Not that Dick Feagler meant to.
(Note: This is about a local Northeastern Ohio column, but deals with a media bias issue of broad significance.)
What Feagler revealed gets to the very heart of journalism's failure, why blogs exist, why many news consumers pay attention to them (in fact, feel that they must), and why they matter.
I really want to admire guys like Dick Feagler (and the relatively few gals, back in the day). Their telephones, steel trap memories, and Rolodexes were the "databases" of that era. They worked, and their modern counterparts still work, in an underpaid, underappreciated job that, when done correctly, is something you don't clock out of, and can go crazy in the blink of an eye. The Dick Feaglers used the old-fashion tools and applied the old-fashioned work ethic to do their jobs as best they could. Their successors are typically doing the same, with better tools.
But that avoids the real question: What was, and still is, their job?
Feagler makes it clear, at least from his perspective, that what journalists (or "newspapermen," as he prefers) thought, and still think, their "job" is, totally differs from what you and I, John and Jane Public, think it is. It's also completely varies from what we have a right to expect.
You doubt? Read this key excerpt from his column:
Riding with a candidate on a cold night in November, you can say to him: "Answer this question for me and I won't quote you. I'll quote myself and pretend I don't know what you're thinking."
You get a lot of insight that way, through the back door.
But to get it, you have to earn trust. Trust that he knows you won't blow his cover.
Did it ever occur to Dick Feagler that candidates, politicians, executives, bureaucrats, and others with power, responsibility, and the public trust aren't entitled to have "cover"?
In Feagler's world, a newspaperman doesn't "blow the cover" of people he or she trusts, or likes, or respects. Conversely, I have to believe, if it's someone not trusted, liked, or respected, it's bombs away.
This is a problem. A serious problem.
It's an article of fact, not just faith, that America's newsrooms have been, and still are, skewed ideologically, and heavily, to the left. It's somewhat understandable why this would be the case. It's also possible to argue that the obvious ideological imbalance isn't relevant, if you could somehow be confident that journalists approach and deal with those they don't like in the same manner as those they do. Ideology wouldn't matter as long as they don't play favorites.
But Dick Feagler has, in essence, just admitted that he has played favorites, and it doesn't seem to bother him one bit.
He believes that he shares this mindset with his peers. I don't doubt him for a minute.
The public expects journalists to play it straight, regardless of their ideology. A sizable plurality, if not a majority, probably still thinks they do. Dick Feagler just inadvertently acknowledged that he and his peers don't, and that's okay by him. People, or groups, who are trusted, liked, and respected, plus, in this PC-mad world, people who "should be" trusted, liked and respected, get "cover." Others don't. The only thing that slightly mitigates the situation for the non-liked, non-trusted, and non-respected is a human desire to be among people with power and influence. That has usually not amounted to much.
Dick Feagler's and his colleagues' world view explains a lot of things. Here are just a very few:
- It explains how we got the phony "Camelot" of JFK, instead of the actual serial womanizer.
- The desire to "cover for" the powerful is the only reasonable explanation for how an incumbent-rigged Hamilton County (OH) GOP candidate endorsement process could be exposed, with documentary proof, and totally ignored.
- It explains how one now-convicted Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation investment manager, whose losses have mostly if not entirely been recovered, is among the most-recognized political names in the state, while another now-convicted manager who lost hundreds of millions of dollars that aren't recoverable remains a virtual unknown.
- It explains how Columbus's mayor, lightly if at all reported, can abuse his office, commit likely violations of campaign-finance laws, and play favorites in city development deals with apparent impunity.
It's a pretty cozy relationship "newspapermen" have had with the people they covered for lo these many years. Bloggers and others in New Media, from the guy who proved the Rathergate documents fraudulent, to the New York City alternative paper that broke the Air America-Gloria Wise scandal (noted here by Michelle Malkin; her external link to the Bronx News no longer works), to the tech guy who outed the anti-military animus and delusions of CNN's Eason Jordan, to the guy who insisted that a new imam (apparently a member of a "should be trusted" group, despite contrary historical precedent) might not deserve the free pass he was getting from the local paper, have blown away much of that coziness.
I think this is very good, and very long overdue. Dick Feagler clearly does not:
Bloggers. Have they ridden with a candidate in the middle of the night? Have they covered the murder of a young girl lying dead in the grass but looking as if she's sleeping? Have they covered anything?
Or do they merely spew opinions and Google? Once, you had to pay dues in this business. Give me one good reason why we should let the bloggers off the hook.
No, Dick. We "cover" plenty of things, but the better ones among us, who have paid plenty of dues in life, unlike you and your colleagues, try not to "cover for" anyone. And given what happened here and here, you guys should really consider using that there Google tool and related ones every once in a while.
Oh, and one more thing -- While Feagler, and apparently most other Northeast Ohio "newspapermen," were busy making sure not to "blow the cover" of those they trusted, liked, and respected during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, those trustworthy, likable, and respectable people for all practical purposes stood by and/or caused this:
Give me one good reason why we should let Dick Feagler, David Briggs (original imam whitewash item here), Robert Smith (follow-up semi-whitewash here), and their colleagues off the hook. (Briggs and Smith links added on Nov. 18 -- Ed.)
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
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ALSO: It's more than plausible to think that the Feagler-"newspaperman" approach is a factor in why Joe McCarthy got taken down, and why it has taken over 50 years to straighten out the historical record and almost fully rehabilitate him. M. Stanton Evans's "Blacklisted by History" virtually completes the rehabilitation, to the point where mendacious reviewers are saying things like "Oh, we knew that already."
Some journalists of the era clearly liked, trusted, respected, and were taken in by people who were later proven to be communist infiltrators. Of course, a few journos were also later proven to have been fellow travelers.
