Before the event began, a long line of partygoers waited on the sidewalk outside the hotel to check in. CBS chief Les Moonves and his wife, Julie Chen, waited patiently for their wristbands. Obama, Moonves said, “has shown great leadership” on the issue of gay marriage.
Though he heads a news division, Moonves said, “ultimately journalism has changed … partisanship is very much a part of journalism now.”
He hastened to add that despite his presence, “I run a news division. I’ve given no money to any candidate.”
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Well, no money, except the $1250x2 to attend the Obama fundraiser, of course.
Moonves said, “ultimately journalism has changed … partisanship is very much a part of journalism now.”
That was, at best, a very stupid thing for him to say. I wonder if there is some context that we are missing. Still, “high powered, non-FOX media executive is an Obama supporter” isn’t exactly, how shall we say… news worthy? Whether that puts the news division in “Obama’s pocket” is another matter.
But maybe he has a point. Who watches network news these days anyway?
Not necessarily. It mean that someone is controlling you. It’s leverage – which might be money, blackmail information, hookers and blow…
Presidents and the White House staff have lots of leverage, just by issuing (or refusing to issue) press credentials, or not taking the calls from reporters or agencies that have pissed them off.
I for one am shocked that liberals are not unilaterally giving up and letting Fox News be the Republican Party’s version of Pravda. How dare another network become politicized. Didn’t Fox patent that or something? It’s really in the networks best interest in the long term. Why pay all these fancy pants reporters when you can do what Fox does and just make shit up.
From that quote it’s impossible to know if it was stupid or not. The article doesn’t supply context. There’s no indication that he meant CBS was now going to actively slant their news division to favor a particular party or candidate.
He could have been discussing the blurring between “news” and “commentary” that Fox is often accused of.
So if one starts or becomes employed by a news organization, what is the process by which you are supposed to have all your existing political opinions erased? Is it surgical, or perhaps is there an opinion-eradicating drug?
From my reading of that link, the LGBT event was not an Obama fundraiser. It was a “LGBT Leadership Council Gala featuring TV host DeGeneres and pop icon Cher.” Apparently Obama was a featured speaker, but it doesn’t look like any monies went his way.
In the nineteenth century, journalism and journalists seemed to be very sensationalist. (This is only an observation based solely on high school social studies classes.)
Then, for whatever reason, the pendulum swung in the other direction, and journalism/ists moved towards trying to project an “objective” approach to news reporting.
What caused this swing? (I assume somehow the consumers communicated a desire for this change, but I don’t know what the catalyst could have been.)
Is it possible that journalism/ists rediscovered how effective sensationalism can be at selling ad space/time to sponsers? How can we nudge the pendulum back towards non sensationalism?
I’m not sure when the change to objectivity occured, but it seems to be around the middle of the 20th century. Before that time newspaper and magazine articles were considered highly unreliable. The gravity of WWII may have been the catalyst for non-sensationalist reporting, or perhaps even the advent of television. All in all, objective non-sensational reporting had a pretty short lifespan and may never return.
