Ted Koppel wakes from a long slumber and notices something about the press
“I’m terribly concerned that when you talk about the New York Times these days, when you talk about the Washington Post these days, we’re not talking about the New York Times of 50 years ago,” Koppel noted to journalist and author Marvin Kalb earlier this month. “We are not talking about the Washington Post of 50 years ago. We’re talking about organizations that I believe have, in fact, decided as organizations that Donald J. Trump is bad for the United States.”…
“So [Trump’s] perception that the establishment press is out to get him — doesn’t mean that great journalism is not being done; it is — but the notion that most of us look upon Donald Trump as being an absolute fiasco, he’s not mistaken in that perception. And he’s not mistaken when so many of the liberal media, for example, describe themselves as belonging to “the resistance”? What does that mean? That’s not said by people who consider themselves reporters, objective reporters of facts. That’s the kind of language that’s used by people who genuinely believe — and rather suspect with some justification — that Donald Trump is bad for the United States … and the sooner he’s out of office the better they will like it.”
Koppel added to Kalb that “we are not the reservoir of objectivity that I think we were.”
I find it bleakly amusing that Koppel thought the press was a “reservoir of objectivity” fifty years ago. Koppel is 79 years old, and he should know better. But at least he’s noticing something now, although as AOC might say, “Ted Koppel, who dis?”
And even now, Koppel is careful to include some language to indicate, to those who would excoriate him for his criticism of the press, that he’s really on the anti-Trump side: “doesn’t mean that great journalism is not being done; it is” and “by people who genuinely believe — and rather suspect with some justification — that Donald Trump is bad for the United States…”
The advent of “Journalism School” killed journalism. The days of reporters starting as copy boys or the equivalent covering police arrests was the golden age,.
Mike K–I wish I had printed out an article I read way back in 2007 about that very thing…the awarding of a degree destroying actual journalism. The long-time reporter truly made the case.
Even in the process of denouncing the press for a lack of objectivity, he proudly displays his own bias. So what is the message to journalists? You are not being objective! Stop it! (Wink, wink)
Roy Nathanson:
Actually, he displays his own opinion. Just about everyone has an opinion. Who is objective about politics? But having an opinion doesn’t mean that everything you believe is biased. There are ways to try to be objective and to even succeed. What I think Koppel is trying to say is that members of the press used to have opinions but they tried to write objectively and without bias. For example, he is expressing an opinion about the press that clearly goes against his opinion of Trump. He seems to be saying that even if it’s their opinion (and his own opinion) that Trump is bad for the country, as journalists they still need to cover Trump fairly, and they are not.
Trump has unmasked the msm. They no longer disguise their role as the dnc propaganda cabal. Koppel is just telling them to tone it down in order to retreive their former pretend ‘objectivity’ before the unwashed masses leave the msm in droves.
I was talking to my daughter who was a Bernie voter but is not crazy like so many of them. I told her that people, not just Republicans, had been voting for people who, once elected, went their own way, did not keep promises and lined their own pockets, I told her finally, the public, at least the Republican part, threw a brick through the window. Trump is that brick.
Tucker Carlson explains it well in this speech.
He postulates that, if your wife ran off with the mailman, you would wonder if you had done anything to cause her to do that. Any sane person would do so.
The Dem media is so biased, and so often wrong about Trump, that I’m sure a lot of independents will be sort of on Trump’s side — the Dems are always lying about him.
Koppel is just stating the most normal Americans like “fair play”. And they can see, and hear, that the Dem media is NOT at all fair.
Probably because there’s not nearly as much bad Trump facts, as bad Trump speculations. The news that reports the truth won’t show Trump as too bad — in fact, based on results, he’s doing great.
Parker, bloggers unmasked the media way before Demoncrat Trum. Some people just need their dear leader and political President to tell them something before they actually do it.
TK is a good zombie slave. He was pretty useful.
Koppel and all the rest have much to answer for, the stains upon their souls may not be erasable.
“Ted Koppel wakes from a long slumber and notices something about the press”.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.
Or has Ted Koppel finally noticed that along with the increasing ‘Diversification’ of the Democratic Party the MSM has undergone a recent paradigm shift very likely to induce the age-old fear in, oh, I dunno, people with totally undifferentiated surnames like (say) Koppel?
Enlightened self-interest. I’m all for it. Happy to make common cause with the Ted Koppels and let the last 50 years of ‘Progress’ be bygones if we can just agree to collaborate on putting the AOCs, Ilhan Omars, Clintons, and other similar ills back Pandora’s Box and stapling the lid down tight.
I’d like to believe that Ted Koppel’s concerns about the present state of the media spring from a Civic Nationalist concern for the common weal and the general state of the body politics.
Wouldn’t it be pretty to think so.
The advent of “Journalism School” killed journalism. The days of reporters starting as copy boys or the equivalent covering police arrests was the golden age,.
I believe J-Schools have been around since the Depression if not earlier. (The actress Nancy Kulp started her work life as a reporter with a j-school diploma in addition to her academic diplomas; that was > 70 years ago). Not sure J-school degrees are necessary even today to land a job as a reporter. And Carl Bernstein, Nina Totenberg, Linda Ellerbee, and the late Marjorie Williams are among those who built careers in recent decades having no college degree at all.
Trump won the endorsement of newspapers that accounted for 3% of daily circulation. That tells me that a substantial proportion of the population ignored what the newspapers opined.
zek:
Actually, in the case of Koppel, I do believe that his “concerns about the present state of the media spring from a Civic Nationalist concern for the common weal and the general state of the body politics.”
My recollection of Koppel is that, at least during his heyday, he was a relatively objective journalist. I can’t swear to it, since it’s been a long time since I watched him, but that’s my memory of him. Among other things, if you look at his Wiki entry, you will find this:
Koppel also had quite a childhood:
So Koppel’s early years and his remberence of Morrow during the battle of Britian excuse his leftist years of his broadcast pinnical? I think not.
I have a Ted Koppel story. I once had lunch at my place with my sister and a friend of hers, who used to live in Jasper, Texas. He was in Jasper at the time of Murder of James Byrd Jr., which attracted nationwide attention. He had the opportunity to observe Ted Koppel close at hand: arrogant know-it-all sums up his description of Ted Koppel. My sister’s friend said that in his opinion, the Jasper community was so shocked that the perpetrators got turned in rather quickly. Ted and the rest of the outside media tended to gloss over that. BTW, my sister’s friend is black.
In Ted’s defense, I suspect that most national figures would come off as arrogant know-it-alls in small towns- Texas or otherwise. “Bitter clingers” ring a bell?
Gringo, your story reminds me of something I heard a long time ago that still haunts me because it foreshadowed all this years before Trump. The night of the 2004 election I was watching the returns, Bush had it wrapped up and they were in the post-mortem phase. I tuned to CBS and they were all grumpy and scowly that Bush had won, saying “How could people vote for him?”. I rolled my eyes and switched to NBC. Superficially they were more “even-handed”, then Brokaw went around the table and asked the correspondents, “What did you learn covering the election?” One of them said,
“The people in the middle of the country are really angry about the way they are portrayed in the media”.
Everyone kind of stroked their chin and nodded but they quickly moved on to something else. It reminds me that the sentiments that led to the election of Trump have been festering for years if not decades.
Sometimes when I tell this episode I skip the part about CBS to get right to the “money quote”. But it is significant because 1) the bias was so unvarnished, here it was election night and they weren’t even pretending to conceal who they wanted to win and 2) the blistering contempt for people who voted the “wrong” way. Yes ironic because now the Bushes are not highly favored by Trump supporters but still extraordinarily telling.
For a real taste of contemporary slime-ball journalism, read media thug Isaac Chotiner’s attempted takedown of Donna Brazile in the current New Yorker.
Yes ironic because now the Bushes are not highly favored by Trump supporters but still extraordinarily telling.
The Bushes are telling anyone who will listen that they would vote, or did vote for, Hillary, Ironic.
Also, Biden seems to be running for a friend of China award.
in 1939, he was instead declared an enemy alien and imprisoned on the Isle of Man for a year and a half.
The British got hysterical about Germans, most of whom were Jewish refugees from Hitler. Max Peretz, the father of molecular biology, had a similar story. His parents were refugees from Austria and lost everything. As an Austrian alien, he was sent to Canada for part of the war, When he got back, he finished school and got a PhD at Cambridge. He was a lowly lecturer and pretty much ignored by Cambridge until he was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize. He went on to found the Molecular Biology program that included Francis Crick.
Edith Efron had plenty to say about media bias in 1971 but she was mostly ignored.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-news-twisters-by-edith-efron/
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.
Koppel was never politically-aligned in any readily observable way and played it straight with his guests. Same deal with Robert MacNeill, Jim Lehrer. Mike Wallace played games with people he interviewed but his gamesmanship was equal opportunity.
In the late 1980s, the progressive media criticism organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) claimed that policymakers and ex-officials dominated the Nightline guest list, with critics of foreign policy less visible.
Again, FAIR is a red-haze organization whose complaint is that the media isn’t propagating red-haze perspectives. Their idea of ‘critic’ is Noam Chomsky, who actually knows nothing of public policy.
Ray on March 21, 2019 at 11:01 am at 11:01 am said:
Edith Efron had plenty to say about media bias in 1971 but she was mostly ignored.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-news-twisters-by-edith-efron/
* * *
Excellent article.
To say Efron was ignored is an understatement; one would almost think the MSM took her book as a challenge.
And yet, since the time it was published in 1972, we have nonetheless elected Republican Presidents.
The Press is not so mighty as it thinks, and perhaps the Deplorables didn’t believe them back then either.
See also Bernard Goldberg’s aptly named expose of more recent television practices in his book Bias
On broader issues, and the impact of the MSM:
My judgement has for decades been to distrust the Right more than the Left, but to distrust the Establishment/ punditocracy most of all. So, I and friends went to hear/ meet various anti-Establishment folks, from quite-national figures (e.g. Kos, Greenwald, G. Palast, & Ron Paul), to more-esoteric figures (e.g. Mish Shedlock). Later, we’d meet folks like Archdruid Greer. However, my doubts vs. the Left lingered, spurred by thinkers like Allan Bloom, or Camille Paglia, w/ her cogent doubts of) feminist orthodoxy. My focus 2005-08 was on fear of Dubya/FISA /Deep State, and then on Wall St. (and Obama’s shilling for them, w/ most Lefties in tow, but for OWS, 2011-12). Now, I most fear the DS/ MSM (e.g. Bezos, Acosta), Antifa etc., as they (seem to) aim for tyranny, or Civil War 2.0.
I was glad to see the 2016 primaries bring major bids vs. Elite power, from Bernie (who I backed), Rand P., and Trump, with me OK w/ any one of these 3 as PotUS. HRC lost partly because her pals got caught shiving Bernie’s bid, and the Elites stooped to charge that these clear facts (of this shiving) were given to Wikileaks, by “Russian hackers” aided by Trump. The Dems (+ their MSM toadies) have sought to bury major beefs (e.g. by respected Lefties Greenwald & Chomsky) vs. this (previously unthinkable) 2+ years-long Kafkaesque orgy of deceit on Russia (thus shiving the Dems’ decades-long tradition, of working w/ Russia to avoid WWIII). Moreover, top Dems (quite seem to) have pursued a (McCarthyist) frame-up of Trump on this, while risking civil war, or WWIII (when Obama, w/ inciting fanfare, tossed 35 Russian diplomats). This all was for me a last straw, along with reading Lefties urging, that whites + males be forced to hear PoCs lectures (this agitprop quite implying, that the Lefty grass roots [w/ Antifa] are in w/ the Elites’ [stealth?] outright fight-to-the-death Culture War, vs. white males.
I do read more Righty than Lefty sites. But (mainstream) Lefty stuff has given major meat, e.g. on how blacks can’t stop whites “from shooting hate inside our muscles” (NYT), and on how women “have every right to hate” men (WaPo). Recently I’ve loudly touted first, Carterist Kunstler, followed by Greenwald, Greer, (pro-Obama, ex-Balt. cop) P. Moskos, and Consortium News. Over the last 3+ years, I’ve been drawn to Peter Moskos’ posts, e.g. about his chagrin at Obama’s incendiary Dallas speech, etc. Likewise, w/ Greer’s, and Kunstler’s, posts, vs. Lefties’ hate of “imperialist” Western Civ., and their agitprop vs. the Deplorable straight white male (SWM) working class.
I now ignore most Lefties, largely because it’s now clear, esp. since c. mid-2016 (so I’ve been advised privately, by a major IT expert), that most key Lefty sites have aped Kos, in his quasi-totalitarian ban on Doubters of the (Dem) Party Line. And, I suspect, the Dems’ Open Borders crusade (and the MSM boycott of contrary ideas, that an ex-Carter Admin. official told me about) owes much to Wall St./ Sil. Valley’s long touting of OBs. The MSM pushes/ covers for violent Resistance (e.g. WaPo on “start throwing rocks”) and the Caravans, and disses Trump’s fair labeling of them as “invasions”. Trump had J. Acosta tossed for hogging the mic (to diss this labeling), but the Elite MSM (via the White Hse. press Assoc.) showed their disdain for basic mtg. rules, by backing J.A. Now, most of the current MSM shills for Wall St./ Sil. Valley, the DS, + the “Multiculturalist” haters (e.g. Obama) of whites, and (e.g. Feinstein) of straight men.
The (JFK/ Carter) Dems had stood for: peace (esp. w/ Russia), + pvt.-sector Labor etc. (vs. Wall St. etc.), + reducing our economy’s (esp. oil) profligacy (& environ. damage), + efforts to control the DS (e.g. via JCs signing of the FISA law, & Sen. Church’s probes). Tragically, the Clinton-Obama-Bezos Dems (w/ most of the MSM) have shived those causes, and instead became the party/ Pushers of (all-but) explicit ID Politics hatred of SWMs (for their very Being), + covering for abuses by: Wall St./ Silicon Valley, the DS (esp. w/ its Russia cow), etc. Such very hip, well-placed friends as the IT guy, and ex-Carter guy mentioned above, and major writers (esp. on Peak Cheap Oil) like Kunstler, Greenwald, and Greer, have been quite clear, in their dissing of these shivings. Stark battle lines are emerging: 1) “Trumpism” & ”TrumpenLeft”, defending the (disproportionally SWM) pvt. sector working class Deplorables (in US, & W. Eur.), + Israel, Russia, + other (mostly E. Eur, ex-Commie) countries, all vs. 2) Globalists/ Multiculturalists/ DSers.
The (often still tacit) essence, of most of recent (multiCulturalist) Leftism (and the MSM), is roughly as follows: Most of the world’s problems owe to Patriarchy, which, in the Imperialist West, was/ is run by SWMs. So, women, LGBTs, and PoCs, have the right (to use Higher Ed. etc.) to inflict all-but limitless payback upon SWMs, incl. via Antifa, OBs, systematic smearing of pro-SWM leaders (esp. Putin), etc. If this Resistance means risking WWIII vs. that (Deplorable) “bigot” Putin, that’s OK (according to some Lefties), rather than letting Trump etc. inspire SWMs to resist this payback. Western ideas of “truth” are social constructs, to keep/grow SWM power. What need priority are the feelings of women, PoCs, etc., while (white) men’s feelings mean zip. All doubters of such views are quite suspect, of being racist-sexist-fascist etc. (Much of this was quite foreseen by A. Bloom, + C. Paglia.)
Lefty jargon calls unity of these payback efforts “intersectionality”, and most US (+ other Western) MSM outlets seem ever-more OK w/ this outlook (esp. since c. 2012-13, when BLM emerged, and when top tycoon Bezos bought the WaPo, and later cozied up to the CIA). The NYT (e.g. w/ S. “extinction” Jeong, M.E. Dyson, etc.) is the top agitator vs. whites, and WaPo (esp. w/ the rabid Suzanna Walters, and Victoria Brown) aims more vs. (straight) males. (Trust me, if feminists can widely apply their “believe all women” policy, various sociopaths will use that window, to settle (decades-)old [non-rape] “scores” vs. men, w/ the MSM covering for this.) The Left (+ MSM, esp. WaPo) quite kowtows to (“genius”) racist T. Coates, and the MSM mostly covers for Antifa (e.g. via N.D.B. Connolly), + for Farrakhan’s cuddles w/ Obama and B. Clinton. Never have so m (of any major democracy’s top) MSM organs been nearly so deceitful/ snobbish, and ideologically monolithic, on so many issues of such import for so many (commoners) (e.g. on gender), while still touting themselves as “objective”.
Ironically, the Left is going where I’d feared the Right was going: to a quasi-totalitarian echo-chamber. If you must attend DFA etc. mtgs, I urge you to mostly keep doubts vs. the Party Line to yourself (esp. on Russia), lest you get moved higher up on the (tacit, maybe subconscious) List of Enemies of the People, who figure to (in due course) get liquidated, as were Lefty critics on the Lists of e.g. Robespierre, Stalin, & Mao. (This growing Party Line fervor may’ve helped spur Sen. Graham to tear into the Dems, on their Kav ambush: “Boy, you all want power. God, I hope you never get it.”) (Famous Righty “purges”, aside from that of Hitler, were comparatively tame.)
While major dissent within the (“Resistance”) Dems is now miniscule (since Bernie’s 2016 bid was sabotaged), the “Deplorable” Right has, rather to my surprise, made much progress vs. the GOP Elites, and has actually grown up some, this first spurred by the (rep for) prescience, of critiques of the GHWB/ Dubya (Iraq etc.) Disasters, by “peaceniks” like R. Paul and Pat Buchanan. And, more Righties are seeing truth on the DS, JFK/ Oswald, etc. Also, Pat B.’s fears vs. immigration have earned a real rep, esp. since the Left has been pushing so hard on OBs (and showing their honky-hate to be spurring much of this push). GOP Elites (e.g. WSJ) have somewhat tagged along, e.g. by uniting vs. the Left’s most blatant antics (e.g. w/ its recent Kav circus), showing its mood for SWM extinction.
A major upshot of all this is, that the Right has gotten a rather better grasp of the Left’s actual views, than the Left has of the Right. Most “educated” Lefties know next to zip about Righties (other than the MSM’s / HRC’s caricature, as racist-sexist-fascist Deplorables), or about the (Righty view of the) brewing Const. Crisis, over the (DS/ Dems’) frame-up (?), of Trump/ Russia. Whereas, well-read Righties can’t help but know (esp. via MSM) of real Lefty views, and are thus moved (as are well-read Independents), to really try to sort it out (with growing numbers concluding that the Left, w/ MSM in tow, has much become what Greer says: “the Hate that dare not speak its name”).
On “Trump all-but routinely lies”, as if he does so more than Obama, HRC, MSM, etc.: You must be basing this, not upon having studied slews of these folks’ quotes, but only upon claims from (NPR?) others. I’ll quite bet, that these others haven’t done zip, to’ve earned your trust. Among G. Greenwald’s main points is, that the MSM jumps all over (real) anti-Establishment folks’ words/ deeds (e.g. Gore, or Trump, esp. on Russia), with hatchet-like spins, incl. for things much akin to what Obama etc. also did/ said, but which the MSM mostly ignored, buried, or spun generously. I’ll take my chances with GG, before I trust these others.