CJR chooses Don Lemon as one of the worsts in journalism:
As one of the most recognizable anchors on CNN, Don Lemon has helped lead the cable network’s coverage of the biggest stories of the year. Live television is exceedingly difficult to produce, of course, but Lemon’s gaffes this year offer a case study in how to choose words wisely — or not.
On March 20, he asked guests whether Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 could have been swallowed by a black hole: “I know it’s preposterous, but is it preposterous?” He later compared spanking children to training dogs and probed similarities between the release of US Army POW Bowe Bergdahl and the Showtime series Homeland. When an alleged Bill Cosby rape victim appeared on his show on Nov. 18, he lectured, “You know, there are ways not to perform oral sex if you didn’t want to do it…Meaning the use of teeth, right?” Less than a week later, as protests turned violent in Ferguson, MO, he described the scene: “Obviously, there’s a smell of marijuana in the air.” Lemon’s job isn’t easy. But he’s earned a DART for going there. Obviously.
He’s just horrible.
schrodinger's cat
I guess I should be thankful that I have only the faintest idea of who Don Lemon is.
Howard Beale IV
I have the CJR’s “The Audit” on my RSS feed-tho it’s been quiet since Thanksgiving.
NotMax
That whirring sound is coming from my journalism profs madly spinning underground.
Amir Khalid
Since the aptly-named Mr. Lemon is still at CNN, I take it CNN doesn’t mind that he talks nonsense. Or that it’s as oblivious as he is. Either way, as someone who remembers the CNN of decades past I find its decline kind of sad.
Heliopause
“On March 20, he asked guests whether Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 could have been swallowed by a black hole”
One tiny note of defense here; the suits upstairs made the decision to go all 370 all the time. When you put your on-air talent in that position it’s a given that they’re eventually going to say something stupid just to fill air time.
And if forced at gunpoint to choose between Lemon’s lemons and Wolf Blitzer’s unadulterated propaganda I’d go with Lemon. Not that that’s much of a defense.
Tommy
Now does that work out? My brother’s dog is larger than me. He is over the top out of control. Larger then my brother and his wife. We don’t hit it. We talk sterning to it, but hit it, no!
Yatsuno
@Tommy: The dog has no leader so no concept of the rules of the pack. So someone who is there all the time has to assert that control. And be consistent with it. But hitting just teaches the dog to be afraid.
Yatsuno
@efgoldman: My university’s school of journalism is named for Edward R Murrow. He’d be fucking beside himself at the state of journalism today.
Mike in NC
Lemon is a rising star destined for his own panel show on FOX News.
Amir Khalid
This flood season is the worst we’ve had in decades, and Najib just happens to be in Hawaii golfing with his BFF Barack. In 2013, the only thing that kept him from being the first Barisan Nasional leader to lose a general election was that the whole country is gerrymandered like crazy.
srv
I thought we covered this last week. Or maybe it was last year.
Yatsuno
@Amir Khalid:
Is this more along ethnic ines to dilute the power of Chinese parties? Or is there also the urban/rural divide like we have in the US?
EDIT: or a mix of both?
Amir Khalid
@Yatsuno:
Yes to both.
Obvs.The ethnic Malay majority is still more outside the major cities, and Barisan Nasional — in particular UMNO, the Malay-based lead party — has played on the ethnic and religious chauvinism of that group since the 1940s.srv
Here’s some real news:
I guess this post-racial week is OVER!
Suzanne
I am still boggling that he actually suggested, on television, IN FRONT OF PEOPLE, that women should bite dudes’ dicks. Like, whaaaaat? Mind: still blown.
SWMBO
@Yatsuno:
@Tommy: Dogs need a pack leader. Hitting them teaches them fear and also teaches them that fierce strength is rewarded with the other side learning fear. I have owned many dachshunds through the years. Stubborn, Thy Name is Dachshund. With multiple dogs, one of them is the leader. You can influence this and make the best dog the leader. Our first gang of five had Max the strawberry blonde wirehair as leader. He ruled with a velvet paw. Just don’t cross him. He knew he was leader of the four legged dogs and was at the bottom of the pack of two legged dogs. Life was mostly peaceful and pleasant while he lasted. When dealing with a dog that is challenging for pack supremacy, you have to get your bluff in on him. I had a stare down with Max once that lasted 18 minutes. I thought my eyes were going to dry out and bleed. But I won. Never had to lay a hand on him. He used the stare down on the others and he could hurt them with a “look”. I have stared down my daughter’s dogs and have never had a problem with them either. If you look away during a stare down, you lose. The other dog assumes they’ve dominated you and can tell you what to do.
Little Boots
trying way too hard. he may just need to get a grip.
but then again, many of us may suffer from that.
Schlemazel
It always amazes me that dudes who have never been close to getting raped can be so glib about how easy it is to avoid being raped. It’s not unlike how guys that have never been under fire can be so damn sure they know how to kick major ass in combat. Mr. Lemmon (and millions like him) need to star in a Twilight Zone episode like the one where the Nazi becomes a Jew.
MomSense
I think the point of Lemmon is that people will tune in to hear him say something foolish. CNN is desperate for ratings and doesn’t care if their viewers are mock watching.
Little Boots
@Schlemazel:
honestly, men cannot imagine rape. mostly. seriously. we do not think it happens that often.
cahuenga
Actually, a very dark hole explains nearly all of his gaffes
.
The Dangerman
I was watching O’Reilly tonight and he and the Man on the Street (Jesse?) were apoplectic that some liberal University Professor would claim that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. Stupid fuckers would probably go into shock to learn that all Abrahamic Religions worship the same God. Ignorant fucks.
Yatsuno
@Little Boots: He should know better. Gay men are both vulnerable & often victims of rape. It is also extremely underreported because it is not treated seriously by authorities. I know Lemon is not the best gay role model out there but he can’t be that unaware.
@The Dangerman: Tell them Islam is a direct descendant of Christianity. Then watch them go apoplectic.
Little Boots
@Yatsuno:
I think gay men are victims of rape, it happens, but not nearly at the same rate as women. seriously, men do not get it, at all. we think it is rare, but women who have told me, it ain’t that rare. it is disgustingly common.
The Dangerman
@Yatsuno:
Well, Islam tucked and rolled away from the Judaism car before they reached the Christianity party.
ETA: yes, I’m a couple of glasses of Cab into this Friday night; why do you ask?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Little Boots: Rape of women by men is disgustingly common because this culture has normalized the behavior in which a man discounts “no” when it’s spoken by a woman. She’s playing hard to get, or she’s being shy. Or, probably most commonly, they simply pick vulnerable women out of the group and hand and herd them away from the group to simply overpower them. No one in the group intervenes.
Then, because it wasn’t a stranger from a dark alley holding a gun to her head, the culture assures the woman that she wasn’t really raped. And by the way, whatever happened is her fault because she was dressed provocatively/drinking/at a larger party/not paying attention/(seemingly)ad infinitum.
And very rarely does the group – or the culture at large – provide any consequences for the man in question. That’s a (very) brief outline of rape culture.
I’d imagine the numbers are similar for gay men, who if anything, might be even less likely to report an incident than women.
Little Boots
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
yes, we are not good. we are not kind. but would you ever rape a woman?
exurbanmom
Off topic, but is anyone else disgusted that Bitcoin is sponsoring a bowl game? words fail me.
burnspbesq
Are there really people who frequent this blog who need to be reminded that Mr. Lemon has his head up his ass? Or is this just a matter of Boxing Day being a really, really slow news day?
Gin & Tonic
@exurbanmom: How is it different than the Sunkist-IBM-Fritos Bowl? Or any other such spectacle? Somebody offers money, they take it. It’s a completely transparent demonstration of the venality of the whole process. I love it.
srv
@exurbanmom:
Those balls don’t kick themselves, and Dodge Grand Caravan Bowl got cancelled.
ruemara
I feel my boss turning over at the idea of pack leader, but I’m glad so many people are anti-force methods. And Don Lemon. Lord. That’s an idiot.
Little Boots
needs more steeplejack.
Anne Laurie
@Yatsuno:
Same dynamic as women who sniff at other women who’ve been raped — it only happens to “bad” people, the ones who dress slutty / hang around bars / don’t know their place. I’ve been around long enough to have several gay men, only some of them closeted, explain that correct behavior is a guaranteed protection against sexual & other violence.
And also one or two, back in the 80s, who claimed that homosexuals only discovered rape because of feminists who just wouldn’t shut up about how people could be victimized. If only women hadn’t given a few bad apples the idea that sexual violence could be a form of coercion, men would never have come up with the idea!
Yes, I know it sounds like a parody, but hand to Goddess, there were (probably still are) people who thought like that. It’s a weird form of self-protective thinking — “If bad things only happen to Bad People, then a Good Person like me doesn’t have to worry about something bad happening.”
BillinGlendaleCA
@Little Boots: I think steeplejack is on a movie viewing marathon; you’re stuck with me tonight, Little Boots.
Little Boots
@BillinGlendaleCA:
good enough. having a good christmas week?
BillinGlendaleCA
Yes, with the exception of Xmas Eve dinner prep. You?
Little Boots
@BillinGlendaleCA:
in a mood. no more christmas. cept next year in havana, that might be kind of fun.
BillinGlendaleCA
My goals are less ambitious; prepare a meal and eat it in the same location.
Little Boots
@BillinGlendaleCA:
no, havana. do it. just do it, man.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Little Boots: Wuts in Havana?
Little Boots
@BillinGlendaleCA:
are you serious?
BillinGlendaleCA
Quite, I’ve had Cuban cigars. Not sure what else there is there.
Little Boots
oh, just some bars and stuff, but I now want you to go. want you to be happy. what do you mean, prepare a meal and eat in the same location?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Little Boots: Remember, I don’t drink. Bars have little interest to me.
The last two years, I partially prepared Xmas(Eve) dinner here and then finished cooking at another location. It makes me stabby.
Little Boots
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I did not know you did not drink. i would get stabby, but maybe that is just me.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Little Boots: I quit the boozey stuff 4 years ago.
GregB
Leave it to CNN to turn a Lemon into vinegar and water.
kindness
Just got back from the screening of The Interview and am happy to say that is one funny movie. I expected a stupid/stoner movie. It was actually well done on all levels. Hard laughs. Decent dumb plot. Really fun all in all and North Korea failed to kill us doing it. Twofer.
Yatsuno
@Anne Laurie:
I can believe this if only for the fact that the gay community found cause to gel together because of AIDS. When the community began to form the stories of men sexually exploiting men also began to come out. But of course there were feminists who insisted that the idea was coöpted because no way could a man be exploited like that! I’m hoping that died the inglorious death it deserved.
mtiffany
While it’s preposterous that a black hole swallowed an airplane, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that one might have swallowed what was left of CNN’s credibility…
BillinGlendaleCA
@mtiffany: That’s assuming that they had any credibility in recent years. Blitzer’s been there a long time.
mtiffany
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’d forgotten about Blitzer…
Villago Delenda Est
I’m not sure that “the decline” of CNN is the right term.
More like “free fall ala Wile E Coyote”…particularly appropriate ever since Leslie Blitzer argued with his expert guests about whether or not the “balloon boy” could be floating over Denver.
Leslie…it’s not a question of if he could fit in the box, it’s a question of weight ratios…
Villago Delenda Est
@The Dangerman: Well, after all, the Germans worship Gott and the Spaniards worship Dios, who is not the same as the good protestant Gof of America, the promised land.
The Jews, too, worship something else, called G-D.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Villago Delenda Est: If you call them something different, they MUST be different.
Anne Laurie
@BillinGlendaleCA:
… like the small child who covers his head with a blanket and figures, if he can’t see you, then you can’t see him.
Chris T.
TV news mentioned that North Korea has compared President Obama to a monkey.
I wonder how conflicted Republicans are on this. On the one hand, most of them probably approve of this comparison, but on the other, North Korea. What a dilemma!
Keith G
Well, in one day we have two threads about the worst journalist.
How about some day having a thread about the best journalists. Who are they? What makes them very good? Were do we go to view/hear their work?
Complaining is obviously very easy and fun since it is done so much, but I happen to enjoy the emotional lift of the positive as well. Also, it is good to hear about the good places to go and enjoy people doing their best work.
Villago Delenda Est
@Keith G:
If they’re a member of the Village, this is not possible.
Villagers are not journalists. They’re courtiers.
Wipe them out. All of them.
Frankensteinbeck
@Yatsuno:
EDIT – (moving the disclaimer to the top so that my intent doesn’t take reading to get to)
To be clear: I am not arguing that women deserve less sympathy because it can happen to men too. I’m arguing that the system is a mess, and there are even more ways than the obvious how victims are treated like shit.
Research says that men are raped by women at almost as much (as I recall, it’s 60/40) as women are raped by men. No court will touch it unless the victim is underage, and even then the victim doesn’t get any sympathy. Our culture believes that men rape anyone they’re sexually attracted to, all men are likely (not just possible) rapists, and women are inherently victims and vulnerable in all ways. ‘Men use women for sex’ has become a more and more powerful belief over my lifetime.
Hell, back in the 70s there was a trope of men so sexy that they were annoyed and tired of women hitting on them all the time. Anyone remember that? Now it’s unthinkable, only that he might be a very successful predator because women don’t fight back. Usually because he has money or power, not good looks.
It’s an incredibly deranged societal belief that encourages rape of all kinds, makes it harder for both sides to initiate a healthy relationship, but I think particularly encourages asshole men to harass women they don’t know. Assholes seek out people they think are vulnerable, see.
Raven
Getting ready for the long drive home. It’s got to be better than the 7+ hours in the rain comin up.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Raven:
Do you guys listen to music in the car?
NotMax
@Raven
Used to love long, long drives solo.
Longest, time-wise, was 21 hours (Minneapolis to NYC) with stops only for fuel and potty breaks, undertaken late one December in the dim, misty past.
Hoping your back is better today.
Fred
@Yatsuno: “My university’s school of journalism is named for Edward R Murrow. He’d be fucking beside himself at the state of journalism today.”
Murrow wasn’t real trilled with the state of journalism in his day. He was at constant war with the network brass to get real news on the air.
The end of the Fairness Doctrine under Reagan killed TV journalism in America.
Matt
@The Dangerman:
TBH, both groups have pretty much wandered off to the altars of Moloch and Mammon at this point…
Alison
Maybe I missed it, but is there an explanation at the link for what DART stands for?
Tree With Water
@schrodinger’s cat: I haven’t watched cable “news” for many years, and only knew of Lemon as a face that flew by as I channeled surfed. Until the past year, that is, because now I know him as the guy that took a Bill Cosby-like professional nose dive into an empty pool. Turns out Lemon is Ted Baxter, but without the brains or simpleton charm. It’s even worse when you realize that someone at CNN hired him in the first place, and someone in turn hired that person, and on and on. Most adults would betray the fool in themselves if a broadcast camera were trained on them 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. But most adults don’t claim to be journalists. Surely it was the inhibition of being on live TV (and the self restraint that knowledge imposes) which alone prevented the individual Lemon asked about the airliners and black holes to in turn ask, “What the hell are you talking about”?
hilts
There’s a truly Zen like perfection to Don Lemon’s vacuousness.
The best case for CNN keeping Don Lemon on the air is the Roman Hruska defense:
Hruska was a US senator from Nebraska who made a speech to his colleagues urging them to confirm the nomination of G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court. Responding to criticism that Carswell had been a mediocre judge, Hruska claimed that:
“Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance? We can’t have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos.”
Don Lemon may very well be described as a jerk, but there are a lot of jerks in this country and they entitled to a little representation, aren’t they? We can’t have all Cronkites, Murrows, Severeids, and Koppels.
mclaren
I was gonna object that William Kristol or George Will are worse…but then, they aren’t journalists, they’re just word-rapists: very old men who molest helpless innocent verbs and nouns.
Sondra
Also…2 of my favorite worsts:
Fox & Fail Fox & Friends has faced plenty of criticism over the years for its lack of journalistic scruples, and deservedly so. Still, some on-air exchanges stand out. After TMZ published security footage of Ray Rice, a 206-pound professional football player, cold-cocking then-fiancee Janay Palmer in an elevator and then dragging her limp body across the floor, the show’s hosts had peculiarly rosy analyses. “I think the message is, take the stairs,” co-host Brian Kilmeade said. Apparently unaware of the hole his colleague had just dug, counterpart Steve Doocey dug deeper: “The message is, when you’re in an elevator, there’s a camera.” The program drew more than 1 million viewers that day. – See more at:
“Domestic abuse is a very serious issue to us, I can assure you,” Kilmeade said the next day in a non-apology apology. Is it? He and his compatriots get a DART for not convincing us.
Loretta who? A final DART goes to Breitbart News for its absurd response to the fact that the entire premise of its story “outing” Loretta Lynch, nominated by President Barack Obama for attorney general, as one of Bill Clinton’s attorneys in the Whitewater corruption probe, was erroneous. First, wrong Loretta Lynch—Clinton’s attorney by the same name was a California Public Utilities Commissioner. But instead of acknowledging the error and taking down the story, they appended a correction to the bottom of the piece, as though they had simply misspelled Lynch’s name. Finally, after thousands of shares online, Breitbart took down the article, including the correction, leading readers to a “404-not found” error page. A new story on Lynch that carries the correction remains under a different link—a case study in intellectual honesty – See more at: http://www.cjr.org/darts_and_laurels/the_worst_journalism_of_2014.php?page=all#sthash.ZmuDiJVU.dpuf
– See more at: http://www.cjr.org/darts_and_laurels/the_worst_journalism_of_2014.php?page=all#sthash.ZmuDiJVU.dpuf
http://www.cjr.org/darts_and_laurels/the_worst_journalism_of_2014.php?page=all#sthash.ZmuDiJVU.dpuf
http://www.cjr.org/darts_and_laurels/the_worst_journalism_of_2014.php?page=all
Sondra