Tell the Truth, dammit!
“Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That’s what you claim you do, when you accept people’s money to buy or subscribe to your paper. But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie—that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad—even bad weather—on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.… You’re just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it’s time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a daily newspaper in our city.”
—Orson Scott Card, writer, columnist and sci-fi author, in this column originally in the Greensboro, NC, Rhinoceros Times, Oct. 5, 2008. (Thanks to alert WORDster Nicole Coulter)
SPEAKING OF FREE EXPRESSION: Who stole our Obama sign?! See Don’t Steal Our Obama Sign (again)!
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Bud writes:
ReplyDeleteIs this guy for real? Did he wake up in 2008 and miss the entire rest of the century? Worse, does he not understand that the people in power get blamed for the bad, just as they get credit for the good, even when they have nothing to do with it? Did he forget Jimmy Carter, for heaven’s sake? Does he not know that journalists are, by nature, lazy, and fall into the same patterns as the rest of us in that they believe (and write) what they choose to acknowledge as truth?
Sheesh!
Mary writes:
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of missing Obama signs
http://www.woi-tv.com/Global/category.asp?C=106388&nav=menu115_2_1
You get what you pay for, and these days, unless you're a reporter at a major metro daily or one of the national dailies, newsrooms don't dangle enough compensation to attract and retain the best.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, some are arguing for even shoddier reporting. Seen this?
http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2008-10-20-singleton_N.htm
Where is Orson Scott Card's evidence that ANY newspaper has blamed the weather on Bush?
ReplyDeleteCard is hardly an unbiased reader--check out his anti gay-marriage writings.
The rest of his fiction is enjoyable, though. I couldn't stop reading "Ender's Game."
Those of us who live in North Carolina know the Rhinoceros Times to be crap.
ReplyDeleteMy older son, a human relations officer in Michigan, would agree wholeheartedly with Card. Seth believes that the press has been derelict, virtually criminal, in its coverage for years exactly as Card charges. Except. Except that he believes that journalists have acted as the public relations machine for the Republican party all these years, swallowing then disgorging whole the Republican line. Those of us in the business, even those of us who are now belatedly in the business, are tempted to take solace in being in the cross hairs from the right and the left: "We must be doing something right."
ReplyDeleteMaybe. Or maybe doing twice as much wrong. Or maybe just doing the same things wrong and having them interpreted from opposite directions. It is neither the left nor the right that criticizes horse-race reporting for itself. It is the slower horse who objects. It is neither the left nor the right that criticizes gotcha journalism, It is the one who has been "gotcha'd" at that moment who objects. It is neither the right or the left that criticizes narratives that won't go away even after they've been debunked. It's the aggrieved party in the narrative that objects.
Flip the momentum in Greensboro, N.C., to McCain and Orson Scott Card would sign off on his column and his opposite number from the left would sign on. Would they both be right? Somewhat. Somewhat not.
Peter
Two points: That link that bwadpwofo provided is really scary. Can we just outsource democracy as well?
ReplyDeleteOrson Scott Card is a good fiction writer. My kids love him. I wish his "non-fiction" was closer to the truth.
First miss for the Word.
ReplyDeleteThanks for printing the quote Ted. Card's not the only one. Here's another critique of the media by an ABC reporter:
ReplyDeletehttp://abcnews.go.com/Business/Story?id=6099188&page=3
Wow, Dr. Pease, a non-liberal rant? Are you feeling alright today? ;-) I think the cosmos may be at dire risk of collapsing if we have the same article on our blogs.
ReplyDeleteTed, I'm an Editorial Page Editor, and I have received at least 15 e-mails of Card's column from conservative readers. I think they are in reality frustrated that the story of more subprime loans as a liberal agenda has NOT GAINED TRACTION in the media, which is different than not being reported. But they don't see that distinction.
ReplyDeleteDoug Gibson
Ogden, Utah
One problem with Mr. Card's assertion is that we live in an age of conglomeration, and corporations are certainly not high on the Democratic agenda.
ReplyDeleteI don't think news is skewed by political agenda (unless you watch Olbermann, O'Reilly or Dobbs) as much as it is by "celebrity journalism" and corporate interests. Maybe people just need to start thinking critically?
One of the reasons I recently left journalism is because I the outlet I worked for checked its integrity at the door when tough times hit and began selling editorial coverage.
Wow – that’s the best quote you’ve ever had.
ReplyDelete