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Hypocrisy Detector Set toHigh
By encinoman
Contrary to popular belief, most journalists do not have an agenda, unless you consider skepticism of what they&;re told an agenda. Many, however, like myself, have a real aversion to hypocrisy.
Obviously, politicians who legislate public morality while&;ahem&;falling short personally are high on this list, like South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, Nevada Senator John Ensign, and former Senator Larry &;Wide Stance&; Craig.
But we are equal opportunity scourges of hypocrisy. Some examples I find distasteful:
Non-profit journalism groups with hidden agendas or built in conflicts of interests, like ProPublica, which can never really independently investigate one of the biggest stories of our time, the financial collapse of 2008, because its founders made their money in option-ARM mortgages
&;Progressive&; publishers who don&;t pay contributors (although since you handed me my LA Press Club Award, I do have a soft spot for you, Arianna Huffington)
Right wing pundits who blast Obama for huge deficits and government takeovers of business&;and ignore GW Bush&;s drunken spending
Left wing pundits and Hollywood types who call for the release of Roman Polanski so he won&;t miss his Swiss lifetime achievement award&;without doing his time for the sex charge against a child he pleaded guilty to.
Unfortunately, there are many more examples of &;do as I say, not as I do.&; This is just a taste.
Tags: death-of-journalism, hypocrisy, shrinking-mainstream-media
This entry was posted on October 2, 2009 at 1:31 am and is filed under Journalism.
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One Response to &;Hypocrisy Detector Set toHigh&;
Michael Kizzia Says:
October 2, 2009 at 3:48 am |
Journalists do have an agenda. It is largely unconscious, found in the worldview common among writers and editors, and it is overwhelmingly liberal. One&;s worldview inevitably colors how the world is seen, shaped and reported. To sugest that the liberal worldview so firmly entrenched in media circles does not set and drive the agenda would be, in a word, hypocritical.
Then there is this: I feel people in this age (and it may be a cultural phenomenon) have forgotten how to destinguish between what is hypocritical and what is merely falible, human behavior. If an alcoholic rails against drink and then one day falls off the wagon, does that make him a hypocrite (and all his words subject for the trash pile) or does that make him merely human?
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