MattR writes of Jake Tapper’s appearance on Laura Ingraham:
To add to my earlier comments about the audio, while it is clear that Tapper does not push back hard against Ingraham it is also hard to place all the blame on him given the format of the show.
That is probably true. I am probably wrong to make my criticism too personal (though I don’t think I was out of line), because it’s all in the game. Brian Williams fluffs Rush Limbaugh when he’s not having his paid shills on his show. All these jack asses called into Imus all the time back in the day, and so on.
Relative to Terry Moran and David Gregory, Tapper is a journalistic giant; he’s written books, at least one of which is supposed to be good, and, aside from clowning around in the press room, I find his reporting to be more intelligent and accurate than most of the competition. That’s part of why this pissed me off.
I can’t see any way to take network news seriously after this.
Sorry to beat this into the ground. This is my last post on the subject.
Stroszek
HOW WILL THIS AFFECT THE DEMOCRATS IN NOVEMBER?!
greennotGreen
I can’t see any way to take network news seriously after this.
Took you awhile. I haven’t watched network news since 2000.
debit
@Stroszek: I don’t know, but it’s good news for John McCain!
colleeniem
I hate to thread-jack, and go OT with a trend people already know (NPR’s shameful destruction of language), but did anyone hear the newscopy reader on NPR this morning? He called the acts of vandalism/threats on congresspeople “vigilantism.” If someone could talk me down from how angry I am at that description, I would really appreciate it.
El Cid
.
I couldn’t see any way to take network news seriously before this.
Pretty much outside of showing you the progress of some natural disaster (and then far from perfectly), or just playing the words from a speech or something yesterday, they’re just idiot machines, and we have to grovel and act super-thankful for any occasion on which some non-shittiness breaks through in any of the billion dollar media in any format.
El Cid
@colleeniem: I’m sure NPR would prefer that only proper law enforcement officials hunt down and capture our elected officials.
debit
@colleeniem: Well, you can always write in protest and someone like Robert Siegal will read your letter on the air with a little chuckle, as if it’s cute that you took umbrage over something so silly.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
We’ll be the judge of that.
El Cid
@debit: No sh*t. And they’ll make sure to segue the letter reading bit to the next fluff piece with a cute piece of light-hearded re-working of their theme song into a jazz piece and try to hawk their NPR music to NPR fans at the end of the hour.
DougJ
@colleeniem:
Link?
colleeniem
@El Cid: I wrote a letter to the show, asking them, among other things, if these good citizens are also providing healthcare insurance to those unable to afford it. Now that would be some vigilante justice I could get behind.
Bill E Pilgrim
@colleeniem: NPR has become mostly a conservative organ like most other places.
I have friends who wrote to me during the 2008 campaign all freaked out because they faithfully listen to NPR and would write “But even NPR is saying that John McCain is running away with it!”.
I had to gently respond “Even” NPR? and point out that it didn’t surprise me in the least. And meant nothing about the actual state of the race between Obama and McCain, which would take actually being non-brainwashed by the right to have seen. Unfortunately, NPR doesn’t fall into this category.
geg6
This meme that Tapper’s appearance with Ingraham is the fault of the format just doesn’t fly with me. He knows what the format is gonna be. We all know what Laura Ingraham is all about. The question is why he would even appear, and if he decides he somehow has an obligation to the public or his employers insist, then he should push back against all obvious untruths, all demonizing language, all false equivalency. As a reporter, that is his responsibility to the public. Otherwise, I don’t believe in his journalistic ethics or the excuses he comes here to make for himself.
I have been hammering at the the Today Show all week. And I’m going to do it once again. They had David Gregory on to talk about all these threats and over the top reactions to HCR and some horse race talk about the fall election. And Gregory, true to form, robotically parrots the CW that the GOP is in some sort of ascension with their wooing of the Teabaggers, who represent the political middle of America, full of independents who the Dems could woo themselves if they weren’t such soshulists or something. No mention of the polling done that shows that the raving, tea bag waving lunatics are the furthest of the right who identify as Republican or Republican leaning, that they voted for McCain or not at all, and that the Wasilla Wingnut is their most admired politician.
It gives me a goddam headache. No reality can ever penetrate.
colleeniem
@DougJ: It was the news summary at the top of the hour for WAMU, the D.C. station…I’ll try to find it.
Napoleon
@geg6:
That is the whole issue I have with it. He should not even be there.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@greennotGreen:
I have cut my news viewing to the bare minimum because I can get more, better and accurate information online. News agencies have made themselves pretty much worthless by not only what they focus on but also what they ignore. Their habit of inviting crazy people on and treating what they say as reasonable and accurate, as if we should actually listen to them, doesn’t help them one bit. If I know someone lied to a reporter or host and it goes unchallenged then I know that host or reporter isn’t worth listening to (at least on a regular basis).
If a reporter can’t immediately smack down untruths, distortions and outright lies then they should get out of the business. Every time they let a lie stand they are helping to perpetuate it.
Cervantes
I haven’t been able to watch network news — never mind taking it seriously — since Iran-Contra.
With the exception of Moyers, even PBS news — Lehrer, Ifill, Rose, et al. — has been unwatchable for years.
geg6
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
QFT
El Cid
If it weren’t for Rachel Maddow, C-Span’s Washington Journal, and foreign media examples, I’d conclude that there’s no way for TV broadcast ‘news’ and ‘analysis’ to be anything other than ridiculously corrupted and joke-ified.
Jess Sane
From what I’ve read of Jake Tapper, he’s about as much a “journalistic giant” as David Brooks.
colleeniem
@DougJ: It may not be part of the national broadcast, because it’s not a specific segment…but I heard it twice, so I know I wasn’t hearing things. Thanks goodness for small favors, I guess–maybe this news reader is only used on the local station. And, it mainly services commie-blue NoVa, Washington, and MD.
I just wish they would be consistent in their policies of using government approved language if they are going to do so. The definition of terrorism is codified, after all.
demo woman
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): If a reporter can’t immediately smack down untruths, distortions and outright lies then they should get out of the business. Every time they let a lie stand they are helping to perpetuate it.
The Republicans have painted MSM as liberal and now they believe that their job is to spout the Republican talking points. The latest Harris poll proves that they are not doing their job. Real Americans and real Patriots do not spout lies.
jron
@geg6: it is the fault of the format, which is why he should know better than to go on the damn show in the first place.
Ingraham may be an idiot, but she’s not stupid. she knows what to say to get her non-opinion guests to sound like they’re agreeing with her without actually doing so.
El Cid
It always amazes me to listen to BBC news programs (the best broadcast daily news in English on the planet, NewsHour, two editions daily, morning and afternoon on U.S. eastern time) and compare them to the U.S.’ clown media, including publicly sponsored broadcasting.
Arguingwithsignposts - ipod touchs
P@colleeniem:
you can also write to the NPR ombudsman. Email link on their website. I’d also write to on the media. Might make a good story for them
someguy
Until we can figure out a practical way to segregate ourselves entirely from the right, you are going to keep having these uncomfortable intrusions. I’ve narrowed my social circle as much as possible to keep these fuckheads out of it and wouldn’t you know, a neighbor rolls out a McCain/Palin lawnsign in the last election. WTF… Tapper shouldn’t have spoken to Ingraham but until you can figure out a way to stamp every last vestige of the Wingnutosphere out of D.C. you’re going to have to accept the fact that like rats or other vermin they will find ways to infiltrate.
And BTW, Tapper is basically right wing, in case you hadn’t noticed his last two years of hostile coverage of Obama.
Frank
In an earlier post Jake Tapper declared that he would not engage with the people here due to the “tone”. Yet he has no problem with the tone of Laura Ingraham and her ilk, and thats what annoys me about these pussies.Would he ever utter such a complaint to the right wing screechers? Of course not, he’ll just sit there and smirk along.
geg6
@jron:
Ingraham’s only doing what she is paid to do. I don’t fault the format, that is what it is supposed to be.
Tapper, OTOH, is the one at fault. He is not doing the job of the journalist by going on the show or by going on the show without relentlessly pushing back at lies and distortions and false equivalencies. He’s simply playing the role that Ingraham wrote for him. That’s not journalism and that is not what an ethical journalist would do.
IMHO, Doug’s arrow hit the mark from the start. And I need no more proof of that than our superstar network correspondent coming here to display his butthurt for all to see.
georgia pig
@geg6: This gets back to DougJ’s “careerist sociopath” theme, except the pathology is throughout the system, not just in the individuals who operate in it. Jake isn’t a teabagger, but it doesn’t matter. Jake Tapper goes on those shows because his corporate bosses (who probably aren’t teabaggers either) want him to so that the teabagger demographic doesn’t think that ABC doesn’t want their eyeballs to sell soap, beer, cellphones, etc. or want them to book a room in the Magic Kingdom. Jake ain’t gonna push back because then Laura and the rest of the talk radio circuit won’t ask him back. If he gets blackballed, some other eager beaver who’s willing to do the Cleveland Steamer or the Dirty Sanchez with Laura and her ilk will take his cushy six-figure job with tables at all the right restaurants, leaving Jake to hope he can land a gig at a public radio station in a college town.
geg6
@georgia pig:
THIS.
Which is why Doug was right in the first place.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@demo woman:
How much money do news hosts and reporters make? I really believe that the less a reporter is paid the ‘hungrier’ they are to do good work. The well paid reporter just doesn’t have the same initiative to bust their ass, especially if they are comfortable where they are at. Many are content to cruise along without making any big waves unless ‘the big story’ falls in their laps. They defer to their ‘equals’ in the industry and prefer to not make waves, which leads to a festival of mutual ass kissing all around. Gotta network so if a job change comes up you have a ready list of toadies to go to for a new job. Don’t want to make any waves with the potential future coworkers and bosses!
Add to that fact that once they enter the realm of raking in the big bucks then their views on certain issues can change to fit their new financial status. Underlying all of this is the fact that the big media outlets are owned by rich people with varied interests, most related to keeping and building their empires, and you have the mess we call our news services of today.
colleeniem
Okay, I’m sorry to keep harping on this, but I just listened to the news summary again (which is updated every hour), and it is completely different from what I heard before, including how they described the reaction by both parties. I am taking this to mean that my letter actually went through, because it WAS originally Paul Brown, a national correspondent, using that language that an editor should have tore up.
Or I am bugfuck insane. I don’t know which is worse. Thanks for letting me vent.
geg6
@colleeniem:
Good for you. I know, I for one, am damn sick of this kind of hackery. I want to push back as often as I possibly can.
You did and you made a difference.
Karen S.
My problem with any journalist’s appearance on talk shows of practically any kind is that the journalist risks becoming the story by being guests on these things. If I remember correctly, Tapper wrote in one of yesterday’s threads that the network bosses urge the reporters to go on talk shows, a practice I find appalling. And from the audio of the Ingraham show, it’s apparent Tapper didn’t add much to the proceedings or whatever dialogue that should be going on about the vandalism and death threats to members of Congress anyway, so what was the point of his being there?
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Karen S.:
To give them some cred by rubbing shoulders with a ‘real’ reporter. Also the nice bonus of saying crap that the ‘guest’ won’t challenge them over, which then gives that crap a life of its own.
It’s a win for them and a loss for the journalist. Indeed, they become the story.
Punchy
Please teach me the ways of your writing style, master Yoda.
BC
Much of the problem is that a lie can be spouted in 20 seconds but it may take 2 minutes to lay out the facts that debunk the lie. They don’t have that kind of time, so the lie is just left there. Which is why it’s difficult for someone who is objective and who does know the facts to be on a show with someone who has no compunction about lying – the liar always holds the advantage, the game is fixed.
Elie
@El Cid:
If you really want to freak, I have learned more about the US from news programs in other countries. where they get the BBC and Asia News Network…its damned embarrasing!
I gave up on NPR as well long ago. My husband can’t kick the habit, but I just listen once in a while to their non news programming and wont send a dime for anything ever again
kc
This is my last post on the subject.
Why? Hell, let’em have it.
MBunge
One point that shouldn’t be overlooked is that Tapper, Gregory, Williams and the rest are all well-to-very-well paid white guys who have virtually no personal contact with anyone “blacker” than Juan Williams.
Mike
DougJ
@Frank:
Well, I was glad he engaged, even if to to complain.
Karen S.
I don’t think journalists like to be criticized in any way. I remember when I worked as a reporter at a weekly suburban Chicago newspaper and one of my beats was local politics. I was working on some politics- or campaign-related story and was doing research on the Internets in an attempt to track down some background info on a local pol.
Anyway, one of the news stories that came up during that research was something written by a reporter in Pennsylvania that mentioned Rick Santorum who was still a U.S. senator then. The reporter misidentified Santorum as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, so I emailed the reporter and brought the misidentification to his attention, so he or his editor could correct it. I didn’t think much of it and went back to the story I had been working on. A little while later I got a reply from that reporter and he was pissed, to say the least, that I had had the nerve to point out his mistake to him. He wrote something along the lines of “Journalists don’t do that to other journalists!” This was news to me. I don’t have a journalism degree, so I wondered if one of the things taught at J-school was never to correct your fellow reporters. I responded, asking him what he meant that journalists shouldn’t correct other journalists. I never heard from him again. I concluded he was a weeny and went on about my business.
Tapper getting testy with Balloon Juicers yesterday reminded me of my encounter with the Sensitive Plant Journalist a few years ago. I’ve come to the same conclusion about Tapper that I came to a few years ago about that other reporter.
Throwin Stones
@colleeniem: To piggyback on your NPR rage. I’ve noticed recently “support for NPR comes from” Monsanto and Booz Allen Hamilton.
I’m currently reading Alex Jones’ Losing the News, which so far is a really good overview on the subject of this post.
mistersnrub
Television “journalists” are not journalists. That’s it. That is all there is to it.
Daddy-O
Jake Tapper used to write for salon.com. It took me a while to understand the complaints against him from the lefty bloggers.
I have to agree with DougJ’s final sentiments regarding him. He’s guilty of some rather nauseating reports on the tee vee, etc, but overall he’s one of the good guys.
He’s probably just trying to keep a good-salaried job, and walk a line of reality at the same time. I’m on his side–but just barely.
Church Lady
I appreciate your climbing down from your soapbox.
rs
Most people who frequent this blog are probably aware there are alternative sources of television and radio news.
DemocracyNow! is available on several hundred stations around the country, including DishTV satellite which features it on two stations, Free Speech TV and Link TV.
Free Speech Radio News can be heard on over 100 stations.
Both are also available over the internet.
Support them by listening and donating if you’re able.
DougJ
@Church Lady:
I’m still on it. I think this was even preachier than my earlier posts.
BethanyAnne
I still think of NPR as “Nice Polite Republicans”
Elie
@BethanyAnne:
LOL — very witty
Little Dreamer
@geg6:
Well, of course, he appeared because he needs to get his opinion out in as many places as possible, especially since AEI now has an opening.
::tongue in cheek:: (perhaps)
Laura
Maybe Christiane Amanpour is here to save us. I noticed no one at ABC was quick to welcome her. And Jake hadn’t jumped to her defense when Shales attacked her for being Persian, therefore unable to be partial when reporting in Israel (no one asks if a Jewish person could be impartial when reporting on Palestine).
Until August, I guess I’ll just keep re-watching the lovely youtube clip of Amanpour vs Thiessen.
If there was a God, Rachel Maddow would be hosting MTP
Triassic Sands
That was a joke, right?
If you’ve been taking network news seriously up until now, you are in deep, deep trouble.