Comments on: Revisiting Wallace and Jennings, 1987

By: Teri Pittman

Teri Pittman — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 19:24:45 +0000

And, of course, we can now see what bogus liars they were. If there is some “journalistic calling”, then reporters would be expected to cover a story, regardless of their personal beliefs. We now have journalists as the propaganda wing of the Democratic party.

By: thomass

thomass — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 15:07:38 +0000

“And in a way, Hussein’s alleged actions would be the more understandable of the two, if in fact his motivation was allegiance to the insurgents’ cause. At least his actions would then be consistent with his beliefs.”

It would also make him a valid military target imo.

By: SCOTTtheBADGER

SCOTTtheBADGER — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 07:11:43 +0000

Wallace had clearly made the step that the SS Sonderkommandos had made, he stopped thinking of the Marines as people, and thought of them as it. By doing so, a person embraces evil, and journalism has done so.

Getting the “scoop” in a situation like this can only be done for the purpuse of enhancing the reporter, granting him greater power, and money, in the future, ethics are immaterial.

By: southpaw

southpaw — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 05:12:18 +0000

So ‘reporter’ is a profession so noble its only allgiance is to its own self-described sacred tenets? Imagine if other professions’ only moral boundaries were set by the practitioners of the profession. As an engineer, I could jettison the earthly unwritten understanding that what I design must be safe as well as functional.
There are So many things we could accomplish if we didn’t artificially bind ourselves to safety principles, in favor of an optimized design. . Cars wouldn’t need to be safe, just get you where you’re going as fast and as cheap as possible.
I don’t know how a person with an ego that big can live with themself. There are no adjectives to describe a person like Wallace. Parker is close, but you could fill volumes marveling at what’s wrong with mike Wallace.

By: JJ formerly Jimmy J.

JJ formerly Jimmy J. — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 04:49:35 +0000

I stand by my comments made on the earlier posts.

The MSM is not objective! Yet they claim (and possibly believe) that they are. Many low info voters believe them – unfortunately. It is one of the biggest problems facing this country.

Jennings and Wallace are no longer with us, but their influence in the world of journalism is much, much too alive.

In the previous threads McLovins was hooked on the idea of a “legal” war. As I pointed out: When we are attacked, the issues have been debated, and the votes have been counted; if the vote was for authorizing war or its cousin, use of military force, the war is legal. You may not like it and you can speak out against it and petition your representatives to change their minds, but it is still a legal war. Nations do have a right to self defense and citizens have a duty to support the cause that their representatives have set before them.

The idea of embedding with the enemy is absurd on its face and follows from the Vietnam days when the journalists tried to depict the VC as “agrarian reformers.” The idea of embedding with an enemy is really an act of being used as a propaganda tool for the enemy. CNN did just that when it bent over backwards to keep journalists in Iraq to provide, IMO, propaganda for Saddam. All in the service of molding public opinion to follow the “correct” agenda. It has only gotten worse as time passes.

What to do about it? Infiltrate the J schools with conservatives would be a good place to start. Convince conservative billionaires buy up major media companies and change their editorial policies would be another.

By: holmes

holmes — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 04:42:10 +0000

As long as it’s military men who are dying, they stay detached. But if it’s their party’s President who is in trouble, well, any weapon at hand.

Excellent post.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 04:33:23 +0000

“If the littlest and weakest member of a herd of wildebeest is taken down, it’s merely the operation of that process, and to protect the wildebeest makes no sense.” (Only if it’s not an “endagered” wildebeest” — Then, not only IT but its habitat takes precedence over all else.)

Liberals don’t have a consitent stanbdard for anything…it’s all “expediency of the moment.”

By: Occam's Beard

Occam's Beard — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 04:11:07 +0000

Neo, no, I hadn’t read it, in honesty. But I guess to zeroth order I assume journalists are enemies of America, because it seems (to me at least) that the considerable majority of them are, and thus I feel little sympathy for them. I base this assessment on incidents such as that recounted concerning Wallace, whom I consider more representative of journalists as a whole than I do, e.g., Daniel Pearl.

So while I take your point, neo, and am suitably abashed, on the other hand I would liken journalists to Germans during WWII. Sure, there are good ones in there – somewhere – but it’s hard to feel a lot of sympathy for individuals who statistically are likely to be unworthy of it.

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 03:18:30 +0000

Occam's Beard: did you even read what I wrote earlier in response to you? What you have written is, to be frank, morally repugnant.

By: Susanamantha

Susanamantha — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 03:05:17 +0000

The death of journalist Michael Kelly in Iraq was a tragedy. I still re-read some of his articles.