On Tuesday, Kyle Pope, Editor in Chief and Publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review, posted "An open letter to Trump from the US press corps." Pope informed Mr. Trump, as if the man who is now this nation's 45th President didn't know already, that "while you have every right to decide your ground rules for engaging with the press, we have some, too."
Pope, apparently unaware that his precious ground rules are in many cases unenforceable in the Internet era, then proceeded to betray an insufferable arrogance which, if he really does represent the mindset of the US press corps as he claims, appears guaranteed to seriously damage the journalism establishment's standing even further during Trump's presidency.
"Newspapering" veteran and longtime blogger Don Surber let Pope have it in a scathing Wednesday post.
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His most important observations concerned CJR's publication, under Pope's management, of what Surber accurately described as a summertime "1,604-word call by David Mindich to abandon objective journalism in an all-out effort to stop the American people from electing Trump president." Given Columbia University's and CJR's positions as perceived and arguably de facto arbiters of press ethics and values, Surber noted that Pope's and the publication's failure to disclaim what Mindich wrote meant that CJR owns his views (bolds are mine throughout most of this post):
... After reading newspapers since I was six, I can clarify how readers now see the relationship between us and the American press corps. I do so in four words.
We don't believe you.
As a person with four decades in newspapering, now retired, I do not blame your readers in the least.
This election cycle has shown that the news business is dominated by social justice warriors who push a narrative rather than tell stories in a fair and balanced manner.
On July 15, as Republicans began to gather in Cleveland to nominate Donald Trump, you published a 1,604-word call by David Mindich to abandon objective journalism in an all-out effort to stop the American people from electing Trump president.
You published Mindich's piece without disclaimer, thus his words became yours.
In other words, CJR effectively gave the entire "profession" of journalism permission to openly take sides without the usual pretenses of objectivity.
Surber pointed to two main flaws in Mindich's column. The first was his praise of Edwin R. Murrow, who is still seen as this uniquely heroic guy who took down Joe McCarthy. The fact is that was a group effort, as seen in Surber's response:
While journalists lionize Murrow, the truth is murkier. The Soviets really funded the Communist Party USA. We learned that after the Soviet Union's collapse on Christmas Day 1991 and documents showing the payouts became public knowledge.
In very many other respects relating to the post-World War II communist threat, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, as M. Stanton Evans comprehensively demonstrated in his 2009 book, Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies, was absolutely correct.
What's more, many of those who denounced him were later proven to have been Soviet agents. McCarthy's weakness was that even he didn't appreciate the degree of Soviet penetration of the U.S. government, which had become so pervasive that he really ended up "fighting against much of the Washington establishment."
Yet in July, David Mindich, in his CJR anti-Trump screed, still believed that Murrow was absolutely right, and McCarthy was absolutely wrong. Objective history has definitively and irreversibly ruled otherwise.
The second flaw in Mindich's column was its insistence that, in Trump's case, "mainstream journalists ... (must) abandon their detachment ... when a politician’s words go way beyond the pale."
Surber's reaction:
Rubbish.
Just quote the man. Accurately. In full. In context.
... you allowed Mindich to make a sophist case for abandoning journalism in favor of constantly attacking a political candidate whom you did not like.
Exactly.
The ground rules in Pope's immature manifesto blend a sense of grandiose self-importance with a breathtaking naiveté about how the 2017 information world works. Here are his three dumbest assertions (bolds are his):
We decide how much airtime to give your spokespeople and surrogates. We will strive to get your point of view across, even if you seek to shut us out. But that does not mean we are required to turn our airwaves or column inches over to people who repeatedly distort or bend the truth. We will call them out when they do, and we reserve the right, in the most egregious cases, to ban them from our outlets.
I guess Donald Trump is supposed to be scared of this virtual threat. He should recognize that there are dozens of blogs and center-right outlets whose reach is at least as if not more impressive than many of your hallowed legacy media outlets.
It's also as if Pope has never heard of YouTube and livestreaming.
We believe there is an objective truth, and we will hold you to that. When you or your surrogates say or tweet something that is demonstrably wrong, we will say so, repeatedly. Facts are what we do, and we have no obligation to repeat false assertions; the fact that you or someone on your team said them is newsworthy, but so is the fact that they don’t stand up to scrutiny. Both aspects should receive equal weight.
See: Politifact, Snopes, Associated Press, Washington Post, etc., etc. "Facts" aren't what they do. If someone they don't like presents objectively unassailable facts, these "fact checkers" proceed to engage in agenda-driven fiction.
Also see: Disgraceful coverage of Donald Trump's inauguration and first hours in office, as documented in several Friday NewsBusters posts, including but certainly not limited to fact-based failures seen here, here and here.
We’re playing the long game. Best-case scenario, you’re going to be in this job for eight years. We’ve been around since the founding of the republic, and our role in this great democracy has been ratified and reinforced again and again and again. You have forced us to rethink the most fundamental questions about who we are and what we are here for. For that we are most grateful.
Mr. Pope, your screed demonstrates that you haven't rethought anything, and that the chances of the establishment press's presence as a still-relevant force in eight years are nowhere near what you think they are.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
