Submitted by a student:
Professor Culver,
Here is a link to a video of Chris Matthews being interviewed by Joe Scarborough. Matthews says, "I want to do everything I can to make this thing work, this new presidency work." Is Matthews job to make the presidency work? Or should he strive to provide critical coverage no matter who is in the White House? I just thought it was an interesting ethical question.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2008/11/06/odd-job-matthews-says-his-role-make-obama-presidency-success
What do you think of that? Is Chris Matthews (or Rachel Maddow or Bill O'Reilly, etc.) a "journalist"? If so, is opinion out of bounds? Can you think of another time a "helpful" approach from the media helped get us into trouble (hmm, perhaps the run-up to the Iraq war?)
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Helping the presidency
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1 comment:
Generally pundits are not journalists, in my opinion. However, if Matthews comment was based on being a citizen then it is understandable that he wants to make this administration work -- we need it to work. There are some (Olbermann and Hannity) who are very obviously rooting for one team or the other. CNN tends to have the least biased anchors like Lou Dobbs. Cable news is still highly polarized and yet much less viewed than most people think. Don't we all know which anchors fight for which party by now anyway?
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