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[Makonero]

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/11/washington-post-editor-marty-baron-message-to-journalists

Monday, the second-annual Hitchens Prize—honoring the memory and legacy of the late Vanity Fair contributing editor and columnist Christopher Hitchens—was given to Marty Baron, Executive Editor of The Washington Post, at a dinner held at New York City’s Waverly Inn.

"We will have a new president soon. He was elected after waging an outright assault on the press. Animosity toward the media was a centerpiece of his campaign. He described the press as “disgusting,” “scum,” “lowlifes.” He called journalists the “lowest form of humanity.” That apparently wasn’t enough. So he called us “the lowest form of life.” In the final weeks of the campaign he labeled us “the enemies.”

It is no wonder that some members of our staff at The Washington Post and at other news organizations received vile insults and threats of personal harm so worrisome that extra security was required. It is no wonder that one Internet venue known for hate and misogyny and white nationalism posted the home addresses of media executives, clearly inviting vandalism or worse. Thankfully, nothing that I know of happened to anyone. Then there was the yearlong anti-Semitic targeting of journalists on Twitter."

Many journalists wonder with considerable weariness what it is going to be like for us during the next four—perhaps eight—years. Will we be incessantly harassed and vilified? Will the new administration seize on opportunities to try intimidating us? Will we face obstruction at every turn?

If so, what do we do?

The answer, I believe, is pretty simple. Just do our job. Do it as it’s supposed to be done.

The principles begin like this: “The first mission of a newspaper is to tell the truth as nearly as the truth may be ascertained.”

The public expects that of us. If we fail to pursue the truth and to tell it unflinchingly—because we’re fearful that we’ll be unpopular, or because powerful interests (including the White House and the Congress) will assail us, or because we worry about financial repercussions to advertising or subscriptions—the public will not forgive us.

Nor, in my view, should they.

After the release of the movie Spotlight, I was often asked how we at The Boston Globe were willing to take on the most powerful institution in New England and among the most powerful in the world, the Catholic Church.

The question really mystifies me—especially when it comes from journalists or those who hope to enter the profession. Because holding the most powerful to account is what we are supposed to do.

If we do not do that, then what exactly is the purpose of journalism?

Really good stuff. Read the whole thing.

 

[guek]

While no immediate objections to the Washington Post come to mind, the mainstream media absolutely deserves to be vilified for how they incessantly covered Trump this election and fell for his manipulations. Even now, we're seeing headline stories about dumb Twitter shit. More than half of Trump's social media output is comprised of trolling or distractions and the media eats it up. "It may not be good for America but it's good for CBS."

Fuck the mainstream media. Fuck them up their stupid asses.

 

[Netherscourge]

While no immediate objections to the Washington Post come to mind, the mainstream media absolutely deserves to be vilified for how they incessantly covered Trump this election and fell for his manipulations. Even now, we're seeing headline stories about dumb Twitter shit. More than half of Trump's social media output is comprised of trolling or distractions and the media eats it up. "It may not be good for America but it's good for CBS."

Fuck the mainstream media. Fuck them up their stupid asses.

Our next President is the equivalent of a 4chan forum troll.

But instead of blaming him for his immaturity, you blame the ones exposing it?

 

[Sickboy007]

While no immediate objections to the Washington Post come to mind, the mainstream media absolutely deserves to be vilified for how they incessantly covered Trump this election and fell for his manipulations. Even now, we're seeing headline stories about dumb Twitter shit. More than half of Trump's social media output is comprised of trolling or distractions and the media eats it up. "It may not be good for America but it's good for CBS."

Fuck the mainstream media. Fuck them up their stupid asses.

http://harpers.org/archive/2016/11/swat-team-2/1/

After reading through some two hundred Post editorials and op-eds about Sanders, I found a very basic disparity. Of the Post stories that could be said to take an obvious stand, the negative outnumbered the positive roughly five to one.2 (Opinion pieces about Hillary Clinton, by comparison, came much closer to a fifty-fifty split.)

....

But the factor that really mattered was that the Post’s pundit platoon just seemed to despise Bernie Sanders. The rolling barrage against him began during the weeks before the Iowa caucuses, when it first dawned on Washington that the Vermonter might have a chance of winning. And so a January 20 editorial headlined level with us, decried his “lack of political realism” and noted with a certain amount of fury that Sanders had no plans for “deficit reduction” or for dealing with Social Security spending—standard Post signifiers for seriousness. That same day, Catherine Rampell insisted that the repeal of Glass–Steagall “had nothing to do with the 2008 financial crisis,” and that those populists who pined for the old system of bank regulation were just revealing “the depths of their ignorance.”3

 

[capslock]

Wow, Liev Schreiber really did look like him in the movie.

 

[Weckum]

It's interesting to see that someone like Glenn Greenwald has been shouting for years now that journalists are too meek and don't do enough to actually do their thing as the fourth estate, and now Trump has been elected all journalists are starting to feel like this. Shows how good Greenwald is.

 

[DoctorFling]

Brilliant points.

 

[guek]

Our next President is the equivalent of a 4chan forum troll.

But instead of blaming him for his immaturity, you blame the ones exposing it?

I can blame both!

Also, there is a point where it's no longer journalism and instead exploitation of audience desire for spectacle or outright partisan punditry.

 

[kirblar]

http://harpers.org/archive/2016/11/swat-team-2/1/

There's nothing wrong with having an opinion. It's an editorial board.

Forcibly doing the "both sides" song and dance is what got you all those Trump surrogates on CNN.

 

[Makonero]

There's nothing wrong with having an opinion. It's an editorial board.

Forcibly doing the "both sides" song and dance is what got you all those Trump surrogates on CNN.

Yep yep yep. The Post has been doing great work. One of the few really going in deep on Trump during the election.

 

[Imperial Hot]

Just got me thinking. Do you think Trump will participate in the White House Correspondents Dinners? If so... what in the fuck will that be like?

 

[Hasphat'sAnts]

http://harpers.org/archive/2016/11/swat-team-2/1/

Editorials are supposed to be opinionated.

Find something else about their coverage to criticize.

 

[Sickboy007]

Editorials are supposed to be opinionated.

Find something else about their coverage to criticize.

If I find their editorial line to be obtuse and unhelpful, I'm going to call them out.
And how about this?

Even the inspiring story of the senator’s salad days in the civil-rights movement turned out to be tainted once Capehart started sleuthing. In February, the columnist examined a famous photograph from a 1962 protest and declared that the person in the picture wasn’t Sanders at all. Even when the photographer who took the image told Capehart that it was indeed Sanders, the Post grandee refused to apologize, fudging the issue with bromides: “This is a story where memory and historical certitude clash.” Clearly Sanders is someone to whom the ordinary courtesies of journalism do not apply.

 

[HK-47]

Just got me thinking. Do you think Trump will participate in the White House Correspondents Dinners? If so... what in the fuck will that be like?

Itll either be a clusterfuck or a circlejerk.

 

[Netherscourge]

I can blame both!

Also, there is a point where it's no longer journalism and instead exploitation of audience desire for spectacle or outright partisan punditry.

How do you bury stuff like "Throw flag-burners in jail!!!"

Everything he says is a threat to freedom and equality. What would you advise journalists do? Ignore him?

The worst thing you can do to a man like Trump is take the spotlight off of him. It's not just about ego or attention with him - it's about dangerous philosophy. He needs to be fact-checked and exposed at every turn. Because when you ignore a guy like Trump, he'll turn around and DO everything he brags about to get your attention back on him.

Criticism may fuel his braggadocios hostility, but if you take the foot off the pedal, you're enabling him and making him appear less dangerous than he is.

 

[Netherscourge]

Just got me thinking. Do you think Trump will participate in the White House Correspondents Dinners? If so... what in the fuck will that be like?

He'll invite Anne Coulter so she'll get all the jokes instead of him.

 

[tearsintherain]

Just got me thinking. Do you think Trump will participate in the White House Correspondents Dinners? If so... what in the fuck will that be like?

You do realize the running joke that Seth Meyers and Obama poking fun of him at the correspondents dinner back in 2011 is what made him run for office? "Have your laughs, I'll have your job in 4 years".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJwQOBAL9sw

 

[Linkura]

Wow, Liev Schreiber really did look like him in the movie.

Yup, my first thought, "That was the guy played by Liev Schreiber, wasn't it?"

 

[mlclmtckr]

Our next President is the equivalent of a 4chan forum troll.

But instead of blaming him for his immaturity, you blame the ones exposing it?

It's about emphasis. His tweet about Hamilton dominated the news cycle while he settled a multimillion dollar fraud suit. His tweet about voter fraud got more play than his horrifying cabinet picks.

 

[pigeon]

http://harpers.org/archive/2016/11/swat-team-2/1/

I mean, this is truly astonishing. You don't like the Washington Post because...they didn't like Sanders and thought he would not be effective as president?

This is Trump's campaign, except for the left.

 

[sturgboski]

Our next President is the equivalent of a 4chan forum troll.

But instead of blaming him for his immaturity, you blame the ones exposing it?

John Oliver's last piece had a segment on mainstream media wherein the head of CNN was like "maybe we done fucked up by playing all of his rallies in full for most of the election cycle." I mean didn't the CEO admit that thanks to Trump they were having their best year financially? One can certainly blame the media as most outfits took way too long to take him seriously and call out the bullshit. And I mean outfits as a whole as some journalists on each network tried but it wasn't the main thrust of the network until the end. Though by the end everything Clinton did was the scandal of the century and everything Trump did was just another Tuesday.

 

[radios shipping overview]

The cable-news panel format owes more to Jerry Springer than it does to journalism. Having paid mouthpieces on to yell at other paid mouthpieces does nothing but muddy the waters and allow talking points (aka propaganda) to be disseminated. These people are brought up there to yell at each other for one reason: not because it's informative, but because it's good TV.

 

[smurfx]

Just got me thinking. Do you think Trump will participate in the White House Correspondents Dinners? If so... what in the fuck will that be like?

dennis miller and his god awful stand up will headline all of them. that and a bunch of z listers will go up on stage and shine trump's balls.

 

[guek]

How do you bury stuff like "Throw flag-burners in jail!!!"

Everything he says is a threat to freedom and equality. What would you advise journalists do? Ignore him?

The worst thing you can do to a man like Trump is take the spotlight off of him. It's not just about ego or attention with him - it's about dangerous philosophy. He needs to be fact-checked and exposed at every turn. Because when you ignore a guy like Trump, he'll turn around and DO everything he brags about to get your attention back on him.

Criticism may fuel his braggadocios hostility, but if you take the foot off the pedal, you're enabling him and making him appear less dangerous than he is.

It's a shit situation because of the catch 22 you describe. My biggest criticisms though are for how much free attention the media threw his way fueled by both legitimate and manufactured spectacle in the name of profits. At this point in Trump's America, everything he says should be scrutinized but not everything deserves equal attention, and at some point, you have to see his tactics for what they are - distractions and attention mongering.

 

[Sickboy007]

I mean, this is truly astonishing. You don't like the Washington Post because...they didn't like Sanders and thought he would not be effective as president?

This is Trump's campaign, except for the left.

No, it's just having an opinion. They spoke only for beltway democrats and were far too complacent all throughout the campaign.

I mean, look at the news coverage they gave Sanders in a 16 hours period back in March:

March 6, 10:20 PM: Bernie Sanders Pledges the US Won’t Be No. 1 in Incarceration. He’ll Need to Release Lots of Criminals
March 7, 12:39 AM: Clinton Is Running for President. Sanders Is Doing Something Else
March 7, 4:04 AM: This Is Huge: Trump, Sanders Both Using Same Catchphrase
March 7, 4:49 AM: Mental Health Patients to Bernie Sanders: Don’t Compare Us to the GOP Candidates
March 7, 6:00 AM: ‘Excuse Me, I’m Talking’: Bernie Sanders Shuts Down Hillary Clinton, Repeatedly
March 7, 9:24 AM: Bernie Sanders’s Two Big Lies About the Global Economy
March 7, 8:25 AM: Five Reasons Bernie Sanders Lost Last Night’s Democratic Debate
March 7, 8:44 AM: An Awkward Reality for Bernie Sanders: A Strategy Focused on Whiter States
March 7, 8:44 AM: Bernie Sanders Says White People Don’t Know What It’s Like to Live in a ‘Ghetto.’ About That…
March 7, 11:49 AM: The NRA Just Praised Bernie Sanders — and Did Him No Favors in Doing So
March 7, 12:55 PM: Even Bernie Sanders Can Beat Donald Trump
March 7, 1:08 PM: What Bernie Sanders Still Doesn’t Get About Arguing With Hillary Clinton
March 7, 1:44 PM: Why Obama Says Bank Reform Is a Success but Bernie Sanders Says It’s a Failure
March 7, 2:16 PM: Here’s Something Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders Have in Common: And the Piece of the Argument That Bernie Doesn’t Get Quite Right.
March 7, 3:31 PM: ‘Excuse Me!’: Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Know How to Talk About Black People
March 7, 3:54 PM: And the Most Partisan Senator of 2015 Is … Bernie Sanders!

It definitely wasn't limited to their editorial board.

 

[Kinyou]

While no immediate objections to the Washington Post come to mind, the mainstream media absolutely deserves to be vilified for how they incessantly covered Trump this election and fell for his manipulations. Even now, we're seeing headline stories about dumb Twitter shit. More than half of Trump's social media output is comprised of trolling or distractions and the media eats it up. "It may not be good for America but it's good for CBS."

Fuck the mainstream media. Fuck them up their stupid asses.

But wouldn't it also be weird to ignore it? If they had done that and he had still won people would probably question while all that stuff was ignored.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

You do realize the running joke that Seth Meyers and Obama poking fun of him at the correspondents dinner back in 2011 is what made him run for office? "Have your laughs, I'll have your job in 4 years".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJwQOBAL9sw

God, I haven't watched that in ages. Can barely get through it without wanting to vomit now.

 

[Boney]

The fact that networks gives air time to campaign surrogates that are paid to lie and twist anything as stipulated in their contract is offensive to any kind of journalistic ethics. That's just a crazy thing to me.