Friday, October 23, 2009

When journalism is un-American

Obama has publicly accused Fox News of right-wing bias. Fox News hotly denied the charge -- in a manner that confirmed it. They said Obama is wrong and politically motivated without offering evidence or without explaining why Obama may see political gain in doing what he did.

Not only is this bad reporting, it is un-American, ignoring the purpose of a news service in an democracy. Even worse than being a corrupt network their example is corrupting all of cable news. Rival networks attempt to be as populist and to use their own ideological filter.

So Jacob Weisberg of Newsweek has a solution, one that my friend and debate partner has been suggesting for a good long time now: Ignore Fox News.

Now that might be hard to get some segments of the general public to go along with that. But it should be possible for other news organizations to boycott them. Don't refer to their stories. Don't try to imitate them. Don't debate them. Don't explain why they're unreliable. Don't appear on their shows (you'll only be used as propaganda). Journalistic ethics demands ignoring them.

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