MaxedOutMama

I have been reading political columns with a growing sense of disbelief. David Broder writes about the series of recent scandals in journalism in this column. I believe that he feels shame and embarrassment over them, but I disagree with his reasoning as to how this has come about.

He seems to blame the internet for some of it:

"When the Internet opened the door to scores of "journalists" who had no allegiance at all to the skeptical and self-disciplined ethic of professional news gathering, the bars were already down in many old-line media organizations. That is how it happened that old pros such as Dan Rather and former New York Times editor Howell Raines got caught up in this fevered atmosphere and let their standards slip."

This is like blaming a hurricane victim for trying to salvage something from the wreckage of his house. The bloggers who have been commenting on outright lies and stunning falsities put forth in the press are reacting to journalism's failures, not causing them. David Broder is still more reasonable than most in the print media, who complain about the invective and denigrate the values of those who are blogging. Broder comments:

"We need to be asking why this collapse has taken place. My suspicion is that it stems from a widespread loss of confidence in both the values of journalism and the economic viability of the news business. The first symptom of wavering confidence that I spotted came when news organizations -- television particularly, but print as well -- began offering their most prestigious and visible jobs not to people deeply imbued with the culture and values of newsrooms, but to stars imported from the political world."

The star system of journalism is probably bad, because it devalues raw achievement and favors name recognition. However, the star system of journalism has been in place for a long time - at least back to the days of Walter Cronkite. Thus the rathermandering of television. Broder seems to feel that these "outsiders" from the political world are ruining journalism, because they do not share the lofty values essential to good journalism when he writes:

"Journalists learn to be skeptical -- of sources and of their own biases as well."

But can Broder's reasoning explain this column reacting to the Republican convention by Richard Cohen, which also appeared in The Washington Post just a few weeks earlier?

"Outside my high school one distant but memorable day, a crowd gathered to watch a fight between a particularly nasty punk and someone he had bullied. To my immense satisfaction, the fight soon went against the punk. He went down and the good guy got on top of him for the coup de grace. Suddenly, a friend of the punk stepped from the crowd and stomped the good guy -- once, twice and it was over. That guy, I'm sure, is now a Republican."

Nice poetic intro there. The whole column is good (for laughs), as Cohen continues to demonstrate his profound journalistic skepticism of his own biases:

"The willingness to fight hard and fight dirty is something I both admire and loathe -- and I apologize in advance for my ambivalence."

For a while I was thinking that Cohen was discussing the Washington Post's campaign to elect Kerry or his own attitudes when he wrote:

"The campaign is engaged in hand-to-hand combat for just enough votes -- a mandate of one, if need be. It is infused with such a sense of righteousness that, like the Crusaders of old, it can commit atrocity after atrocity on the way to Jerusalem. All that matters is the goal. God understands."

But no, Cohen is referring to the Bush campaign. No invective here at all. I love the reasoned arguments which continue in this passage:

"What's more, they were followed by a string of misrepresentations spit from the mouth of Zell Miller, as mad an eruption of hate as I have witnessed in politics. Some time back, Kerry must have dissed Miller. This was personal."

Yeah, it was. Zell is personally offended. The reason Zell's so infuriated is that in 2000 Zell was part of the Democratic team that was down in Florida to prevent Jeb Bush from stealing the election for his older brother. Zell, obviously believing that he was there to ensure that every vote was counted, gave a public press conference decrying the massive Democratic effort to have the military ballots thrown out.

Oops! That earned Zell the deep displeasure of the Democratic politburo. I can only imagine just how much that same politburo hates the news organizations that funded the several independent recounts of the ballots that showed Bush won. Oops! Anyway, Zell is indignant that people risking their lives in service to this country would be treated this way, which is why he went on and on in his speech about the military defending the rights of the people in this country, instead of the lawyers and the journalists.

I strongly suspect that an awful lot of people in Florida were also personally offended, because the Republicans pretty much swept the 2002 elections in Florida. There was a high turnout, Jeb Bush was reelected in a landslide, and quite a few long-term Democratic state officeholders were swept out to sea in Terry McAuliffe's tidal wave of indignation. McAuliffe's a heavy hitter all right. The only problem is that he keeps running the ball into his own team's end zone, and then running out and screaming in indignation at the unfairness of it all.

Anyway, Cohen sums up the Republican convention with admirable journalistic integrity by writing:

"It was a loathsome affair, suffused with lies and anger, but also beautiful to watch, like a nature show about some wild animal, amoral and intent only on survival."

That pretty much speaks for itself, and I think it also could serve as an apt description of the motivations of television and print journalists who decry the rise of the blogger so bitterly.

I am not accusing Mr. Broder of being a hypocrite. For all I know Mr. Broder exerts his influence to moderate such exercises of journalistic ethics as Cohen's article. I do believe Mr. Broder is deluded.

I think the problem with the press is a combination of laziness and elitism. Laziness, because what has driven many to the bloggers is the search for fact, instead of the regurgitated press releases served up in so many "news items". And elitism, because many of the "journalists" have not hit the pavements and talked to real people about real facts for a very long time. If they had, they would have noticed that they were lying to the American people, and I assume they have not.

The problem is not that the blogging outsiders are ranting partisans and that mainstream journalism no longer has the ethics and integrity to withstand their pressure. The problem is that Dan Rather is a liar, and believed he could get away with his lie by insisting that it was true. The problem, Mr. Broder, is that he would have succeeded if not for the bloggers, because the established press was not going to report the story.

It's the big lie. The lie that is so big that any challenge to it can be dismissed as the partisan ranting of conspiracy theorists. The problem, Mr. Broder, is that propaganda is far more respected in the established press than reporting. An additional problem is that this big lie was trotted out for very little reason. The underlying story would have had relatively little effect on the election even if it had been true. This big lie was uttered for bragging rights within a relatively small circle. I attribute this to elitism.

The bloggers reported the forgery story. The bloggers dug. The bloggers keep digging. The bloggers have forced AP to change several stories recently by reporting their inaccuracies. The bloggers are talking to the people who were there. The people who know. The jig is up.

Mr. Broder writes "We've wandered a long way from safe ground in the news business. Sometimes I wonder if we can find our way back." Of course you can, Mr. Broder. All it would take is mentally wandering out of the ink-splotched journalistic bunker, and talking to the sources. News is not reported by talking to other journalists. News is reported by talking to sources and then checking their stories against established facts. You can do it. I know you can.