“INCORPORATION, n. The act of uniting several persons into one fiction called a corporation, in order that they may be no longer responsible for their actions. A, B and C are a corporation. A robs, B steals and C (it is necessary that there be one gentleman in the concern) cheats. It is a plundering, thieving, swindling corporation. But A, B and C, who have jointly determined and severally executed every crime of the corporation, are blameless. It is wrong to mention them by name when censuring their acts as a corporation, but right when praising. Incorporation is somewhat like the ring of Gyges: it bestows the blessing of invisibility–comfortable to knaves. The scoundrel who invented incorporation is dead–he has disincorporated.”

Ambrose Bierce, The Devils Dictionary

Before I move on, I wanted to offer a quick apology of sorts – I am very hard on American journalists. I can forgive ignorance, as we are all ignorant about most things. Then there is dullness – frankly, most people in most professions are not that bright, journalism no exception, that is, the average IQ is 100.

It is their hubris that fires my rockets. But that could be mere defensive posturing on their part, as they are often roundly criticized.

I have been reminded or I have read someone write that inside the profession there are many very bright people. But they cannot speak up for fear of losing their jobs, or worse yet meeting Michael Hastings’ fate. If true, they are living their lives with their little lights under a bushel basket, which would explain the need for hubris to contain their angst.

But I do believe that under such pressure and tension, people either leave and do something more psychically satisfying, or break in spirit and get their minds right. Whichever it is, dullness, light under the bushel, or broken spirit, from the outside looking in, the result is identical: Very bad journalism.

Here, just for fun, again, is a satellite photo of the area directly west of Manhattan and Long Island on the morning of 9/11/2001. No American journalist knows about that hurricane, named Erin, which was virtually ignored in New York City news coverage in the days before as it made its way up the east coast. Thanks guys for the heads up.

Speaking of left gatekeepers, here is a surly quote from another, dead-on in my view:

Journalists should pride themselves for their lowly status, only a yard or two ahead of the gendarmes and with prison stocks our likely fate if we do our jobs properly. Now the idea is to have the moral standing of bishops. What rubbish! What pretension!
(Alexander Cockburn)

It is that “moral standing of bishops” that drives me bonkers. I imagine that in private gatherings they wear those big penis-shaped hats that Catholic bishops do. Merely attaining the status of “editor,” that is, knowing where power lies being submissive to it, is in their line of work an honorary accolade.

One ex-editor of the Billings Gazette conferred the title of “editor emeritus” to his resumé. The word “emeritus” is used to designate a retired bishop, pope, president, prime minister …honestly, this is how they view themselves. It is a far cry from being one step ahead of the gendarmes.

The next time you are watching a debate among candidates hosted by journalists, such as Gwen Ifill, Candy Crowley or Bob Schieffer, picture the moderator in the phallic hat worn by Bishop Sheen above. It adds humor to the affair. Understand that the position of debate moderator is only granted to those known to pose no threat to power.

The defining characteristic of an American journalist is absence of an inquisitive nature. They praise each other for it.

People who know David Crisp know him to be a nice man of both letters and integrity. That makes it hard to be critical of him. But I will. Someone has to.

From his article “From the Outpost: Papers go dark when news is about them,” I capture some telling sentences below.

The article is about how Lee Newspapers shut down its Helena Bureau and gave two journalists a hard choice – pay cut or the door.

Here are some excerpts from Mr. Crisp’s article about Charles Johnson and Mike Dennison:

As of this writing, late Tuesday, I have been unable to find a reference to the story in any Lee newspaper—not the Billings Gazette, the Helena Independent Record, the Missoulian, the Montana Standard or the Ravalli Republic, or any of the Lee’s numerous satellite publications in Montana. …

…Blogs and news sites such as Last Best News picked it up almost immediately and drew dozens of comments from readers.

This is a bugaboo in journalism, that their job is simply to write stuff that will be written anyway somewhere. Why should I care if a Ravalli paper or the I Like Boobs blog carries an easily accessible story like this? There is no great accomplishment in printing it on Tuesday instead of Monday, or on a blog instead of in a newspaper. The knowledge has little impact on us (it is a very big deal to journalists, I realize), and the timing and means of receipt of the information are of no consequence.

Chuck Johnson has covered the state capital since the Constitutional Convention of 1972. I have gotten to know him a little, and I have read his work for many years. If he has any political biases, I have been unable to detect them. …

…Mike Dennison has been in recent years, if anything, the more aggressive of the two reporters. He covered healthcare better than any Montana reporter I know about. His stories were detailed, precise and fair, and his occasional columns were must reads. …

…the web has nothing yet to match the expertise and deep knowledge that Johnson and Dennison brought to statewide coverage of Montana.

There’s a theme there, and it is a little difficult to detect, but I’ll try: Johnson and Dennison write stuff. They don’t allow their personal opinions to interfere with what they write. That’s why they are really good at what they do, no matter that the stuff they write is easily accessible and will be widely known whether they write it or someone else does. Everything that is acted out on the public stage, even in wee hours of the morning, gets written somewhere. So what?

In the mind of the journalist, the highest accolade is fairness and objectivity. Screw that. I want to know what is going on behind the scenes, off stage – money changing hands, deals cut, political cover and inside baseball. Fairness and objectivity are nice, but not useful. Power gets to do what power does behind the scenes even as reporters are fair and balanced.

Professional journalists are trained to avoid losing objectivity, of becoming involved in the story, even if in so doing they tell us something that we might otherwise not have known.

Here’s an example: In late 2002 and early 2003, the government lied to the public about Iraq, claiming by means both open and psychologically suggestive that Iraq (“Saddam Hussein”) was involved in 9/11, had nuclear and chemical weaponry, and was going it attack us. American journalists did their job, as they see it, reporting the lies in a fair and objective manner.

The result: hundreds of thousands of dead, a massive refugee crisis, and a crime of significant historic proportions, surely the greatest slaughter of the new century.

We had no one running interference for us, burrowing and getting down to the underlying truth. Our reporters were busy being professionals, reporting on what he and she said. The New York Times even allowed lies to go front page through Judith Miller, as if they could not control or discipline her.

That’s American journalism. I’m sorry, Mr. Crisp, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Dennison, to be the one with a scoop here, but writing down what public officials say and do in public, even if you do it on Tuesday instead of Wednesday, and in the New York Times instead of  the Ravalli Republic, is not an important job. Anyone can do that, even me.

We need people of steely resolve who are fearless of making enemies and who attempt to find out what powerful people are really doing. The ‘finding out’ part is very difficult. The ‘reporting back’ to us not so much. Somewhere along the line American journalists forgot about the ‘finding out’ part.

High praise given journalists by public officials is a sign they are not doing their job. Otherwise, powerful people would not like them so much.

Real journalism, finding out what powerful people are doing and reporting it to us, has value. Informed public opinion, even if enraged or indignant, and even in our fake democracy, matters.

We don’t have journalism. Shutting down a state bureau is not significant. We’ve got bigger problems than that. I feel the pain of dispatched reporters. But the world moves forward without a wobble, having lost nothing of value.
____________________
PS: Mr. Crisp has little regard for bloggers, in fact, even a haughty disdain. It is true, we do not do what he does, and I too have haughty disdain as a result. He quotes another blog, apparently a self-loathing one:

The 4&20 Blackbirds blog may have put the issue most concisely: “So what fills the vacuum? If the answer is bloggers, we’re screwed.”

Of course, blogs are not the answer, but let’s be clear: What we had before the Internet and blogs … that was not the answer either.

We need … reporting.

The blog was down this morning – a computer at WordPress identified it as a source of spam or some such thing.  Having been raised Catholic, my first move was to examine my conscience – have I used copyrighted photos? Offended people? And second thoughts – blogging is such a merry-go-round, nothing ever changes, hardly anyone reads or thinks independently, and those who do know who they are.

And, of course, I was frustrated that some unknown person somewhere had such power over me. I hate it when people have power over me!!! I pay $99 a year for a domain name and was under the impression I owned my content here. Apparently not.

Anyway, all’s well, but I will be more careful about copyrights and stuff. That was a jolt. And I will be nicer. Starting now.

Ah, screw that.