The sad lust between Drudge and Politico
This is absurd:
You don't get to go around claiming to be for SPJ standards and then selectively ignore them. If a journalist was investigating say, an organized crime story, and one of their sources lied to them a billion times, why would they use that person as a source, other than to point out that they are a liar?
Geez, is there really anything more pathetic than "journalists" who live and die by what Matt Freaking Drudge thinks? These "journalists" at Politico are on their way to the Dennis Miller zone. They used to be kind of good at what they did, and then Nine Eleven Two Thousand and One broke their brains into little bitty pieces.
It's some kind of weird semi-famous middle aged guy syndrome, and what's even more sad is that in 2003 they were the "serious thinkers." Turns out their grasp of reality is as tenuous as the right wingers they so admire.
What all journalists need to understand, whether they are good ones, bad ones or indifferent one, is that they are political actors whether they like it or not. And good journalists, at least as defined by the standards of their profession, will carefully check facts and seek multiple sources both for accuracy and balance.
They will also avoid the appearance of bias. Sucking up to Matt Drudge is not good journalism. It's not even journalism as defined by the profession, it's using the cover of journalism to promote RNC talking points, facts be damned.
Wait for it--wait for it (all together now, in CAPS! "TIME FOR A BLOGGER ETHICS CONFERENCE!"
As Media Matters for America has noted, Politico chief political correspondent Mike Allen's March 27 article, "Rookie Mistakes Plague Obama," was apparently flagged by Matt Drudge's website, The Drudge Report, approximately one hour before The Politico posted the article on its website on the evening of March 26. John Harris, Politico editor-in-chief, has written about the media's interest in having their work linked to on the Drudge Report. Several commentators, including blogger Glenn Greenwald, have noted an apparent tendency of Drudge to link to Politico items. Media Matters has reviewed the Drudge Report Archives and found that since The Politico launched on January 23, Drudge has linked to Politico items on at least 45 separate occasions.Look, "journalists." Matt Drudge is a twisted little idiot who is wrong as often as he is right. He's The National Enquirer of politics.
In The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008 (Random House, October 2006), Harris -- then of The Washington Post -- and then-ABC political director Mark Halperin devoted an entire chapter to Drudge's influence over the media, titled "How Matt Drudge Rules Our World," in which they state that Drudge "leans right" and warned that "[n]o Democratic politician will survive in the 2008 presidential campaign," unless they "understand" Drudge and have a "strategy" to "defend" themselves "against" Drudge. Harris and Halperin noted the great interest on the part of media, political operatives and political figures to have the Drudge Report link to an article or other material of theirs, even citing Harris' own book, The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House (Random House, May 2005) as an example. They also noted that Post editors are "delighted when Drudge does link to stories at Washington.post.com" and "frustrat[ed]" when he does not.
You don't get to go around claiming to be for SPJ standards and then selectively ignore them. If a journalist was investigating say, an organized crime story, and one of their sources lied to them a billion times, why would they use that person as a source, other than to point out that they are a liar?
Geez, is there really anything more pathetic than "journalists" who live and die by what Matt Freaking Drudge thinks? These "journalists" at Politico are on their way to the Dennis Miller zone. They used to be kind of good at what they did, and then Nine Eleven Two Thousand and One broke their brains into little bitty pieces.
It's some kind of weird semi-famous middle aged guy syndrome, and what's even more sad is that in 2003 they were the "serious thinkers." Turns out their grasp of reality is as tenuous as the right wingers they so admire.
What all journalists need to understand, whether they are good ones, bad ones or indifferent one, is that they are political actors whether they like it or not. And good journalists, at least as defined by the standards of their profession, will carefully check facts and seek multiple sources both for accuracy and balance.
They will also avoid the appearance of bias. Sucking up to Matt Drudge is not good journalism. It's not even journalism as defined by the profession, it's using the cover of journalism to promote RNC talking points, facts be damned.
Wait for it--wait for it (all together now, in CAPS! "TIME FOR A BLOGGER ETHICS CONFERENCE!"
