Greenwald on Carlson on Peev on Power on Clinton
Intelligence is sometimes overrated. Stupidity can be a great source of truth, not to mention (black) comedy. In that vein I give you the Michael Scott of US television “journalists”: Tucker Carlson.
You have to sit through a commercial to view the video at that site (which is why I didn’t embed the video here; I will not let my teency piece of the web be degraded in that particular way, at least not yet), but I think it’s actually worth sitting through, because Carlson exposes so clearly what is wrong with US journalism, and the response of The Scotsman reporter Gerri Peev (who did the interview with former Obama advisor Samantha Power where Power called Hillary Clinton “a monster”) is so awesome.
This is coming courtesy of Glenn Greenwald, who has lots more insightful things to say about the issue, including a round-up of several YouTube clips of non-US journalists asking questions of US politicians. All highly recommended.
To sum things up, here’s an excerpt from Greenwald’s piece at Salon (Tucker Carlson unintentionally reveals the role of the American press), which also requires viewing an ad (sigh), though at least it’s not a TV ad.
Credit to Tucker Carlson for being so (unintentionally) candid about the lowly, subservient role of the American press with regard to “the relationship between the press and the powerful.” A journalist should never do anything that “hurts” the powerful, otherwise the powerful won’t give access to the press any longer. Presumably, the press should only do things that please the powerful so that the powerful keep talking to the press, so that the press in turn can keep pleasing the powerful, in an endless, symbiotic, mutually beneficial cycle. Rarely does someone who plays the role of a “journalist” on TV so candidly describe their real function.
March 9th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Businessmen call that a “win-win”. The rest of us call it “being a lapdog”. Guess who’s hiring and paying the journalists.
Media is always a business, but you would hope with a free press that there would be economic incentive for media outlets to keep their journalistic integrity. Unfortunately I think this game of keeping access to the powerful is real, in that if you’re the only one not playing the game you get quickly locked out. You need some level of agreement between media outlets to give the powerful no choice but to talk to a hostile press. As Fox News has sadly proved, access tends to flow to the least (most cooperative) common denominator.
March 10th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Precisely why so many people augment MSM news with independent media, e.g. http://www.globalresearch.ca/ and http://www.Rense.com, and do not automatically discredit what supposed “radical” journalists have said e.g. Michael Rupert, Alex Jones. Line them up fact for fact and you’ll find the biggest lies come not from them but from the MSM, and the biggest scoops, by far, are from them.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:56 am
GG is one of the best writers out there right now
too bad most of those videos (except the repugnant Bolton weasel) are unavailable
March 11th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Seems like all the cutting edge videos get removed or moved quickly whenever a significant source links to them. If anyone finds they are available elsewhere please post the link(s).
March 12th, 2008 at 7:29 am
I don’t really pay attention to the MSM anymore. I get all my news from a few blogs and Salon.
CNN runs all the time in the elevator lobby where I work. Last time I walked by they were discussing how Charlie Sheen once hired a prostitute.