Challenged

I listened to Hugh Hewitt interviewing ABC White House correspondent Terry Moran on his show on Wednesday night.

Now, kudos to Moran, who's certainly a journalist of some heft, for appearing in the lion's den - not only on a conservative show, but with Hewitt, who is (no brownnosing intended) one of most formidable combinations of intelligence and journalistic experience in conservative talk. Wretchard and Major Mike have both written excellent reviews already...

...but the part that caught me short was that, as sharp as Moran is, he just didn't have non-straw responses to so many of Hugh's arguments. It's a pattern that's repeated in so many contexts when the unwashed masses challenged journalists.

Bear in mind that the US is about the only place in the world where journos think of themselves as High Priests of Knowledge, keepers of the sacred flame of the truth, something that can not be entrusted to heathen philistines. It's a notion that runs counter to the way the media works in many other countries; in the UK, reporters are usually people who've flopped at something else; Fleet Street is not a holy of holies. It's an image that the media carefully burnished during its golden age, from the days of Murrow and Pearson and Anderson and Cronkite. And it's an image that's starting to fall apart like a cheap office chair beneath them; Americans don't hold journos in the same esteem as they used to.

The arrogance of the huge media - the Dan Rathers and Mary Mapeses that have floated the accounts of so much the blogosphere this past year - is a big part of it. Equally important, though, is something I knew to an extent during my brief career in news media, and which has become more apparent as the talent pool has become more stretched; journalists aren't geniuses.

I'm not saying they're dumb. Far from it; a good journalist is a jack of many intellectual trades. He or she has to be; there's a lot of explaining to do. But he or she is also a master of none.

And defending themselves logically is one of the trades they see to have trouble with, if Moran is any indication of the media at large. As capable as he was, some of his answers are indicative of a bigger issue.

On the issue of McClellan's press conference, Moran said (and I add emphasis):

I disagree with that interpretation. What I, in fact, agree with the substance of what Scott McClellan was saying, that it would be a good thing for Newsweek to come out try to undo some of the damage that was done by its report. If you notice what I said was, do you think it's appropriate, from that podium, speaking for the president of the United States, to instruct an American magazine as to how to go about its business. And what I was trying to do was draw a line that Scott McClellan agreed with. If you notice later on that you're absolutely right. It's not my position to get into telling people what they can and cannot report. I was just trying to draw that line, that there may be things which are right for the media to do, but that I think that whether you are liberal or conservative, you don't want the government telling the media to do.

Right.

Right?

Wrong. McClellan and the White House weren't telling the media what to do. Just suggesting something they could do.

But the strawman - which needlessly inflames the argument, by the way - is not an uncommon one when you're arguing with a journalist.

Here's another one:

Hewitt: ...I know demagoguery when I hear it. That's not.

Terry Moran: But you practice it.

HH: I do not practice it. I practice good journalism, which is to represent I'm no better than any other American citizen. As a journalist, I don't have...

TM: You're no better than any other American citizen?

"Weren't you one of us?"

Talk with a journalist sometime. Start getting into what they see as their mission.

They - many of them - honestly believe that unless you've been to J-School (or at least worked in the business) then you really aren't qualified to tell the story.

Back to Hewitt:

HH: Terry, wait. Time out. Where do you get this, don't want any kind of challenge to the president they support. They're just sick and tired of journalists with big heads and little resumes, acting like they know how the world works. Let me read you from Major K...

TM: Hugh, can I ask you a question? When was the last time you were in Iraq?

This isn't just a journalist's dodge, but it's a common one. It's a first cousin of "I know stuff". "I've covered city council meetings! I've paid dues!" Unstated; how it is that working in an industry sanctifies your story in the absence of any visible evidence that you know anything or, in some cases, are telling the truth.

Mom and Dad can get out of a discussion by saying "Because I'm the Parent! That's Why!". For reporters? Not so much.

Posted by Mitch at May 20, 2005 06:28 AM | TrackBack