard's tombstone.
Posted by Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) 2012-04-08 15:22||   2012-04-08 15:22|| Front Page Top

#5 (Professor) Ogletree pushed Wallace. Didn't (Peter) Jennings have some higher duty to do something other than just roll film as soldiers from his own country were being shot? "No," Wallace said flatly and immediately. "You don't have a higher duty. No. No. You're a reporter!" Jennings backtracked fast. Wallace was right, he said: "I chickened out." Jennings said that he had "played the hypothetical very hard."He had lost sight of his journalistic duty to remain detached.

My question would be just what would soldiers be expecting the journalist to do? He isn't armed and he isn't trained for combat, his only tool is a camera.

The most absurd part of the description is the contention of the late Peter Jennings that the journalist remains detached.

Really?

So, in no way can a journalist ever be a part of a story? Ever? Check your local news for any number of incident involving a TV reporter who inserts him/herself into the news.

Check out the next time a tri-letter national news cast features a reporter, like a dumbass, standing in front of a breakwater as a hurricane moves through. Not part of the story, pal?

I bet you become part of the story if one of those ocean swells catch you and take you out to sea.

Big time.

In TV journalism, you are the story, and if you work as though you are detached, you are a dishonest broker of information. Those series of photographs make you the story whether you want to be or not.
Posted by badanov 2012-04-08 15:49|| http://www.freefirezone.org  2012-04-08 15:49|| Front Page Top

#6 The piece in question was done in 1959; by 1969 or 1979 Wallace would never have put his name on something like it, even if the network would have allowed it to see the light of day.

Hey, even Benedict Arnold played a critical part of the Battle of Saratoga for the American side. Doesn't mean one can't go bad after making a valued contribution.
Posted by Procopius2k 2012-04-08 16:01||   2012-04-08 16:01|| Front Page Top

#7 What was not included in the excerpt I saw on Free Republic was the hypothetical whether a US journalist was obliged to tip off his own side if said journalist had come into information that an ambush of his side was about to take place.

Show footage or tell your guardians.

Easy choice.

I can see why the professional soldiers were horrified.
Posted by badanov 2012-04-08 16:19|| http://www.freefirezone.org  2012-04-08 16:19|| Front Page Top

#8 The man recently died. Can't the trash talk wait a few months? No matter what you think of his politics it's down right liberal to slur a man right after his death.
Posted by rjschwarz 2012-04-08 16:36||   2012-04-08 16:36|| Front Page Top

#9 Check out the next time a tri-letter national news cast features a reporter, like a dumbass, standing in front of a breakwater as a hurricane moves through.

No. We don't need to trash talk Wallace right now. But these days the weather reporters are the only ones I respect.
Posted by Abu Uluque 2012-04-08 17:11||   2012-04-08 17:11|| Front Page Top

#10 No. We don't need to trash talk Wallace right now. But these days the weather reporters are the only ones I respect.

Points off for poor reading comprehension.

My point was that TV journalists are part of the story whether they wish to be or not. The point had been raised by the late Peter Jennings, which I addressed. If that is trash talking Mike Wallace then it sucks to be Mike, you and me.
Posted by badanov 2012-04-08 17:17|| http://www.freefirezone.org  2012-04-08 17:17|| Front Page Top

#11 For what it's worth, Peter Jennings was a Canadian, not an American. So - it would not have been "his country's" soldiers getting killed.
Posted by Lone Ranger 2012-04-08 23:47||   2012-04-08 23:47|| Front Page Top

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