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| Fifth Column |
| VDH : Post-journalism |
| 2008-11-10 |
| We have seen it all the last two years: Weeping journalists on election night; a journalist openly promising to help make Obama successful ("Yeah, it is my job."); film takes of journalists cheering an Obama speech; the savaging of Sarah Palin and the hands-off treatment of Biden; soft-ball interviews and long puff-pieces on Obama as the young cool crusader;comparisons to JFK's Camelot, and on and on. In the 3rd book of his history, Thucydides has some insightful thoughts about destroying institutions in times of zealotry—and then regretting their absence when there is a need for refuge for them. The mainstream press should have learned that lesson, once they blew up their credibility in the past election by morphing into the Team Obama press agency. There will come a time in the year ahead when either Obama's unexamined past will come back to haunt him, or his inexperience and tentativeness in foreign affairs will be embarrassingly apparent, or his European-socialist agenda for domestic programs simply won't work. And as public opinion falls, what will MSNBC, the New York Times, the editors of Newsweek, a Chris Matthews or the anchors at the major networks say? Not much—since they will have one of two non-choices: (1) either they will begin scrambling to offer supposed disinterested criticism, which will be met with the public's, "Why should we begin believing you now?" or "Why didn't you tell this before?", or (2), They can continue as state-sanctioned megaphones of the Obama administration in the manner that they did during the campaign. They will lose either way and remain without credibility. In short, we live now in the Age of Post-Journalism. All that was before is now over, as this generation of journalists voluntarily destroyed the hallowed notion of objectivity and they will have no idea quite how to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #4 They're not even journalists anymore. They're the Ministry of Information. And, as long as the paychecks keep rolling in, they'll continue to be so. The problem for them is, those paychecks might not keep rolling in...and that's what you've got to hope for. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2008-11-10 16:20 |
| #3 I automatically consider any self proclaimed journalists or reporter to be the following: 1. Liar 2. Traitor 3. Sub-human 4. Rabid 5. An enemy of country. Now then, there are exceptions to this, but those exceptions are able to be clearly demonstrated through /facts/. Can I start a constitutional amendment to bring back dueling? I could have alot of fun with that. |
| Posted by: Silentbrick 2008-11-10 16:14 |
| #2 Rope. Trees. Traitors. Some assembly required. |
| Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) 2008-11-10 09:57 |
| #1 The products of late 20th Century academia. The same folks who were so effective in creating our current public school systems. The same folks who's Law Schools opening flaunt laws against discrimination based upon color race and creed. The same folks who support academic freedom by tenuring only those of like mind. /sarcasm off. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-11-10 08:57 |