News broke today that a guy who says things on TV said something....ignoring the obvious, I'm talking about the fact that Chris Matthews called Sarah Palin "profoundly stupid."
Focusing first on this story itself, anyone who expects objectivity from anyone on a cable news network is sadly naive and anyone who assumes objectivity at all is also a little sad.
Chris Matthews is known for saying things that will bug people...that keeps him relevant. Otherwise he's just another ass in a suit playing journalist. And that's fine, he is what he is. And his politics are no secret. He served with four or five democratic congressmen as a staffer and even ran once as a democrat. Democrats call him right wing....I digress.
Palin is going to have fun with this. This plays into her idiot following's love affair. It's another example of the "lamestream liberal media" keeping her down instead of worshiping her as they rightly should.
The whole affair is stupid.....and here's why.
Chris Matthews is barely a journalist but even if I considered him as such, I don't think he did anything wrong.
If you ask me, journalism has three goals. To inform, expose and entertain. To appeal to a widespread audience as newspapers once did, a reporter needs to maintain an air of objectivity. On matters where the nation is divided or the facts aren't all there or when 100 percent certainty eludes, the journalist must keep their opinion out of their work. It's key to factual reporting.
But facts are fine because more paramount than objectivity is TRUTH. And Sarah Palin IS profoundly stupid.
If the Pope says tomorrow that all priests have the power to fly because of bla bla latin bla, the AP will need to report the claim, talk to dissenting scientists and get a comment from the Vatican.
The first report may look like this:
By Vegatibli Soupi
Associated Press
Though the Flying Nun may have been fiction, it was closer to the truth than you might have thought.
Pope Benedict XVI announced Wednesday that among the powers to forgive and retain sin, priests can also — fly.
Vatican spokesman Cardinal Peachizi Slicez said, "Through divine authority and from the Seat of Peter the pope has decried that flight is within the power of all priests."
Leading physicist Dr. K Soda said in an interview that the Vatican's claims were unscientific, and unlikely to be true.
"People do not possess the power of flight," Soda said.
Many faithful though are convinced.
"I think it's really cool that Fr. King can fly, I mean I knew he was cool but that's really cool," Clementine Orange said.
Slicez said the Vatican stands by it's claims, and added that no demonstrations are scheduled.
--------
Ok, that's a fair objective story. And the first one should be, even though it seems crazy.
Once the facts are out, a TV reporter/commentator on the evening news has every right to read a script like this.
BEGIN
The Flying Nun? Not quite but how about the flying priests?
Pope Benedict and the Vatican announced today that is is the belief of the Church that that priests can fly as a result of apostolic succession.
Local priest Fr. Bla Blablabla was seen tripping when exiting the rectory to answer questions and did not address why his power of flight didn't keep him upright.
The claims of flight power have been refuted by several scientists but it was not yet known if any specific priests may have developed other powers as a result of a bite from a radio active spider.
END
See that wasn't "fair" and "objective" in the traditional sense because it made some jokes but we all know people can't fly. That is the realm of science and they even had an observable event.
Sure some crazies will believe anything no matter the evidence, its the dark side of misplace faith/psychosis.
Objective journalism has a place but above objectivity needs to be the truth.
Priests can't fly, and Sarah Palin is stupid. Consequently people who believe that priest can fly or that Sarah Palin would make a good president are also likely, though not certain, to be stupid.
Journalists, start trafficking in truth, not perceived fairness. That is all.
Truth belongs in Church and the Philosophy classroom. Facts belong in journalism. That human beings are incapable of unassisted flight is a fact that can be confirmed by scientific evaluation. Not so with Sarah Palin being stupid. That's definately opinion.
ReplyDeleteIf she were willing to submit to mental evaluation we might be able to derive a fact like "Sarah Palin possesses below average intelligence." I actually don't believe Sarah Palin is stupid at all. I suspect her intellect is at least average. She just doesn't have any values beyond her own advancement, that's all. She doesn't value knowledge, or expertise, or curiousity, or modesty, or honesty, or openmindedness, or discipline, or temperate restraint, or self control, etc, etc, etc. So, without any of those values to pursue, she's just an empty mind. Like a sociopath, she's a charming facade which masks a void. There's simply nothing there. But stupid, no.
I'm afraid to say that the field of highly trained, specialized professional Journalists (be they foreign correspondants, beat journalists, editors or the meticulously combed TV Anchor are becoming a thing of the past. In the old days, when the only means of finding otu what's going on was to read the paper (or later watch TV), you needed such specialists who dedicated themselves to the image of "objectivity" to make sure that folks didn't get cynical and reject that one information "tube". It was a promise, a sacred trust. Whether real or not, the image was important.
News was like a messanger boy, quick, dedicated and loyal. Relaying important information from one side of a battle to the other. Making his way through trecherous territory. Now the dedicated messenger boy is no longer necessary. There's a 12 lane superhighway to send information to and fro. It doesn't matter of 75% of the information being passed is garbage (Chris Matthews opinion guys or random, uninformed blogs, for example) as long as there's SO MUCH of it, people can piece together an accurate picture of what's going on, and then some.
Sarah Palin has said enough things outloud that make you go WOW that I think profoundly stupid is close. I'm sure you can pass a basic aptitude test of some kind, but in the words of Hank Hill...BWAH!
ReplyDeleteAs for journalism, you're right that you can sift through the crap yourself and with the internet that's easier than ever, but most people won't.
If they want to know about Palin, they follow her twitter. Or they go to Ron Paul's web site or they join an Obama facebook group.
Problem is they're bypassing the journalist. They assume their heroes are good and get the info straight from them but no one in the group is playing watchdog.
It's messy, that's for sure.
Ok profoundly stupid is bad wording.
ReplyDeleteHe should have said: "Palin is considered a joke with possible awful consequences by most of the american public"
I don't think you really have to sift through anything to get accurate information from the internet. The information practically presents itself to you, whether actual "news" sites, portals, twitter, web sites, facebook, blogs, or what. The longer you watch the feed the more different sources sound off at you. The longer you stare, the more accurate your picture becomes. I don't think people are getting info straight from their heros, they're getting it from, well, everywhere.
ReplyDeleteMany of those sources have a common root in the AP or close to the ground reporting, so journalism in that sense is still necessary. But my point is, the layer of Journalism which I would call "Presentation" is quickly becoming a vestigial organ. People don't need information parsed and rephrased into an "objective" presentation. The facts stream in and we all make our own judgements.