DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Journalists, start your skepticism.

[RedEarth]

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON:
Pulitzer-Prize-winning finance reporter

Journalists, start your skepticism.

In covering the proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street don't repeat the failed lapdog practices that so damaged our reputations in the rush to war in Iraq and the adoption of the Patriot Act. Don't assume that Congress must act instantly, as so many news stories state as if it was an immutable fact. Don't assume there is a case just because officials say there is.

The coverage of the Paulson plan focuses on the edges, on the details. The focus should be on the premise. And be skeptical of what gullible Congressional leaders, most of them up before the voters in a few weeks, say after being given a closed-door meeting on supposed horrors.

As of now we are, as a group, behaving just as we did the last two times the administration sought to rush through a hastily thought out, ill-conceived plan. Why in the world are we being so gullible and naive? whatever happened to the core value of journalism -- check it out?

The questioning on the Sunday talk shows was all softball. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, shame on your anchors and roundtable regulars all for engaging in lightweight faux journalism. This passivity, superficiality and gullibility was at its worse Monday night on NBC in the banter between anchor Brian Williams and a CNBC correspondent with its utter lack of skepticism. /CONTINUED

http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13611

Here are some question to ask:
http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13610

[laststeamtrain]

1. K & R n/t

[uberblonde]

2. He's an excellent journalist.

One I admire!