Friday, March 12, 2010
Howell Raines unloads on Fox "News":Big time. Some excerpts: - Why haven't America's old-school news organizations blown the whistle on Roger Ailes, chief of Fox News, for using the network to conduct a propaganda campaign against the Obama administration ...
- Ailes has overturned standards of fairness and objectivity that have guided American print and broadcast journalists since World War II. Yet, many members of my profession seem to stand by in silence ...
- ... the network has sold a falsified image of the professional standards that developed in American newsrooms and university journalism departments in the last half of the 20th century.
- ... it is precisely our long-held norms that cripple our ability to confront Fox's journalism of perpetual assault. I'm confident that many old-schoolers are too principled to appear on the network, choosing silence over being used; when Fox does trot out a house liberal as a punching bag, the result is a parody of reasoned news formats.
- My great fear ... is that some journalists of my generation who once prided themselves on blowing whistles and afflicting the comfortable have also been intimidated by Fox's financial power and expanding audience, as well as Ailes's proven willingness to dismantle the reputation of anyone who crosses him.
- Why can't American journalists steeped in the traditional values of their profession be loud and candid about the fact that Murdoch does not belong to our team? His importation of the loose rules of British tabloid journalism, including blatant political alliances, started our slide to quasi-news.
- For the first time since the yellow journalism of a century ago, the United States has a major news organization devoted to the promotion of one political party.
- News Corp., with 64,000 employees worldwide, receives the tender treatment accorded a future employer.
posted by Quiddity at 3/12/2010 08:54:00 AM
1 comments
Will journalists stay dry and safe from what Ailes them with metaphoric umbrellas to protect themselves from the "Howling" Raines or might their consciences be troubled by the traditions of true journalists, like I.F. Stone? Journalists should grow a pair.
|
