Dan Rather speaks to ‘All In’ host Chris Hayes on July 11, 2016. (MSNBC).
An actual journalist has weighed in on The Wall Street Journal’s declaration of not calling a lie a lie. Dan Rather did not mince words, and I am so thankful.
On Facebook, Rather blasted Baker by opening with “A lie, is a lie, is a lie.”
“Journalism, as I was taught it, is a process of getting as close to some valid version of the truth as is humanly possible. And one of my definitions of news is information that the powerful don’t want you to know,” Rather wrote.
“It is not the proper role of journalists to meet lies—especially from someone of Mr. Trump’s stature and power—by hiding behind semantics and euphemisms. Our role is to call it as we see it, based on solid reporting. When something is, in fact, a demonstrable lie, it is our responsibility to say so,” he continued. “As I have said before and will say as long as people are willing to listen, this is a gut check moment for the press. We are being confronted by versions of what are claimed to be ‘the truth’ that resemble something spewed out by a fertilizer-spreader in a wind tunnel. And there is every indication that this will only continue in the Tweets and statements of the man who will now hold forth from behind the Great Seal of the President of the United States.”
Rather concluded by warning news consumers, “You as the paying, subscribing public, can use your leverage and pocketbooks to keep those who should be honest brokers of information, well, honest. ”
Thank you, Mr. Rather.
Via Raw Story.
The press of the past is critically wounded and near death. Rather is a dying breed. “Access” is more important to the moneyed-up MSM of today. The ignorant will continue to be willfully ignorant and reject anything that challenges their perceptions of “troof”. Unless this country turns around in the next two years, I truly fear for my future. Well, I truly am in fear now, but I still hold out some slim hope. The republicans are doing every nasty thing they can now to grab and abuse power, just as they always do when they hold the reins. The damage they will do in the next two years can last for at least a generation, by which time I will probably be dead and gone. I only hope that reasonable people lose their apathy and rise up against this shit.
Johnson catman:
Me too. That’s why we’re looking into moving to Mexico upon retirement.
It’s especially galling in light of the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act, a “law” that amounts to the US government being arbiter of what is fact and what isn’t. The US media is now the Ministry of Truth, reporting “We have always been at war with Russia” in the latest sedition…I mean, edition.
Intransitive:
Yep. Nineteen Eighty-Four is well and truly here.
Calling a liar a liar is baaad, almost as bad as calling a racist a racist.
Rather is retired, isn’t he? I applaud him for this, and he has said similar things in the past, but I think he’s also safely past the point where it might affect him.
I wish journalists cared more about the truth, but their employment and livelihood often depends on the story, not the truth. :-(
I don’t have a solution or even recommendations, I just wish it were different.
As the buying, subscribing public, we have thrown the media to the wolves. And, frankly, they largely participated in their own abnegation. Don’t cry for them: they sold their roles as guardians of truth, and deserve everything that’s coming to them. You know Trump is going to troll them and make them grovel. Now that they have shown they’re bootlickers that will be their diet for the remainder of forever until independent voices arise again. This is a chance for the next Voltaire or Paine.
this is about the USoA
Paine was a dirty little atheist.
dunno about Voltaire