08-12-2018, 09:40 PM
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/frank_miel...esnt_exist
"How — I am sometimes asked — can a journalist like me question the ethics of a fellow journalist reporting about the White House? Shouldn’t all reporters and editors stick together?
Well, no. They should stick with the truth.
Consider if the question were turned around. What if we asked: How can a politician question the ethics of a fellow politician? Shouldn’t all politicians stick together?
Obviously, some of them would like to. That would make it easier for them to lie, cheat and steal — what we now call “living in the swamp.”
But fortunately there are some politicians who insist on holding each other accountable; by the same exact token, one hopes there are a sufficient number of journalists who will hold each other accountable when members of their trade do shoddy work — which, in our case, means either getting the facts wrong or intentionally misleading the public about what the facts mean.
In fact, the term “fake news” — popularized to the consternation of the media by President Trump — was first put in wide use hundreds of years ago. Nor is Trump the first president to question the veracity of press reports. No less a personage than Thomas Jefferson, who valued the free press as highly as anyone, nonetheless found many of its practitioners to be wanting in judgment and ethics...."
"How — I am sometimes asked — can a journalist like me question the ethics of a fellow journalist reporting about the White House? Shouldn’t all reporters and editors stick together?
Well, no. They should stick with the truth.
Consider if the question were turned around. What if we asked: How can a politician question the ethics of a fellow politician? Shouldn’t all politicians stick together?
Obviously, some of them would like to. That would make it easier for them to lie, cheat and steal — what we now call “living in the swamp.”
But fortunately there are some politicians who insist on holding each other accountable; by the same exact token, one hopes there are a sufficient number of journalists who will hold each other accountable when members of their trade do shoddy work — which, in our case, means either getting the facts wrong or intentionally misleading the public about what the facts mean.
In fact, the term “fake news” — popularized to the consternation of the media by President Trump — was first put in wide use hundreds of years ago. Nor is Trump the first president to question the veracity of press reports. No less a personage than Thomas Jefferson, who valued the free press as highly as anyone, nonetheless found many of its practitioners to be wanting in judgment and ethics...."