While we’re down this ‘your opinions make your journalism questionable‘ rabbit hole, if you’re interested, in the US a reporter/columnist for The Washington Post, David Weigel has just been fired/’resignation accepted’ after email trails revealed his rather robust private-ish views of some in the right wing movement (Tea Party etc) it was his beat to cover…

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“I’ve always been of the belief that you could have opinions and could report anyway …. people aren’t usually asked to stand or fall on everything they’ve said in private.”

I agree.

One conservative(?) er, ‘publication’ which got hold of his emails, launched a hit piece of their own against Weigel, like this (reporting/commentary by Jonathan Strong, DailyCaller.com):

Weigel seems to harbor special contempt for a type of conservative he calls a ratfucker, a favorite phrase of his.
In a thread with the subject line, “ACORN Ratf*cker arrested,” Journolisters discussed how James O’Keefe, whose undercover reporting showed officials from activist group ACORN willing to help a fake prostitution ring skirt the law, had been arrested in another, failed operation at Sen. Mary Landrieu’s (D-LA) office.

Weigel’s response: “HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.”

“Deep breath.”

“HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHHAHAHA.”

“He’s either going to get a radio talk show or start a prison ministry. That’s was successful conservative ratfuckers do for their second acts,” Weigel wrote, likely alluding to Nixon aide Charles Colson who converted to Christianity after a stint in prison for obstruction of justice and founded Prison Fellowship.

I don’t have a problem with any of that. Jeez, those comments are his (private? public? who cares?) reaction to that larcenous character setting up ‘sting’ type operations to create political embarrassment … for Democrats. That he got arrested trying another stunt? That *IS* funny.

And razzing Chuck Colson is fair game — although a friend of mine says he’s become a giant of man since ‘turning his life around’. Sounds fair enough. Second although: I’m not sure the Religious Right is all that good for American politics, however.

I actually like the form Weigel used …. may use it myself. This writing, for example, is 1) simple and 2) effectively makes its point:

“I think pointing out Coakley’s awfulness is vital, because it’s 1) true and 2) unreasonable panic about it is doing more damage to the Democrats,” Weigel wrote.

Read the intensely partisan, agenda-driven, anti-Weigel piece Jonathan Strong wrote:  ‘E-mails reveal Post reporter savaging conservatives, rooting for Democrats’ at Daily Caller and decide for yourself. I read the extracts about what Weigal said about Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich etc and found myself nodding — and sometimes chortling — in agreement. Continue reading →

There’s really good insightful ‘defence’ of Michael Hastings — the journalist who (gasp) reported now-sacked-for-his-impertinence General McChrystal’s disparaging comments about his masters.

Interesting that Hastings’ ‘friend and admirer’ the writer Barrett Brown describes Hastings thus:

it was written by a perfect specimen of the new breed of journalist-commentator that will hopefully come to replace the old breed sooner rather than later, and which has already collectively surpassed the old guard by every measure that counts—for instance, not being forever wrong about matters of life and death.

Leaving aside the implausible adolescent-esque cavil about the ‘surpassed’ older generation ‘being forever wrong’, I know people who howl with outrage a the ‘mix’ of news/commentary exhibited by news professionals like Bernard Hickey et al. Get used to it, I guess.

After all: Why try to pretend you don’t have an opinion that is (a) relevant and (b) maybe actually reasonably well-informed, given the attention you pay to an area of interest on an ongoing basis? Why affect a ‘neutrality’ or fake ‘balance’ when it ain’t true? You have a view? Spit it out!

Anyway, the Vanity Fair article Why the Hacks Hate Michael Hastings is well worth a read.

“The times, they are a-changing …”

Here’s Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show typically excellent take on the topic (video below the fold):

“At approximately 11:04 Eastern Standard Time, the American news media finally realized they kind of sucked.”

Continue reading →