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Andy Ferguson Narrows the Field
In all the hoo-hah about them over the last 10 or so days, one of the things I found most annoying was that Brian Williams and Jon Stewart kept being described as journalists. Performers, yes, but journalists? Either of them? Not even close.
That was my reaction, anyway, but then I got to wondering: Does journalism, real journalism, even exist anymore? Original research and reporting, good, accessible writing, all presented with freshness and energy and intelligence? Is it still around? Or has journalism become so debased that we might as well concede the collapse of another corner of what used to be called Western Civilization and go ahead and grant that, by current standards, Williams and Stewart really sort of were journalists?
The answer is that there’s still good stuff around — stuff good enough to evoke admiration and even a kind of awe at the sheer craftsmanship it involves. To wit, Andy Ferguson in the current Weekly Standard:
Boy, that didn’t take long. Over the span of a few short days in late January and early February, three members of the top tier of Republican presidential candidates demonstrated why they’ll never be president. They didn’t do anything to disqualify themselves directly, just revealed the traits that will make them appear unsuitable to most voters by the time the campaign really heats up, say, when the presidential election is a mere 18 months away. As it is, all three of them—Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, and Chris Christie—can pack it in right now and save months of time and tons of money. They’d be doing themselves a favor, and us too.
Provocative, funny, and, as you’ll see when you read the whole piece, argued.
Andy’s conclusion:
We are a forgiving people, but there are many qualities Americans will not accept in a president. They wouldn’t, we can assume, want a professional gambler, a sex offender, a fashion designer, or a collector of 19th-century dollhouses. No race car drivers, stand-up comics, or Esperanto-speakers need apply. Neither, just as reliably, do they want a prig [Huckabee], a prickly, unconvincing hipster [Rand Paul], or a 52-year-old man who still plays air guitar [Chris Christie].
In one piece, Andy demonstrates the standards according to which journalists ought to be judged–which is to say that he not only demolishes three presidential candidates but two former anchors.
Published in General
Increasingly I find myself having to ask others to define their terms since words like ‘journalist-ism’ ‘conservative – ism’ ‘libertarian -ism’ and all the other terms like racist and racism etc. are thrown around irresponsibly.
Andy Ferguson is a fine writer, but even he sometimes uses terms in the broadest sense when it’s convenient. He performs a fine takedown of the Hucklberry, and a decent critique of Christie’s starstruck demeanor and puerile enthusiasms (what, no mention of the Dallas Cowboys jiggle-hug with Jerry Jones?), but a fairly empty smear of Rand Paul.
I object to his labeling Paul a ‘libertarian’. This label has a lot of baggage (perhaps rightly so) and it doesn’t stick well to Paul upon closer examination. It’s a word that means different things to different people and is dogwhistle-talk for the neo-con Weekly Standard readers.
If someone is a Constitutional conservative and an advocate for free markets and individual liberty, but who may not be as gung-ho about getting involved in too many failed interventions, is a libertarian, then those four-square against Paul are warmongers who haven’t learned any lessons from recent history, who are crony-capitalists and ignorant of, or party to, the drift toward domestic totalitarianism.
So let’s be responsible for our words if we are to call ourselves journalists.
Rule #1 is entirely correct, but it doesn’t magically turn Lester Holt into a “journalist”.
Are the typesetters and printers at a newspaper “journalists”? They deliver the news, but they’re not the ones who write it.
Those are the positions that are approximately equivalent to a newsreader’s position.
Jon Stewart, on the other hand, does personally create content, and he creates content based on analysis of news events. That makes him a journalist in my book, despite his own protestations at the use of label.
He’s a terrible and mendacious journalist, to be sure, and the fact that he refuses to accept the label merely highlights his own terrible mendacity.
Like, professionally?
Hah! I dare say there are worse professions. Many of which are held by elected officials.
I didn’t read the entire article and I don’t plan to. On a personal/serious note, I get VERY tired of pundits telling me with such knowing seriousness about the American people and for whom they will or will not vote.
The American people have shocked me more than once with their choices and I’m sure AF has felt similarly.
Johnny Dubya:
“. . . candidates doing things that normal Americans do – perhaps even things that the average man or woman ought to be able to do. Such things as:
Fab-u-lous idea! Are you taking additional suggestions?
– replace a car registration sticker;
– balance a checkbook;
– converse with women while keeping his hands off them;
– name the capital of South Dakota.
Well, you know what? I stand corrected. NBC sounds like a news operation after all–a television news operation, which is a low form of the species, but still. (On top of which, I really need to stay on EJ’s good side. Who knows what he might do to me in his graphic for the next podcast?)
Peter Robinson:
“Well, you know what? I stand corrected.”
Nenni no, it is not time to stand down. The information offered has been authoritative and most interesting. Still, it was about newsmen, and the original question was, I believe, about journalists.
Let’s define journalist as a person who:
– has understanding of the historical and contemporary world; “the news” being history that just happened recently, but of necessity in historical context;
– goes out on his or her own hook, or mostly, to see some part of it;
– reports, lucidly, and without editorial interference.
So, who qualifies? Herodotus, Marco Polo, um getting thin here, Boswell, de Tocqueville, Emily Hahn, Sam Clemens, Mencken, help me out here, Alistair Cooke.
Who qualifies, among the living, according to this stringent definition? Michael J. Totten? Raymond Ibrahim? Sharyl Atkisson, who has, seemingly, retired? Who has the depth, the originality, and the independence to meet this definition, and yet is on the tube of an evening?
On the day people like that are featured on the tube and in charge of their programs, that is the day one might ask the Estate Technician to reconnect the TV antenna. Here, that wire has been moldering in the attic for 16 years.
And then there’s this: writing for the local newspaper used to be one way out of slums. So young journalists rode around with cops and firemen and visited morgues (I’m told).
Nowadays you just go to Columbia.