Journalism

Agenda Whores (r rated: Language)

This entry was posted in Journalism on by

They could habitate any field, e.g., physics, psychology, horse racing, etc., but the politcal ones are easiest to find and study. This piece at meet the g focuses on the species on the political right:

An old social psychology teacher of mine, Professor Alabaster V. Entenswop, used to wax lyrical about his pet hate, Agenda Fuckers � he changed the term to Agenda Whores just before his death by food choking. What�s an Agenda Whore? His definition, cribbed from his red lecture series:

�An agenda fucker. He, or it could be a She these days. They or It decide to center their life and work upon a single political, social or psychological event. They do this without any type of humour or irony, they can change their agenda at a whim

You go read the rest.
Via Ruminate This.

Fair and Balanced Report

This entry was posted in Constitution Journalism Law War on Terrorism on by

Here is today’s fair and balanced report. First, South Knox Bubba has the headlines (do not drink your coffee while reading); second, Neal Pollack provides a fair and balanced report on bill’s blackout activities (and now you know why he is trying to divert attention to Hillary, and third, Tegan writes about and links us to the Fox court filing which is full of great quote material such as the Orwellian

15. FNC’s balanced approach to reporting the news has become extremely popular…

and o’reilly’s fair and balanced version of his own show

17…”The O’Reilly factor” bills itself as a “No-Spin Zone” and the goal of the program is to present the audience with the straight facts while allowing the audience to reach its own conclusions about the news.

And in full bushian mode of saying one thing and doing another:

20. To reflect its unique approach to the reporting of news, FNC adopted the slogan “fair and Balanced”, along with the phrase “we Report, You Decide” at the time of the network’s inception.

Folks: watch it, read it, you decide.

Check it Out

This entry was posted in Iraq Journalism War on Terrorism on by

Tim Porter tells us that the media is under using one of the basic tenets of journalism:

� Check it out. And that seems to be the culprit behind many of today’s journalism scandals – as a well the perception by the public that the press is not paying attention. They’re not checking it out enough. Jayson Blair – check him out. George Bush – check him out. Weapons of mass destruction – check them out.

Tim was reminded of this when reading . . . Bring Back the Skeptical Press by Gilbert Cranberg in yesterday’s Washington Post. Cranberg takes the media to task for not checking the facts:

The Bush administration has been taking heavy flak for its as yet unproved claims about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. In fixing blame for the way the public appears to have been sold a bill of goods, don’t overlook the part played by the media. Instead of closely questioning the administration’s case, the nation’s newspaper editorialists basically nodded in agreement.

Read the piece for Cranberg’s analysis of editorial response to Colin Powell’s WMD presentation to the Security Council. Sometimes trying to be current and timely can be a disservice to your constituency:

but the downside of instant analysis is the scant time it leaves for careful reporting and reflection. I learned in my many years of editorial writing to follow I.F. Stone’s prudent advice to read texts and not to rush to judgment. None of these publications evidently realized, or noted, how Powell had embellished some facts, although that is readily apparent from a close reading of his text.
If the first casualty of war is truth, the media will need to be a lot more skeptical and alert to minimize the toll on truth.

I’m not a journalist and haven’t absorbed basic tools of the trade like ‘check it out.’ But I’m learning them and this means that my posts are often taking me longer to write then when I started blogging. I’ve learned that anything that has a fact in the text needs to be verified: sometimes the fact is just right, other times my memory served it up wrong and once in a while I fat finger the keyboard.
Via The Rhetorica Network