![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
If these are the examples of professional journalists we're putting out, then yeah, I'd rather work retail.
Exhibit A: Andres Martinez, former (as of today) editorial page editor of the LA Times, which includes the paper's Sunday "Current" section. Martinez got a lot of attention for bringing in producer Brian Grazer (24, Arrested Development) as the Current section's guest editor for this weekend. A peculiar choice, at least. Well, probably less peculiar when you find out that Martinez's girlfriend works for the firm that represents Grazer. Coincidence? Maybe, but Martinez didn't volunteer that information, he got outed, and like so many other recent scandals, it's usually the cover-up that looks worse.
Martinez, in his buh-bye letter, insists he "will not be lectured on ethics by some ostensibly objective news reporters and editors who lobby for editorials to be written on certain subjects, or who have suggested that our editorial page coordinate more closely with the newsroom's agenda." That's the spirit! Idiot.
Then there's CNN's who-gave-this-guy-a-column?, Ruben Navarrette Jr. He's been the anti-Lou-Dobbs for some time now, a one-trick pony ranting the opposite direction on immigration more or less endlessly. Granted, the national conversation did, briefly, revolve around immigration, but that was almost a year ago. I was looking forward to him writing something that didn't revolve around immigration, so he tries writing about the Gonzales attorney-firing scandal, and...he reverts to form:
Leading this lynch mob are white liberals who resent Gonzales because they can't claim the credit for his life's accomplishments and because they can't get him to curtsy. Why should he? Gonzales doesn't owe them a damn thing.
...Buh? Liberals resent Gonzales because they can't claim his accomplishments? Which accomplishment would that be -- being a Bush crony since Austin, covering up 43's DUI, claiming the Constitution doesn't guarantee habeas corpus, or serving as hatchet-man during the attorney purge?
The sad thing about Navarrette is that if he'd stayed in his comfort zone, you could've attributed his opinions to a specific stance on a specific issue. Move him outside of immigration, though, and...well, maybe it's not racism, but he plays the race card but does so with such righteous indignation that I'm more than a little worried for the man. It undermines the credibility of his works to date, of his works to come, and the decision by his employers to deem his works worthy of notice. He's a syndicated columnist and on the San Diego paper's ed board, though, so expect more of the same.
And these people aren't just journalists, they're pulling down some of the best salaries in the business to be called such. Spider was right -- lies are news and truth is obsolete.
Exhibit A: Andres Martinez, former (as of today) editorial page editor of the LA Times, which includes the paper's Sunday "Current" section. Martinez got a lot of attention for bringing in producer Brian Grazer (24, Arrested Development) as the Current section's guest editor for this weekend. A peculiar choice, at least. Well, probably less peculiar when you find out that Martinez's girlfriend works for the firm that represents Grazer. Coincidence? Maybe, but Martinez didn't volunteer that information, he got outed, and like so many other recent scandals, it's usually the cover-up that looks worse.
Martinez, in his buh-bye letter, insists he "will not be lectured on ethics by some ostensibly objective news reporters and editors who lobby for editorials to be written on certain subjects, or who have suggested that our editorial page coordinate more closely with the newsroom's agenda." That's the spirit! Idiot.
Then there's CNN's who-gave-this-guy-a-column?, Ruben Navarrette Jr. He's been the anti-Lou-Dobbs for some time now, a one-trick pony ranting the opposite direction on immigration more or less endlessly. Granted, the national conversation did, briefly, revolve around immigration, but that was almost a year ago. I was looking forward to him writing something that didn't revolve around immigration, so he tries writing about the Gonzales attorney-firing scandal, and...he reverts to form:
Leading this lynch mob are white liberals who resent Gonzales because they can't claim the credit for his life's accomplishments and because they can't get him to curtsy. Why should he? Gonzales doesn't owe them a damn thing.
...Buh? Liberals resent Gonzales because they can't claim his accomplishments? Which accomplishment would that be -- being a Bush crony since Austin, covering up 43's DUI, claiming the Constitution doesn't guarantee habeas corpus, or serving as hatchet-man during the attorney purge?
The sad thing about Navarrette is that if he'd stayed in his comfort zone, you could've attributed his opinions to a specific stance on a specific issue. Move him outside of immigration, though, and...well, maybe it's not racism, but he plays the race card but does so with such righteous indignation that I'm more than a little worried for the man. It undermines the credibility of his works to date, of his works to come, and the decision by his employers to deem his works worthy of notice. He's a syndicated columnist and on the San Diego paper's ed board, though, so expect more of the same.
And these people aren't just journalists, they're pulling down some of the best salaries in the business to be called such. Spider was right -- lies are news and truth is obsolete.
Tags: