Throwback Thursday: Should journalists point out blatant lies that politicians tell?

Little did I know when I wrote this post back in the fall of 2013 that the problem that I was describing was going to get so much worse in the years to come. Television news was to become a megaphone for lying liars who could not speak without lying and it would never call them out for their lies. Instead, they blast those lies at an easily led public twenty-four hours a day. Is it any wonder that the public is no longer able to recognize the truth? What passes for "truth" these days is whatever you can get the most people to believe.

I never watch television news anymore. I gave up on it in 2016. I read that some television journalists now actually do call a lie a lie. Better late than never, I guess. Not Chuck "That's not my job!" Todd though. He's still peddling the same "he said, she said," "both sides do it" shit. 

~~~

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Should journalists point out blatant lies that politicians tell?

During a segment on "Morning Joe," former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) speculated that most opponents of the Affordable Care Act have been fed erroneous information about the law. (MSNBC reporter Chuck) Todd said that Republicans "have successfully messaged against it" but he disagrees with those who argue that the media should educate the public on the law. According to Todd, that's President Barack Obama's job.

"But more importantly, it would be stuff that Republicans have successfully messaged against it," Todd told Rendell. "They don't repeat the other stuff because they haven't even heard the Democratic message. What I always love is people say, 'Well, it's you folks' fault in the media.' No, it's the President of the United States' fault for not selling it."  - from TPM

What is the responsibility of an ethical journalist when it comes to reporting news on which there are two diametrically opposed viewpoints? Do they simply report "he said, he said" and let their audience decide who is telling the truth? Or, if they have incontrovertible information that one side or the other is lying and misstating facts, do they have an obligation to say so?

What passes for journalism in today's environment demands that reporters take the first option. "He said, he said" is all we hear on most broadcast news shows. No analysis, no background, no additional information provided by the reporter to help his audience discover the truth - just one argument juxtaposed against its opposite. This is a grave disservice to the consumer of news and a grave disservice to society as a whole.

Journalists are, we assume at least, in a better position to know all the facts of a story than the average Joe or Jill in the street. I certainly don't have the time or resources to research every important news story that comes along or to ferret out the truth on controversial subjects. I rely on trusted sources to provide me with information and guidance.

But what if the sources we rely on are lazy or are taking their guidance from some central authority which gives them daily talking points that they must adhere to in their reporting of the news? What if our "journalists" are unworthy of the name and instead are complicit in pulling the wool over the eyes of their audience?

Television news reporters today, and to a certain extent print reporters as well, seem to have given up any obligation they ever felt to be truth tellers. They appear to feel no obligation to do the work of finding out what the truth actually is and passing it along to their viewers or readers. Thus, they will report with a straight face a blatant lie about some subject - the Affordable Care Act is the big one of the moment - and will never by word or deed inform their audience that they KNOW it is a lie. And then, when the public is confused about the subject, they blame someone else, as Chuck Todd blamed the President for not "selling" the program.

If reporters simply reported the truth about what the program does and will do, it seems highly unlikely that "selling" would be necessary, because poll after poll shows that when people are asked about the individual parts of the law, they overwhelmingly approve of it! As Jason Linkins writes in The Huffington Post, "But informing the public is the full-time job of journalists as well. The notion that a journalist can possess the means to mitigate public confusion on any topic and pass on doing so is just unfathomable to me. In many cases, the information you need to perform that task is hard-won."

Certainly, the Administration has an obligation to help inform the public, but that doesn't relieve journalists of their obligation to report the truth and to point out obvious lies ("death panels!") to the public. Unfortunately, I don't see the Chuck Todds of the journalism world having the courage or the work ethic to shoulder that responsibility anytime soon.

Friday rant

You know what pisses me off about the 2016 presidential campaign? A lot of things, actually. But there is one thing in particular that I feel the need to rant about today.

Throughout the campaign, I've heard and read journalists considered (at least by themselves) to be knowledgable about such things describe the election as a choice between "the lesser of two evils." Thus do they normalize a completely unqualified and clueless candidate the likes of which this country has never before seen and - please God! - never will see again.

Not only do they normalize him, they set this man who is the worst that America has to offer, a man who personifies misogyny, racism, privilege, and anti-intellectualism, on the same level with a candidate who is intelligent and qualified, perhaps the most qualified candidate who has ever sought the office, at least in my lifetime. This is a woman who has spent her entire adult life working to make the world more just, equal, and caring for people who have been marginalized by society, and she is opposed by a narcissist whose entire life has been spent in a bubble of privilege where his only goal has been to accumulate more personal wealth. He is a person totally lacking in empathy who has whined, mocked, belittled, bemoaned, and chided his way through the campaign and has never taken responsibility for anything.

THESE TWO CANDIDATES ARE NOT EQUALS! The media do a grave disservice to the country when they pretend that they are. 

They will tell us, of course, that they are just trying to be fair and to give equivalent coverage to each party's candidates. But when one of those candidates is incapable of telling the truth, it is the duty of journalism to point that out. For more than a year, while a demagogue bellowed and blustered and ran roughshod over the other candidates of his party and appealed to the worst of the deplorable base of that party, the media just went along for the ride and the ratings and pretended that this was just another normal campaign. Only very recently have a few media outlets begun to fact-check him and call him out on his lies. 

However one might choose to accurately describe this campaign, it is most definitely not a choice between the lesser of two evils. There is only one evil here and let us hope that he will soon be tossed into the dustbin of history where he belongs and that our long national nightmare will be over. 

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest. 

CBS fail

For those of us who are old enough to remember CBS News when it actually stood for integrity and truth-telling, their current debacle with their fake, sexed-up Benghazi story is especially infuriating. This is the kind of phony journalism that we've come to expect from Fox News. We had looked for something better from the network of Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid, and Edward R. Murrow.

The 60 Minutes story that was presented as an eye witness account to the attack last year on our consulate in Benghazi was trumped up from beginning to end. Their "eye witness" was a liar, whose lies were easily disproved by actual journalists who bothered to check. He was never actually there on the night of the attack.  CBS now says it is undergoing a "journalistic review" of the story which started as soon as they learned there was an issue with it. The question is why was there no journalistic review before the story ran? Why was it not vetted and confirmed before it was shown to the public and offered aid and comfort to the nutcase conspiracy theorists who have been beating their drums ever since the incident?

Moreover, there are other problems with the story beyond the fake eye witness account. There's the issue of conflict of interest.

As McClatchy News laid out in their excellent dissection of the story, their eye witness, Dylan Davies, was the author of a soon-to-be-released book published by a CBS-owned publishing company that features the work of politically conservative authors. This was never mentioned in the CBS report.

There is also a question of the impartiality of the reporter who presented the story, Lara Logan. She repeatedly referred to al Qaida as being solely responsible for the attack. She made no mention of Ansar al Shariah, the Islamic extremist group that is basically in control in Benghazi and has long been suspected as being behind the attack. Logan offered no source for her assertions about al Qaida's involvement and, indeed, there seem to be no such sources. There was merely her unsupported insistence which, frankly, stinks of preconceived notions and an axe to grind.

And the list of inaccuracies and unsupported speculation goes on and on.

Last Sunday, 60 Minutes tacked on at the end of its broadcast a brief mea culpa by Lara Logan for her discredited reporting. It was essentially a statement that "mistakes were made" but it didn't begin to address the true depth of duplicity that she and 60 Minutes perpetrated on their audience.  

It will be interesting to see just where CBS's "journalistic review" takes them. Will any heads roll as a result? I doubt it because I no longer have any faith in the integrity of this organization. I count them as part of the same fetid swamp of so-called news organizations as Fox News.

If Murrow, Cronkite, and Sevareid were alive today, they would never be a part of this dishonorable group.

Should journalists point out blatant lies that politicians tell?

During a segment on "Morning Joe," former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) speculated that most opponents of the Affordable Care Act have been fed erroneous information about the law. (MSNBC reporter Chuck) Todd said that Republicans "have successfully messaged against it" but he disagrees with those who argue that the media should educate the public on the law. According to Todd, that's President Barack Obama's job.

"But more importantly, it would be stuff that Republicans have successfully messaged against it," Todd told Rendell. "They don't repeat the other stuff because they haven't even heard the Democratic message. What I always love is people say, 'Well, it's you folks' fault in the media.' No, it's the President of the United States' fault for not selling it."  - from TPM

What is the responsibility of an ethical journalist when it comes to reporting news on which there are two diametrically opposed viewpoints? Do they simply report "he said, he said" and let their audience decide who is telling the truth? Or, if they have incontrovertible information that one side or the other is lying and misstating facts, do they have an obligation to say so?  

What passes for journalism in today's environment demands that reporters take the first option. "He said, he said" is all we hear on most broadcast news shows. No analysis, no background, no additional information provided by the reporter to help his audience discover the truth - just one argument juxtaposed against its opposite. This is a grave disservice to the consumer of news and a grave disservice to society as a whole. 

Journalists are, we assume at least, in a better position to know all the facts of a story than the average Joe or Jill in the street. I certainly don't have the time or resources to research every important news story that comes along or to ferret out the truth on controversial subjects. I rely on trusted sources to provide me with information and guidance. 

But what if the sources we rely on are lazy or are taking their guidance from some central authority which gives them daily talking points that they must adhere to in their reporting of the news? What if our "journalists" are unworthy of the name and instead are complicit in pulling the wool over the eyes of their audience? 

Television news reporters today, and to a certain extent print reporters as well, seem to have given up any obligation they ever felt to be truth tellers. They appear to feel no obligation to do the work of finding out what the truth actually is and passing it along to their viewers or readers. Thus, they will report with a straight face a blatant lie about some subject - the Affordable Care Act is the big one of the moment - and will never by word or deed inform their audience that they KNOW it is a lie. And then, when the public is confused about the subject, they blame someone else, as Chuck Todd blamed the President for not "selling" the program. 

If reporters simply reported the truth about what the program does and will do, it seems highly unlikely that "selling" would be necessary, because poll after poll shows that when people are asked about the individual parts of the law, they overwhelmingly approve of it! As Jason Linkins writes in The Huffington Post, "But informing the public is the full-time job of journalists as well. The notion that a journalist can possess the means to mitigate public confusion on any topic and pass on doing so is just unfathomable to me. In many cases, the information you need to perform that task is hard-won."

Certainly the Administration has an obligation to help inform the public, but that doesn't relieve journalists of their obligation to report the truth and to point out obvious lies ("death panels!") to the public. Unfortunately, I don't see the Chuck Todds of the journalism world having the courage or the work ethic to shoulder that responsibility anytime soon.

At long last - a commitment to truthtelling

NPR has announced a new editorial policy which consumers of news can only hope will set a new standard for other news organizations. They have committed themselves to eschew "he said, she said," or more often, "he said, he said," reporting in favor of actually reporting the truth. What a concept! As journalism critic Jay Rosen wrote, in reporting on the change:

NPR [now] commits itself as an organization to avoid the worst excesses of “he said, she said” journalism. It says to itself that a report characterized by false balance is a false report. It introduces a new and potentially powerful concept of fairness: being “fair to the truth,” which as we know is not always evenly distributed among the sides in a public dispute.

Maintaining the “appearance of balance” isn’t good enough, NPR says. “If the balance of evidence in a matter of controversy weighs heavily on one side…” we have to say so. When we are spun, we don’t just report it. “We tell our audience…” This is spin! 

There was nothing like that in the old Code of Ethics and Practices.

For too long, too many news organizations have simply reported what is said about both sides of any controversial issue, without regard to whether one or both of those sides is lying. This creates the "false balance" that we have, unfortunately, come to expect from the purveyors of journalism. This does not serve the public well; moreover, it encourages politicians (and others) to simply lie their way out of any situation because they know that no journalist is going to call them on their falsehoods. They'll simply report what he said and then they'll report that someone else disagreed with him, but there'll be no attempt to sort out fact from fiction.

Now, NPR is saying they are going to end all that. They are going to try to sort fact from fiction and give their listeners the truth. I say, it is about bloody time! But better late than never. Let's hope this new idea - truthtelling - will catch on.

Wooing the media

The Republican campaign for the presidency has mostly been hostile to the press. Santorum and Gingrich routinely slam the "elites" of the "liberal media." At times you would think they are running against the media rather than against Romney or even Obama.

Romney has not been as outspoken in identifying the media as the enemy, but neither has his campaign done much to woo the media. Apparently, all that is changing.

According to Politico, the Romney campaign is on a "charm offensive" to try to cozy up to the reporters who are following their candidate around the country. Even the standoffish candidate himself is said to be making himself more available to reporters and trying to interact with them on a human level. Of course, interacting on a human level is not something that Romney is noted for, so I'm not sure how much help that will be to his campaign.

Politicians and the reporters who cover them are supposed to be in an adversarial relationship, and it is hard to imagine a more adversarial interaction than that between Gingrich or Santorum and their posse of reporters. But I would think that a wise candidate would seek to have at least nominally friendly relationships with the press. After all, reporters are human, and they are more likely to give the benefit of a doubt to someone who doesn't treat them like something they want to scrape off the bottom of their shoe. They might even be persuaded to say nice things about a person who treats them decently.

As a consumer of news, I would hope that reporters would not be overly swayed by any candidate's charm offensive. On the contrary, I would want them to be clear-eyed and fair in their reporting, but also to hold the candidate's feet to the fire on the issues of the day. I would not want them to ask leading questions which beg for a foreordained answer, nor would I want them to engage in trivialities.

The press, when it does its job, has an important role to play in political campaigns. Unfortunately, all too often, the press does not do its job and all of us are less well informed and less able to perform our duties as citizens because of it.

Bringing shame to a noble profession

I grew up with a great admiration for the profession of journalism. People like Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and Eric Sevareid were early heroes of mine. Later, the dogged investigation of Woodward and Bernstein in trying to crack the Watergate case and drag all those dirty little secrets into the light was a source of inspiration to me. Later still, I married a journalist and, nearly thirty-seven years later, I am still married to him, so you can take my word for it that I do respect and even revere the profession of journalism. It makes me very angry to see it misused and abused. Andrew Breitbart, who died today, was a prime example of the most serious kind of abuse and misuse.

Andrew Breitbart, a conservative blogger and activist who used undercover video to bring discredit and disgrace to his liberal targets, died Thursday. He was 43.

Mr. Breitbart was as polarizing a figure as he was popular. Hailed by the political right as a truth-teller who exposed bias and corruption, he was derided by many on the left as a provocateur who played fast and loose with the facts to further his agenda.

The New York Times is ever-respectful and restrained in its reporting, particularly in reporting on a death, but "playing fast and loose with the facts" hardly even begins to cover what Breitbart did in the practice of his "journalism." What he did was to lie. Repeatedly. He took videos of his targets and edited them in such a way as to tell the story that he wanted to tell, invariably one which furthered the right-wing agenda. He showed no regard for the truth.

In single-mindedly pursuing his crusade to destroy his liberal targets, he paid no attention to who was being hurt by the process. Particularly when those who were being hurt were the poor and disenfranchised, as in the Acorn debacle. In that instance, he used video shot by the execrable James O'Keefe, video that was later proved to be completely false, to destroy Acorn which had long been an advocate for the poor.

He tried the same tricks again with Shirley Sherrod, an employee of the Agriculture Department. But in Ms. Sherrod, he met his match. She fought back and proved him to be the liar that he was. At the time of his death today, she was suing him for defamation.

When someone dies, the convention is to try to find nice things to say about them. It was a convention to which Breitbart notably did not adhere, particularly when the dead person was a liberal. The most frequently cited instance was his public reaction to the death of Senator Kennedy when among the mildest things that he called him were a "villain" and a "duplicitous bastard."

Breitbart had a family who, I'm sure, loved him and are devastated by his untimely death. One can easily empathize with the grieving widow and four children. I cannot find it in my heart ever to rejoice over the death of a fellow human being, but I also feel no need to whitewash what Breitbart did in his life. He hurt many innocent people with his lies and he brought shame to a noble profession.

The dangerous profession

Journalism, when it is done right, can be a dangerous profession. We've had at least three tragic reminders of that fact this week, all of them related to the conflict in Syria.

First, award-winning reporter Anthony Shadid of The New York Times died tragically and unnecessarily. His death was apparently the result of natural causes, a severe asthma attack, but if he had not been in that dangerous part of the world, trying to shed light on the murky situation there for his readers, he would probably have gotten the medical attention that he needed in time to save his life.

But then, later in the week, two more journalists, Marie Colvin of the Sunday Times and her companion, French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed in the shelling of the city of Homs. There have been suggestions that journalists are actually being targeted by the repressive Syrian regime as it tries to hold on to power. They don't want the story of their brutality to be shown to the world and so they must stop courageous journalists from reporting it.

Assad's government has shown no compunction about turning guns on their own people. Syrian children, women, and noncombatant men have been senselessly slaughtered in this reign of terror. The United Nations has accused the regime of crimes against humanity and it is long past time that they should be gone and allow the Syrian people to begin to rebuild their country.

And speaking of the Syrian people, they have shown remarkable courage in this dangerous situation. Again and again, they have taken to the streets, putting their lives on the line to try to bring about change. That is the story that Anthony Shadid and Marie Colvin were trying to tell with their journalistic talents and that Remi Ochlik was trying to show to the world with his camera. They had courage to match that of the Syrian people.

Courageous journalists can make a difference. I only wish that we had more such journalists who were willing to stand up to power and to tell the truth in this country.

Reporting on the contraceptive brouhaha (with update)

Reporting by the mainstream media, by which I mean mostly the inside the beltway media, regarding the Obama administration's rule about providing contraceptives as preventive health care under the new Affordable Care Act has been noticeably co-opted by the Catholic bishops. The press has basically swallowed hook, line, and sinker the outrage of these allegedly celibate old men who are in no way affected by the rule. Even such normally reasonable pundits as E.J. Dionne and Mark Shields have fallen in lockstep with their more conservative fellows on this issue. They are sure that President Obama has rung the death knell for his presidency and for his hopes for reelection with his stance on this issue. Catholics will never support him now. Republican leaders in Congress are trying to latch onto what they see as a winning issue by hopping on the bandwagon

One thing you might notice about all the reporters reporting and all those pontificating on the issue: They are almost all middle-aged or older white men who are not affected by the issue. What do those who are affected by it think? In other words, what do women think?

Surveys have shown that 99% of sexually active women in the country use, or have used, contraceptives. Moreover, the same surveys show that 98% of Catholic women use, or have used, contraceptives. Isn't it possible that all of these women might like to have their contraceptives covered by their insurance? Furthermore, isn't it possible that these women vote?

We are fortunate to have some women journalists who report and opine on the issue and I think they represent a more realistic view of the situation, For example, my favorite, Gail Collins, has a column about it in The New York Times today. As she astutely points out, there is nothing in this rule that prevents the celibate bishops and priests from preaching whatever they want to preach. It only prevents their imposing their religious views on others. Isn't this what America is supposed to be about?

In Salon.com, Joan Walsh, who is a practicing Catholic and a woman, has written about the issue as well. Her argument is that Catholics who themselves do not follow the bishops' directives on contraceptives (98% of Catholics) should not - and most likely will not - hold it against a president who refuses to enforce the bishops' religious dogma.

Also in Salon.com today, Sarah Posner makes the argument that we need a secular president, a secular government, because a government that is based on science and reason is most likely to ensure the religious freedom of all faiths.

Indeed, I think all aspects of government are best served by a philosophy based on science and reason. I'm very glad that we have some talented women journalists with unclouded vision who are willing to expound on that theme.

UPDATE: Here's more from Joan Walsh today on this important issue for women.

Occupy Wall Street: "Something's happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear... " (With update)

As one who has fumed impotently for years about the buying and selling of my country's government and institutions by rich, mostly rabidly right-wing corporations and the super-rich, I had frequently wondered whether Americans would ever awake from their apathy and take to the streets to demand change.  It seems that finally we may be stretching, yawning, maybe putting one foot on the floor, and preparing to ever-so-tentatively stand up for ourselves and face up to the powers that be.  That, at least, is the message that I take from the movement that has become known as Occupy Wall Street and has now spread around the country, even into Houston!   This, I think, is the most hopeful event that I have witnessed in many years.

And what has been the media's response to thousands of people gathering in New York and elsewhere to protest the buying of our democracy?  Its first response was to ignore it. Literally, for days into the demonstrations, you could not find any information about them in the mainstream media outlets.  Even The New York Times on the demonstration's home turf was negligent.

Then, when the police started swinging their clubs and pepper spraying people and the event could no longer be ignored, the theme of the media became:  "These are just a bunch of hippies!  They don't even know what they want!  They haven't issued any demands!  Where are the demands?  What do they want?"

A few brave and enterprising journalists finally got around to actually asking participants what they wanted and they found, almost universally, intelligent, well-spoken people who knew that something very, very bad was happening to their country and they wanted their fellow citizens to wake up and change it.  That's what they want - participatory democracy.  People taking their fate and their future and the future of their country into their own hands again and not leaving it to right-wing ideologues like the Koch Brothers and Art Pope and others of their ilk who buy politicians like buying candy in a candy store.

On the whole, I think the media still have not really caught on to what is happening here. They are still trying to fit it into one of their pre-formed news niches, something that will allow them to use shorthand in discussing the movement so that they don't really have to get off their lazy butts and engage it.  This is the Fox-ification of the news business and it is endemic and rampant in journalism today.  Will they get away with it?  A better question might be, will we let them get away with it?

UPDATE 10/10/11:  For a more thorough and erudite discussion of the media commentariat's and the plutocracy's reaction to the demonstrations, read Paul Krugman's column today.

Where's the ref?

Rupert Murdoch and his media empire are being investigated and castigated for their sleazy, dishonest, and probably illegal practices in managing the news.  It couldn't happen to a more deserving mogul.

Murdoch is a thug who has done much to destroy the honorable profession of journalism in all the countries where he practices his black art.  A lot of journalism's ills can be traced back to his rise.  But not all.

Journalism in this country is in a sad, sad state and that has led or contributed to many of the ills from which the country suffers.  Journalism has abdicated its responsibility as a fair and impartial referee of events.  Instead, it seems only concerned with what will capture readers or viewers.  The more lurid (and often misleading) the headline the better.  Journalism, in short, has become part of the entertainment industry and is obsessed with non-stories like the Charlie Sheen debacle or Donald Trump or, yes, Sarah Palin, the quitter from Alaska.

Our "journalists" cover these non-stories breathlessly as if they were of earth-shattering importance.  And when it comes to real stories - climate change, debt crisis, the assault on women's rights, the attempt to destroy the social safety net of the country - these same journalists will take what they would term a "balanced" approach.  They'll get a statement from some spokesman on each side of the issue and then consider that their job is done.

But all statements and all spokesmen are not equal and balance does not necessarily equal truth.  It is the journalist's job to ferret out that truth and to present it without fear or favor.  When they do that, they perform a great service to their country, even though their country may not appreciate it and may malign them.  A prophet, a teller of truth, is often not honored in his own country.  But such people are necessary if we are going to have an informed populace that can make wise decisions.

Sports depend on referees or umpires to keep the players honest.  In the real world, journalism has always been our referee, but now that referee is not paying attention to the game.  He's gazing off into the sky searching for the bright lights that will make him a star.  And the players are making up their own rules as they go along.  We need our referee to be alert and involved once again.

The Charlie Sheen affair

This is a momentous and exciting time in the history of the world. All over the Middle East and across North Africa, ordinary people are rising up to demand that basic human rights be respected in their countries and that citizens have a say in how they are governed. In our own country, across the Mid-West, workers are marching in the streets and standing up for their rights to have some control over their own working lives. They are demanding that their dignity and the dignity of their work be respected and not denigrated and scapegoated. In Washington, one of the nation's major political parties is doing its dead-level best to take this country back to the mid-nineteenth century. In China, the government is cracking down on reporters, sometimes beating and arresting them as they attempt to show the effect of all the unrest in their own country.

In short, there is plenty of serious news to keep even the 24/7 news cycle of the cable news networks busy reporting it. So what do they choose to spend their time reporting on? A drug-addled, egomaniacal actor who is suffering from diarrhea of the mouth. Charlie Sheen can't shut up, and the networks and cable news love him for it. They keep encouraging him and enabling his mental breakdown and his career suicide by offering him chances to be interviewed on their various shows. This poor, sick, self-delusional man has become the main headline of many of the television "news" shows.

To give the devils their due, the news shows do actually spend time reporting on the real news stories of the day, some of which I mentioned in the first paragraph, but still, they give an inordinate amount of air time to this non-story. Another drug addict cracks up. Ho hum. Tell me again, exactly what is news about that?

I understand that Charlie Sheen is - or has been - the star of a popular telelvision show, one that a certain member of my family actually seems to enjoy watching. As such, no doubt his fans are sincerely interested in what is happening to him. His family and the people who care about him must be beside themselves with worry and concern over this sordid affair and certainly their suffering is not made less by the pandering of the news shows.

Personally, I have sympathy for Sheen as a human being. I do believe he is sick and that he needs help and I hope he gets it. But as a news story, I can state unequivocally that I do not give two figs for Charlie Sheen. I do not care if his series is canceled and his career ruined and I do not think that the news shows should spend one precious minute of their air time reporting on his situation. Not when there are people dying on the streets of Libya trying to bring democracy to that country. Not when the workers of America are under attack by determined and well-financed foes who do not believe they should have the right to organize and bargain collectively. Not when children in Texas and across the country stand to lose health insurance coverage and to have the quality of their education debased because politicians want to pay back their wealthy supporters.

No, there are too many real and important stories that need reporting. We do not need the distraction of the Charlie Sheen affair.

Did you know...

Do you know what the average monthly private sector job growth was in the last year of the George W. Bush presidency? There was no growth. We LOST an average of 317,250 jobs per month.

Do you know what the average monthly private sector job growth has been in 2010? We have GAINED an average of 95,888 private sector jobs per month. (Per Bureau of Labor Statistics records.)

Do you know what the federal deficit was in the last full fiscal year of the Bush presidency? It was $1,416,000,000,000.

Do you know what the federal deficit is for fiscal year 2010? $1,291,000,000,000, a decline of $125,000,000,000. Yes, Obama and the "tax and spend" Democrats have actually reduced the deficit.

Do you know where the stock market ended up on the last day of the Bush presidency? The Dow ended at 7949; NASDAQ at 1440; S&P 500 at 805.

Do you know where the stock market ended today? Dow at 11,118.49; NASDAQ at 2507.41; S&P 500 at 1183.26. That's an increase of approximately 40%, 74%, and 47%, respectively.

Do you know that just about 95% of Americans have received a tax CUT and that government spending has actually decreased since Obama took office? Probably not, because this is not the kind of thing that our socalled journalists cover. They are too busy going to tea party events and wetting themselves in excitement over the possibility of a Republican takeover of the government. They are not interested in reporting on the hard work of actually governing this country and trying to pull it out of the very deep hole it is in. They are a disgrace and a threat to our democracy. Maybe even more so than the tea party.

Daniel Schorr, newsman

Daniel Schorr has died at age 93. He had a long and eventful life and was active right up to the very end. According to his obituary, he died after an illness of a few days. That's certainly the way to do it if you can manage it.

Schorr worked for many news organizations during his long and storied career, most famously probably for CBS where he was one of Ed Murrow's boys. But for the last quarter century of his life, he worked for NPR as a commentator. I looked forward to hearing his take on the week's news on the Saturday morning Weekend Edition show.

As a newsman, Schorr was famous for his integrity and for standing up for his principles. That integrity earned him a place on President Nixon's "enemies list" back in the 1970s. He said that being on that list was one of the things he was proudest of, even prouder than he was of the Emmys that he received.

Daniel Schorr was an old-time newsman, one who took the role of the journalist in society seriously and did his best to play his part of educating the public about current events. There aren't many like him left. In fact, there may be none like him left, and we are the poorer for it.

Let's just chuck it all and go live in trees!

A couple of days ago, I was reading a story in the newspaper about President Obama's trip to Savannah where he had talked about the need for health care reform. As so-called journalists generally do these days, this writer had ended his story with a quote from a bystander that was meant to be an equal counterweight to everything the president had said. It's a stupid technique, because, in fact, there are not always two equal sides to every story. The truth and lies are not equal, and yet some who call themselves journalists insist on giving them moral equivalency.

Nevertheless, this local man was quoted as saying something to the effect that the government has no business getting involved in health care. The only thing that government should do is fight wars, build roads and run prisons. Other than those three things, it should stay out of our lives.

In this man's perfect world, there would be no police or fire departments. It would be every man or woman for his or herself. There would be no one inspecting to make sure that our food and our water are safe to consume. There would be no public schools or public libraries. There would be no parks or wildlife refuges. There would be no great public museums, no public transportation. For sure there would be no social safety net - no Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment benefits, Veterans' benefits, public hospitals, and, of course, it goes without saying that all the veterans' hospitals and clinics would have to be closed. There would be no NASA, no exploration of space, no transportation agencies making sure that planes and trains and automobiles and boats are safe for the public to travel in, and, naturally, there would be no watchdog EPA to try to make sure that our air is safe to breathe. There would be no diplomatic corps and no intelligence agents roaming the world and interacting with other governments and non-government groups with a view to making unnecessary that war that this man wants his government to fight.

In short, there would be no societal organization. Everything that it has taken human beings thousands of years to build up to make our lives more pleasant - in other words, civilization - would be chucked into the dustbin of history if this man and his ilk had their way and we could all go back to living in trees and wearing animal skins - if we are lucky.

The utter mind-numbing lack of awareness of the great sweep of human history and of the interdependence of us all boggles the imagination. But there are such people out there in the world and there are some reporters who will give them the time of day. Incredible.

"You lie!"

So the latest talking point by Republicans is that no terror attacks occurred in the United States during the Bush presidency. Over and over they have repeated this revision of history since Christmas. And they do it with a straight face.

I guess the first person I heard it from was Dana Perino, Bush's ditsy last press secretary. Then, Karl Rove, that paragon of honesty, joined in. Several commentators on Fox News, the propaganda arm of the Republican Party, picked up the meme and repeated it ad nauseum.

And now we have Rudy Giuliani - yes, THAT Rudy Giuliani of the "a noun, a verb, and 9/11" presidential campaign - claiming that there were no terroristic attacks on the country during the years 2001 through 2008. And his interviewer, George Stephanopolous, did not say, "What the hell are you talking about?" No, he just sat there and blandly went on to the next question on his script.

That is my main quibble with this story. I no longer expect to hear truth from Republicans, just as I no longer expect them to put the national interest of the country ahead of their own personal political interest. Honorable Republicans from past days, from Abraham Lincoln to Dwight Eisenhower or the irrepressible Everett Dirksen must be lining up at the heavenly precincts requesting to change their party affiliation when they hear these bozos rant.

But just as those old Republicans must be distressed by the depths to which their party has plummeted, what must poor old Edward R. Murrow be thinking of the people that he handed off to when he shuffled off the mortal coil? What a disgrace they are!

Surely they are aware that there were numerous terroristic attacks on this country during the Bush years. Have they forgotten 9/11? Apparently Giuliani has. Have they forgotten the "shoe bomber," the anthrax attacks (which were never solved), the Virginia Tech shooter, the DC snipers, the 2002 attack at the ticket counter at LAX, the UNC SUV attack - well, one could go on, but why bother? Soon, if these Republicans have their way they will all be wiped from the history books and therefore will have never happened.

And since "journalism is the first draft of history," they probably will have their way, because there seems to be no journalist with the courage to jump up and shake his (or her) fist at these prevaricators and yell, "You lie!"

Sometimes I despair for my country. Truly, I do.

The Uh-Oh Decade of journalism

There's been some discussion lately of just what we should call this decade that is winding down to its final days. It has been a decade of notable selfishness and lack of introspection, but the "Me Decade" sobriquet is already taken.

Now, one of my favorite columnists, Leonard Pitts, has weighed in on the discussion. His suggestion is that we call it the "Uh-Oh Decade." I think the name is highly appropriate, for our country if not for the world. From the Supreme Court's ill-advised decision to stop the counting of votes in Florida in 2000, through all the lies and obnoxious swagger of the Bush years, the unwarranted war, the betrayal of American principles through the torture and humiliation of prisoners, the trashing of laws protecting the environment and public health - well, the list goes on and on. It has been one long series of uh-ohs.

One of the most troubling aspects of the last ten years for me, though, has been the demise of journalism. Perhaps I exaggerate. There are a few true journalists out there still trying to do the important job of shining a bright light into dark places, but the role and influence of journalism in the larger public life has been co-opted by biased opinion outlets that admit only one side to any given story - Fox News and their ilk. This has been the decade when the talk radio hosts have vied to see who could express the most outrageous opinions and, essentially, who could shout the loudest. Reasoned and sober discussion of the issues is a foreign concept to them. These are the kinds of "journalists" that now shape our public opinion.

I grew up in the era when Walter Cronkite was the most respected man in America and deserved to be. Likewise, CBS News was a brand you could depend on to tell the truth. I came to adulthood as journalists risked their lives to report news from the fronts of two wars - one in Vietnam, the other here at home as the Civil Rights battles raged. And then came the Watergate era, when dogged journalism toppled a corrupt presidency. Yes, journalism was an important part of our national life in those days and journalists were respected. How far the profession has fallen.

Can journalism recover and evolve and once again take its place as a scourge to liars and wrongdoers? We need that if the coming decade is to be an improvement over the last.