The RoanokeSlant

This file is a US personal journal of commentary of examples of the Roanoke Times and Liberal Media Slant...... lbhagen@aol.com

Monday, July 15, 2013

It's time for 'Journalists' to Discover Journalism

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Reproduced here in its entirety without comment:
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Washington Examiner Opinion: Op-Eds
It's time for 'journalists' to discover journalism
By Douglas MacKinnon | JULY 13, 2013 AT 9:20 PM
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“Will the last honest, ethical, and completely professional journalist please turn out the lights? The pretense of an objective mainstream media is long over.

I was recently speaking with two editors from top-10 newspapers who by their own admission see the world from different ends of the political spectrum and yet both were bemoaning the state of their profession.

One — a bit right-of-center — complained how more and more reporters and editors are putting their ideology before their duties as journalists and skewing stories and "news" accounts to reflect or enhance that ideology.

The other — a bit left-of-center — mentioned how completely unfair it was that conservatives are purposely shut out of consideration for Pulitzer and Nobel prizes while admitting his paper refuses to report on that unassailable reality because of its own bias.

I have often said that human nature dictates that people love to embrace the truth right up until the moment it reflects poorly upon themselves or their cause. When journalists and editors deliberately ignore — or even work to discredit — the truth, then all of us pay a price no matter which party, cause, or issue we support.

It seems almost everything now in mainstream journalism and the media is viewed through an ideological prism. More often than not, a prism only admitting and spreading a liberal light.

What happened to journalists and editors simply doing their jobs and following only the facts to their natural conclusions? What happened to talking to both sides in a contentious or highly controversial issue and then doing some actual investigating to see which — if any — side was closer to the truth?

What happened to the hard-boiled city editors as played by Clark Gable in the movie "Teacher's Pet" who believed the only job of a journalist was to find out "who, what, when, where, and why," and leave all personal feelings and bias out of the reporting?

The betrayal of journalistic ethics is sadly on display every day. If it wasn't so serious and potentially damaging to our nation and our future, it would be laughable in its extreme.

Every single day we can read, watch, or listen to "journalists" saying: "Some on the right are claiming that Obamacare is falling apart, will have a negative impact on medical care, and will bankrupt our nation; some on the right are claiming that public-employee pensions are unsustainable and are outright destroying the budgets and services offered by various cities, counties and states and are most adversely hurting the poor; some on the right are claiming that the negative effects of global warming have been grossly exaggerated and that the 'greening' of our nation is a detriment to our citizens; some on the right are claiming that well over ninety percent of our college and university professors lean left-of-center and advocate discrimination against conservative or faith-based professors while indoctrinating students with only their approved ideology."

I have an idea. Instead of these journalists "claiming some on the right" are making these charges, why don't they actually get out of the liberal echo chamber and simply do some investigative reporting and then write on where those facts — and only the facts — take them?

Surely there must be some ethical and professional journalists and editors out there still willing to squash bias and report on the "who, what, when, where, and why," no matter where it leads them.”

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Douglas MacKinnon is a former White House and Pentagon official and author of the memoir "Rolling Pennies In The Dark" (Simon & Schuster, 2012).
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posted by Lars Hagen # 6:46 AM

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