General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Is Glenn Greenwald the Future of News? - Bill Keller/NYT [View all]Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)If I were still in the business (and was well enough known), I'd have LOVED to have this "old school establishment versus new media activism" debate over the role journalism plays now and in the future...I have about a dozen other questions I'd have liked to see Keller ask, but there is only so much space, and clearly those two could have been going back and forth for a week or more...
I know a tiger doesn't change it's stripes, but as I've noted before, Greenwald's shit-doesn't-stink, "I'm never wrong" -smugness wears thin after awhile, and when he lays it on heavy it tends to undermine his real, legit criticisms of the mainstream media industry he loathes so much...
And anyone who agrees with Greenwald that we should throw the whole "striving towards objective reporting" -concept out the window will think differently when the RWers dump their money in and conservative "activist journalism" outnumbers the liberal by a 10-1 ratio...
Of course the most dangerous part of activist journalism is the more personally invested a reporter or news outlet might be to a certain story, the more doggedly he'll try to chase dead end leads or move heaven and earth trying to find a mythical conspiracy or "smoking gun" which never existed in the first place (Obama's birth certificate ring any bells?)...Also that person is MUCH less likely to include any uncovered facts detrimental or contradictory to the cause the activist is fighting for....