"If Jonathan Karl doesn't like being called a hack, then he should stop being a hack"

[ashling]

KOS piece quotes Esquire:

Long ago, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur of Ohio once told me that she thought my craft went bad when it became the province almost exclusively of the over-educated, that it had professionalized itself out of its traditional role, that she wished there were a few more people practicing journalism who'd first worked on a loading dock, or in a mine, the way people used to come to the job. Here, with Karl, we apparently have a perfect product of the well-financed and staggeringly successful network of conservative institutions and programs launched more than 40 years ago by The Powell Memo. Assuming the FAIR report is accurate, then Jonathan Karl was not trained as a journalist, because the Collegiate Network doesn't produce journalists. It produces partisan warriors. He was not trained as a reporter, because the Collegiate Network doesn't produce reporters. It produces propagandists. He was not trained as a newsman, because the Collegiate Network doesn't produce newsmen. It produces hacks.

This is, of course, indelicate for someone in my business to say but, at every level of his steady rise in the business, some executive should have looked at Karl's resume, seen The Collegiate Network there, and then shitcanned the thing before the interview process even began. Are there conservatives who are good reporters? Absolutely. But all the ones that I know came up the same way I did, and none of them came up through the coddled terrariums of the activist Right. They learned their craft. They were not trained to be spies in the camp of the enemy. They were not trained to be moles. And every damn one of them would have checked those phony e-mails before throwing them out to the public, and most of them wouldn't have fallen for them, because they are journalists, reporters, and newsmen. They are not partisan warriors, propagandists, or hacks. If Jonathan Karl doesn't like being called a hack, then he should stop being a hack. Here's one way to do it.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/20/1210440/--If-Jonathan-Karl-doesn-t-like-being-called-a-hack-then-he-should-stop-being-a-hack-EPIC-takedown

On the Powell Memo:

http://billmoyers.com/content/the-powell-memo-a-call-to-arms-for-corporations/

In this excerpt from Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer — and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, authors Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson explain the significance of the Powell Memorandum, a call-to-arms for American corporations written by Virginia lawyer (and future U.S. Supreme Court justice) Lewis Powell to a neighbor working with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

[Lisa D]

1. I love this phrase:

"the coddled terrariums of the activist Right."

Perfect descriptor.

[BlueCaliDem]

2. K&R

It would be nice if real journalists in our media who have access to a broader public, would report on this hack. I've never liked Jon Karl because of how he appeared to favor Republicans, and I've never liked ABC . . . and now I know why.

Thank you for posting this piece. I'm amazed it hasn't gotten more rec's on a Democratic Party supporting site.