Now this is an interesting story that started yesterday and I completely missed due to my day job. So if you were under a rock like I was then here is the scoop. It began with a story that in a Seattle newsroom some reporters began cheering once word came that Rove was resigning:
Seattle Times Executive Editor Dave Boardman wrote today in one of his morning notes to staff that there had been "an awkward moment at yesterday’s news meeting." That’s the meeting where editors and other staff from throughout the newsroom talk about the stories planned for the next day’s paper. Boardman wrote in "Dave’s Raves (and the occasional rant)"
When word came in of Karl Rove’s resignation, several people in the meeting started cheering. That sort of expression is simply not appropriate for a newsroom.
It sounds like a conservative’s parody of how a news meeting would be run. I wasn’t there, but I’ve talked to several people who were. It was only a couple of people who cheered and they, thankfully, are not among the people who get a say in news play. But obviously news staff shouldn’t be cheering or jeering the day’s news, particularly as Boardman points out, "when we have an outside guest in the room."
Jokes get made in newsrooms, of course — even what you would call gallows humor. And Boardman wrote that he was "all for equal-opportunity joking at both parties’ expense." But he was clearly ticked off by yesterday’s display.
I know, shocking! We all know that our MSM is a liberal piece of garbage and we here at Flopping Aces do our best to document that bias. That and the war on Iraq was one of the main reasons for this blog.
Powerline found this gem yesterday also:
Most bizarre, though, was CBS’s Bill Plante, whose conduct was almost unbelievable, even for a reporter:
As Karl Rove embraced President Bush today following an emotional farewell announcement on the South Lawn, the solemnity of the moment was shattered by Bill Plante of CBS, who bellowed to Bush: "If he’s so smart, how come you lost Congress?"
And then Joe Scarborough gave some memories of his when he first started at MSNBC. Apparently during Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address many in the newsroom booed at the President:
UPDATE, 8-16: At 6:48 A.M. EDT Joe and Mika discussed this item.
SCARBOROUGH: Chris [MJ producer Chris Licht] told me something in my ear during break, that we talked at 6:02 about the Seattle Times and back in 2003, back in 2003, the newsroom at MSNBC booing George Bush . . .
BRZEZINKSI: Some people, yeah [Mika wanting to make clear it wasn’t unanimous.]
SCARBOROUGH: A lot of the people that were actually charged with the coverage.
BRZEZINKSI: Oh dear!
SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, that’s bad. And I talked about how Phil Griffin found out, got very angry,
BRZEZINKSI: Right, as he should.
SCARBOROUGH: And cleaned that up. That never happened again.
But the underlying attitudes still exist. The booing and catcalls, the outbursts, are all a symptom of a whole organization out of touch with the people they serve. They serve to report news to this country but they are almost all overwhelmingly liberal leftists, which DOES NOT represent this country. Do they really expect the people to believe this bias does not come into their reporting? Of course it does. From the stories they choose to report on, to how hard they work on a story that they believe in rather then one they don’t, to outright spinning of a story to make the other side look bad. We see it all the time, anchors salivating over a liberal guest while bringing the hardball questions to conservatives.
They can shut the boo’s up but the disease still exists.
Not to be outdone by MSNBC The Seattle Times editor tried to bring some of his own damage control to the story:
I ask you all to leave your personal politics at the front door for one simple reason: A good newsroom is a sacred and magical place in which we can and should test every assumption, challenge each other’s thinking, ask the fundamental questions those in power hope we will overlook.
If we wore our politics on our sleeves in here, I have no doubt that in this and in most other mainstream newsrooms in America, the majority of those sleeves would be of the same color: blue. Survey after survey over the years have demonstrated that most of the people who go into this business tend to vote Democratic, at least in national elections. That is not particularly surprising, given how people make career decisions and that social service and activism is a primary driver for many journalists…
It’s not about “balance,” which is a false construct. It isn’t even about “objectivity,” which is a laudable but probably unattainable goal. It is about independent thinking and sound, facts-based journalism — the difference between what we do and the myopic screed that is passed off as “advocacy” journalism these days.
Sacred and magical? What kind of egotistical nimrod would say this? A newsroom is not magical nor sacred. It provides a service, which so far they have done quite badly. And it’s only getting worse.
It’s a medium that is on it’s death spiral. Everyone understands their biases now, and as their stock prices plummet they still apparently have figured this out.
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