RICHARD NIXON'S REVENGE

I actually agree with you on that one. It was an extraordinary mistake, but I'm also sure that Rather was set up as well, and the wool was effectively pulled over his eyes. Politics is a dirty game these days.



Like I said, I believe outside forces duped Rather into becoming the Republican spanking monkey for the Rightwingers these days. But I can easily blame Rather as well for not investigating his sources before broadcasting to the world.

It's also much more impossible to imagine how Fox News can get away with journalistic murder, creating alternate realities, and broadcasting outright lies. The same for CNN. And MSNBC. It's all becoming the same disinformation marketing crap that is sanitizing the American people. Dan Rather, love him or hate him, has been in the business for years and comes from the old school of broadcast journalism, and unfortunately the American political climate has finally shut him out. He will do special reports now with 60 Minutes.

Like I've said, objective journalism is dead.

Fake news is in.

This is where we are, folks.



p.s. Jeez, Fox, can ya not take things so literally just for once? :wink:

It is precisely because Dan Rather comes from the old school of journalism that I hold him to a higher standard than the younger reporters who have never been taught ethics. Rather was taught the rigid code of ethics during a time when libel and slander laws meant something. He knew better. And he has been trashing the code for decades. He just got called on it this time because big media can no longer get around the internet and some very good amateur investigative reporters who inhabit it.

So true, Fox, so very true...

You're scaring me Dookie. Two agreements on the same page?

There is always that possibility...

I'm definitely looking forward to what's going to be released to the media when Deep Throat dies.

Looking forward to some hearing some gagging and screaming. Probably from both dimensions of the U.S. political right.

Why would anyone look forward to gagging and screaming?

It's the lovely entertainment value, JW.
It's what keeps me reading the politics threads here.
Entertainment.



When I get serious about this kind of stuff ... other forums.

Oh. Is "Silence of the Lambs" your favorite movie, by any chance?

nahhh
i prefer comedy - like the politics here

Bull hockey. Reporters, young and old, have been taught ethics. What has been abandoned in the pursuit of polictical power is objectiveness, and who was that again who now reigns supreme over the media? The liberal view? Please, don't make me laugh, the tape over my mouth pulls at the skin on my face.

Joe(mmphmm nnghh oow)Nation

I prefer to believe they've never been taught them; else the only alternative is we have developed an entire sociopathic generation and I'm not ready to believe that yet.

.

And where were you when every network was following the right wing 'scandal of the week' during the Clinton Administration. Every blurb from the likes of David Brock or Ann Coulter and her elves or any other wingnut attacker , was followed breathlessly....,

oH my, persons were fired from the Travel Office!!!,
oh my, there must be something to this Trooper's Story!!!,
oh gosh oh my, files were transferred to some other office for unknown purposes!!!!
Golly, there must be something fishy about that land deal in Whitewater,
there must be because we need to sell papers and run 30 second ads,

my oh my oh, I WONDER if Vince Foster was MURDERED by the President??????

and on and on...

to say nothing about four special prosecutors findin NADA....



Yeah. Sure. my aunt fanny.

As long as its the other guy, the right wing doesn't give a ratass about ethics or veracity or who's life they put in jeopardy or facts or truth. Ask David Brock now that's he recovered from his right wing madness.

Now comes before us those who would protect those in power because they favor them rather than depise them and they say:



And now the continuing story from the wingnuts regarding the AARP, there's some ethics for all of us to review, and let us not forget the supposed news stories now appearing on your local TV stations as actual reportage when they are nothing more then brass-plated propaganda nor the paid-to-pump pundits of this administration oozing the party line for cold cash. Armstrong's got a new job. That's the real story of morals and values brought to this nation by this present crop of GOP operatives and their minions in the press. (Day passes available upon request.)

This thread is about Richard Nixon's revenge. I wonder if he would approve the present evisceration of the free press and news ethics by photocopying releases from the press secretary's desk, not the city editor's desk??

Joe(Never mind, I know he's smiling. How about you?)Nation

Sheesh you need to watch more Fox News, Joe.

I'm afraid you got it backwards, here, Foxfyre ... younger reporters get taught ethics (well, not Aristotelean ethics, but they take classes on journalistic ethics) because they go to school to be journalists.

Journalism didn't used to be a job for which one went to college.

I try to watch a bit all kinds of news programming including Fox, and, funny thing, there is this little bit of reading to do:

Emphasis mine.

Study on News Media Finds Blogs, Other Forms of News Competing With Traditional Journalism
Washington, D.C. -- March 14, 2005 -- Traditional journalism, with its focus on substantiating facts, now competes with other models of news, such as Blogs. These faster, cheaper and less accurate alternatives have distinct advantages in the marketplace, according to a new report on the state of journalism in America.

What's more, Blogs, or personal web logs, have added to this challenge with a new philosophy: publish first and assume the verification process will occur in the response and argument that follow.

The study, "The State of the American News Media, 2005" was produced by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a research institute affiliated with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. It is the second effort in the group's annual efforts to assess the state of journalism.

As traditional media continue to lose audience, the report suggests moreover, news organizations will be tempted to cut back on news gathering and change standards to compete with the new models.

"In effect, Americans are shifting from being consumers of news to pro-active partners in creating their own personalized news account each day, and traditional journalism is only part of that mix," said Project Director Tom Rosenstiel. "This amounts to a new kind American citizenship with more responsibilities for the consumer."The notion of growing partisan media has been overstated. thinner in its reporting than broadcast news. Cable stories rely on fewer and less transparent sources, contain more journalistic opinion and reflect fewer viewpoints. *

* There are clear differences between Fox versus its cable rivals. Fox News stories contain more sources and reveal more about them than those of its competitors, but its stories are also more one-sided and are more opinionated. Indeed, Fox journalists offer their own opinion in seven out of ten stories on the news channel, versus less than one in ten stories on CNN and one in four on MSNBC.

* The news industry is taking the same cautious pay-as-you-go approach to the Internet that seems likely to cede ground to non-journalism competitors. Even though audiences are growing, Internet journalists are almost twice as likely as TV, print and radio journalists to report that their newsrooms have suffered cutbacks.

* There is little sign the major news web sites are taking advantage of the technology of the Internet. Less than a third of lead stories on news sites studied included video links or allowed users to sort through data.

* Network news faces the biggest moment of transitional change in 2005 that it has faced since the 1980s, when a new generation of anchors and a new pressure for profitably changed the face of the networks.

* Morning news is becoming the financial engine of the networks. While evening news audiences continued to decline in 2004, morning audiences were flat. ABC's Good Morning America was growing, while NBC's Today Show was declining. Only the first 20 minutes of morning news tend to contain traditional news about significant events.

"The news is moving from being an organized, prepared lecture to a free-flowing conversation, with all the advantages and disadvantages that implies," said Mr. Rosenstiel. "The process is more open, but, paradoxically, it is also more prone to manipulation by those who want to shape public opinion. The cases of the government hiring commentators and creating faux web sites are part of this phenomenon."


The study, which contains detailed charts, graphs and citations, can be accessed online at www.stateofthemedia.org as of Monday morning, March 14th. Currently, the 2004 report resides there.

==
The report is now on the site. Take it as you will.

Joe(We'll be right back after these words from our sponsor.) Nation

Bayinghound writes


Holy cow. And here I thought it was my primary college major. I wonder what I did study during those years? I wonder if the great journalism schools at Northwestern and Columbia et al that have existed at least since the 1940's know that? I wonder if I worked with any editors or reporters who didn't have some formal education in their fields? I don't know of any but then I didn't ask every single one.

But even in highschool journalism class, we were taught the ethics of the business since even then we were cranking out the student newspaper that was critiqued by the teacher(s) and also doing whatever work we could get at the local newspaper office.

But if you are correct that colleges are still teaching the strict ethical code that us old timers were taught, then the education system has indeed gone to hell in a handbasket because the kids aren't learning a single thing from the lessons.

And Joe, the article you posted is interesting and supports a lot of what I think about the new trend of internet watchdogs and a growing body of amateur reporters. If it had not been for the bloggers, Dan Rather would have gotten away with his scam to smear the President.

We of course have to sift through the blogs to find pearls among the drivel and trash, but pearls there are to be found.

A re-read of Buchanan's piece that opened this thread is constructive at this time, as he touches on all of it.

If it had not been for bloggers, the White House plant in the Press Room wouldn't have been exposed either.

Difference is, I firmly believe that Dan Rather was set up. He was just too old and out of touch to realize the setup. And since the content of those "fake" memos really hasn't been categorically refuted, I find it difficult to accept that it was all a "scam." He just handled it poorly. We all know Bush never showed up in the Guard, and the spin has been utterly deafening in distracting the American people from this fact.

Jeff Gannon, on the other hand, got an enormous free pass for what little journalistic experience he had (2 years in the White House press core), only to be exposed for what he truly is:

A fake, partisan hack.

The bloggers may be one of our last lines of defense in maintaining any objectivity in journalism. The Bush administration unashamedly uses "fake" news reports to sell their policies, which, from what I've heard, is illegal.

You're probably right Dookie. Gannon probably wouldn't have been outed without the bloggers digging into his credentials. I don't condone that kind of deception from anybody though his worst sin seems to be promoting somebody; not tearing somebody down.

But I will respectfully disagree that Rather was duped. He had been in the business too long and was way too savvy, and there is too much evidence that he knew what the witnesses were saying and decided to go with it anyway. He has done that in the past but wasn't seriously called on it because until recently nobody ever dared challenge the veracity and/or ethics of big media.

But let's hear it for us bloggers. With us on the job as the Sixth Estate, they won't find it so easy to cheat any more.