I imagine that the journalism profession has always attracted more than its fair share of people who are left of center.   So in a way,  the Journolist does not come as any great surprise.  But what does stand out about it is the glaring in-your-face nature of the whole thing.

You see, the old school liberals in journalism,  even though they were left-of-center,  wanted to be journalists first and ideologues second.  There was a code of professionalism, admittedly not always followed,  that called on them to put the pursuit of truth first.  (How one defines the truth is always the question.)  Many of them would not even register to vote, or at least not register to vote with a party affiliation,  because of they wanted to somehow conform to this code.

JournoList stands out because of the hubris of this new batch of liberal journalists.  Forget old school;  they are quite content to pass along emails and concoct plans to label people as “racist” who happen to raise questions about Jeremiah Wright.

The old timers were journalists first,  liberals second.  The new crop is clearly made up of those who are liberals first and journalists second.  Indeed,  their journalism is not an end in itself but a means to achieving their liberal ends.   When the New Left began its Long March Through the Institutions in the sixties,  it began with the universities and other centers of power.  It is culminating in the media world. (more…)

George Stephanopoulos’s “interview” with James O’Keefe and Andrew Breitbart on this morning’s Good Morning America summed up everything that is wrong with institutional American journalism. No doubt it is even now speeding its way over to the Newseum for permanent enshrinement in the Hall of Shame.

First, the very fact that a partisan hack like Stephanopoulos is actually employed by ABC News is a disgrace in itself. In the old days of “real journalism,” PR men and political operatives found no welcome in a newsroom: they were considered far too tainted by their flackery to ever be credible as independent reporters or newsgatherers.  And yet here is “Steffi,” one of the architects of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign and star of The War Room, segueing smoothly from blind loyalty to his impeached boss, to the author of a more-in-“sorrow”-than-in-anger tell-all, semi-mea-culpa memoir (for which he was paid $2.75 million), All Too Human: A Political Education, to prime spots in the ABC pantheon.

Is that all it takes — a quick, highly remunerative sheep-dip memoir, accompanied by a few bogus crocodile tears — to transform an apparatchik into a newsman?

But this is our culture today: cheap second-hand celebrity, such as Stephanopoulos’s, has come to replace accomplishment, and its kissing-cousin, access, has been substituted for integrity. You just know that if ABC couldn’t get Bill Clinton then Steffi was the next best thing, the same way CNN hired James Carville and Paul Begala, although with not quite the same breathtaking audacity of dope. (more…)

How do you call someone a racist without actually calling them a racist?  By inventing, jujitsu-style, a euphemism that says just as much.

Witness the spectacle of all those “Senior Fellows” stuffed into the clown car known as “Media Matters for America,” scratching themselves with anger and itching to call conservatives “racists” but having to corkscrew themselves into place to deliver this mind-numbing piece of “research” –

Right-wing mark debate over AZ immigration law with racially charged rhetoric

Numerous right-wing media figures have rushed to defend Arizona’s controversial new immigration law, often by employing racially charged rhetoric, imagery, and stereotypes. Many have also embraced racial profiling while promoting the legislation.

Their examples of racist language racially charged rhetoric? This being Media Matters, naturally they don’t have any.  So they expect you accept these substitutes: (more…)

The Mainstream Media’s (MSM’s) latest sport is to try to accuse the Tea Party activists of being Republican hacks. The reality is that their spin is demonstrative again, of their Pavlovian simplicity and lack of vision for their own agenda.

In truth, were the Democrats to give up their agenda of bigger government, more debt, and more spending, some Tea Partiers would return to the party of their grandparents.  Sadly, it appears more likely that donkeys will fly than turn from their statist tack.  For now, donkeys aren’t flying, and the Republicans have an opportunity to garner the support of the Tea Party if they play their cards right.

Tea Partiers will admit that the Republican agenda is much more closely aligned with theirs than the Democrats, even if they are not ready to be pigeonholed with that label.  Most Tea Partiers say that under certain conditions, they might be Republicans, but for now, they are happy “looking in” and demanding changes. (more…)