Greenwald: Bob Schieffer, Ron Paul and journalistic “objectivity”

[Fumesucker]

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/24/bob_schieffer_ron_paul_and_journalistic_objectivity/

CBS News‘s Bob Schieffer is the classic American establishment TV journalist: unfailingly deferential to the politically powerful personalities who parade before him, and religiously devoted to what he considers his own “objectivity,” which ostensibly requires that he never let his personal opinions affect or be revealed by his journalism. Watch how thoroughly and even proudly he dispenses with both of those traits when interviewing Ron Paul last Sunday on Face the Nation regarding Paul’s foreign policy views. In this 7-minute clip, Schieffer repeatedly mocks, scoffs at, and displays his obvious contempt for, two claims of Paul’s which virtually no prominent politician of either party would dare express: (1) American interference and aggression in the Muslim world fuels anti-American sentiment and was thus part of the motivation for the 9/11 attack; and (2) American hostility and aggression toward Iran (in the form of sanctions and covert attacks) are more likely to exacerbate problems and lead to war than lead to peaceful resolution, which only dialogue with the Iranians can bring about:



<snip>


(1) The overarching rule of “journalistic objectivity” is that a journalist must never resolve any part of a dispute between the Democratic and the Republican Parties, even when one side is blatantly lying. They must instead confine themselves only to mindlessly describing what each side claims and leave it at that. Their refusal to label Mitt Romney’s first campaign ad as dishonest — even though it wildly misquoted Obama — is a perfect example; so, too, was their refusal to call torture “torture” on the ground that Bush officials called it something else. This is also what The Washington Post‘s Congress reporter Paul Kane meant in his widely disparaged attack this week on those who condemn the media’s “cult of balance”; when Kane defended the political media’s trite, reflexive both-parties-are-at-fault coverage of the Super Committee’s failure by saying “news coverage should always strive to present both sides of the story,” what he means is: whenever Democratic and GOP leaders say different things, it’s the job of opinion writers — but not us objective reporters — to say what the truth is; our job is simply to faithfully write down what each side says and go home.

To these types of journalists, “objectivity” compels that lies and truths be treated equally and never resolved — that is, when the dispute is between the two parties (they allow themselves exceptions to this mandate — their overt swooning for George Bush and contempt for Al Gore in 2000 was probably the most blatant example, and they also eagerly seize every opportunity presented by sex scandals to self-righteously rail against a political figure because sex is apolitical and thus entails no danger of being accused of political bias — but, in general, mindless neutrality in disputes among the two parties is the prime commandment of their objectivity religion).

(2) When it comes to views not shared by the leadership of the two parties, as in the above excerpt from the Paul interview, everything changes. Views that reside outside of the dogma of the leadership of either party are inherently illegitimate. Such views are generally ignored, but in those rare instances where they find their way into the discourse — such as this Paul interview — it is the duty of “objective” reporters like Schieffer to mock, scorn and attack them. Indeed, many journalists — such as Tim Russert and David Ignatius — excused their failures in the run-up to the Iraq War by pointing to the fact that the leadership of both parties were generally in favor of the war: in other words, since war opposition was rarely found among the parties’ leadership, it did not exist and/or was inherently illegitimate (in a March, 2003 interview, Schieffer explained what a great job the American media did in the run-up to the war). Relatedly, only members in good standing of the political establishment command deference; those who are situated outside that establishment — and only them — are to be treated with mockery and contempt (that is what explains the overt scorn by “objective journalists” toward, for instance, the Occupy movement).

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Read the entire piece at the link.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

1. The self adoration of journalists is truly amusing

[UTUSN]

2. SCHIEFFER has been tough when many others haven't been

But the tidbit that has endeared him to me is that he is the one O'LOOFAH says "bigfooted" him and caused him to leave CBS. The story goes, back when O'LOOFAH was a HUGH "war correspondent" (cough, cough), during that furious war in the Falkland Islands (fit of coughing). O'LOOFAH had worked his fingers to the bone, TO THE BONE I tell you, on a story and had put together this HUGH breakthrough in journalism, but that blind, insufferable brass decided that O'LOOFAH's raw, bulging talent was just too unripe in its testosterone to be exposed to a virgin audience and the seasoned SCHIEFFER swooped in and took O'LOOFAH's whole story and was the face that read it all on the air.

This is called "bigfooting," where a big star steps on a young/unknown. And you just know that O'LOOFAH, who has used the Spanish word "wet backs" to mean "coyote" had just communicated SO well with sources. Well, maybe his story was on the British side of things.