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August 30, 2009
What Is Wrong With Journalists?
Barbra Oakley has a very interesting article in Psychology Today explaining what is wrong with journalists. The whole article is a must read, but I especially liked the closing. As far as investigating the dark side of the Major Issues, there's a critically important concept that students of journalism are rarely taught. It's easy to find any number of targets to write about in capitalist societies with an open press. But totalitarian governments are journalistic black holes. Journalists can tickle their self-righteous neurocircuitry every day (and many do), by exposing easy-to-find faults in democratic societies. But beyond their event horizon is the bigger story that often remains untold as it occurs--the horrific deaths of millions in totalitarian regimes like the former Soviet Union, Communist China, North Korea and, yes, Saddam Hussein's Iraq. That's why, when Robert Conquest was asked whether he wanted to retitle his updated The Great TerrorIt would be real nice if journalists recognized the one true fact about politicians taught to me by my grandfather (on my mother's side). "They are all crooks." Which means none should get special treatment from the press. In fact if I was a political strategic thinker I'd make sure the crooks in my party got the harshest treatment possible. Pour l'encourager les autres. Then my party gets known as more honest and that might help swing a few elections when the voters decide "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more." What are the odds? Slim and none. H/T R. Dave at Talk polywell Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon on 08.30.09 at 07:17 PM |
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, about the Soviet purges, his answer was: Yes, how about
Greetings:
My father used to like to say that politics was the second oldest profession, Whores, he would say, sell themselves; politicians sell everybody else.
More fundamentally tough, are the inherent ethical conflicts of journalism. The need for maintaining access to individuals and the need to extract information that may be detrimental to the revealers put journalists on a pretty slippery ethical slope. Which is not to say that they aren't number two on my list, right after the lawyers.