Not bias, laziness
Here's a Newsday editorial ruminating on the selection of "The 9/11 Commission Report" as a National Book Award finalist (thanks to GalleyCat for the link):
As liberals and conservatives continue their obnoxious debates over whether the media is more biased toward one side or the other, they overlook the obvious: most reporters are lazy. They're too lazy investigate biased claims -- they're too lazy to investigate anything.
Journalists have turned over much of their public responsibilities to bloggers. Call it irony, but I'm hoping that if bloggers keep pointing that out, we could blog ourselves out of a job.
Join the discussion at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/johnclaytonoutreach/
It is unfortunate that Seymour Hersh's Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib was not nominated for the National Book Award. But it is much more troubling, over the long run, to realize that no other book of investigative journalism comes to mind as a candidate.
And so, by default, we honor an expose of government failure -- prepared by a government commission. If journalists are happy to serve as stenographers to power, then the only people seriously questioning authority will be folks who already have it.
As liberals and conservatives continue their obnoxious debates over whether the media is more biased toward one side or the other, they overlook the obvious: most reporters are lazy. They're too lazy investigate biased claims -- they're too lazy to investigate anything.
Journalists have turned over much of their public responsibilities to bloggers. Call it irony, but I'm hoping that if bloggers keep pointing that out, we could blog ourselves out of a job.
Join the discussion at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/johnclaytonoutreach/
