Journalistic Disgraces; And they call this professional?

I will have to say my run in with Charlie Turner really opened my eyes to the trash that passed off as news these days. As this “wannabee-partisan-hack” so clearly pointed out, journalists “are constantly faced with weighing out what is the most important news and what the public needs to know”. Since when did this kind of thinking become acceptable? The public has the RIGHT to know both sides of the issue, and it is WE who decide what is and isn’t important. As with Turner’s article about John Boehner’s comments, instead of investigating the validity of them, instead of spending time ACTUALLY being a journalist, he discusses the feelings of the handful of Obama supporters who decided to see what a Republican thought about “The One’s” lack of experience. Pathetic, but still, if it were only him…

The problem is that this kind of “drive-by-reporting”, as Rush Limbaugh puts it, doesn’t really get to the heart of the story. These faux-reporters show up, throw around their bias, do as much damage to those they report on, and then run off as their “victims” lick their wounds. One only has to look at how Sarah Palin was treated during the election to see how this works, reporting on everything irrelevant to her run for Vice-President, like this derangement about the Alaskan governor’s daughter Bristol. While I could continue discusses individual stories, why not put the spotlight on the people who report this fiction? A list, as it were, of some of the worst offenders still allowed to call themselves professionals…

Diane Sawyer – I think her performance during Obama’s inauguration shows that this woman is well past her prime. Drunk or not, it clearly showed that she is now an embarrassment to any station that employs her now. Continuing this now obvious trend of a lack in professionalism, Sawyer was demanding John McCain choose a side in the pathetic assault on radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. When you read stories like this, it is hard to think that Diane used to a respectable journalist…

In her defense, I will say that this wasn’t always the case. There was a time when Sawyer’s name was respected in journalism, but it would seem not anymore. Long gone are the days when she was interviewing the likes of Charles Manson and Saddam Hussein, now Diane is simply a shell of what she used to be…

Joining Oprah Winfrey in partisan obscurity…

George Stephanopoulos – He seems like a decent human being, but I would prefer my news not coming out of the same mouth which had its lips glued to Obama’s ass throughout the election. Watching these ABC News interviews, sometimes you really have to wonder where “The One” ends and he begins, something echoed by Brent Bozell of the Media Research Centre (MRC). Matter of fact, Bozell has called out Stephanopoulos, demanding he start acting like a reporter again, instead of a propaganda agent. It isn’t even reporting by any stretch of the imagination, it is simply a megaphone for the White House’s talking points. Pathetic…

Now I am willing to forgive a few of his transgressions, including asking Obama whether he will prosecute Bush for “War Crimes” (huh?), but don’t pass yourself off as a non-partisan. We aren’t that stupid, we can see the Democrat’s hands controlling you like the puppet you are, getting you and your cohorts to dance to their tune. The real worrisome thing about George is that he still has quite sometime left in his career in media (which he started after leaving the Clinton Administration) and he has already sold out. While we can forgive Sawyer for her declaring his loyalties in the “sunset years”, especially after ACTUALLY reporting the news for so long, his partisanship right after hitting his stride is disgusting…

Be a real reporter and get your lips off the President’s ass… Pathetic…

UPDATE: Spoke to soon about Stephanopoulos being a decent human being. As Politico’s John F. Harris reported last week, he has been taking phone calls from Rahm Emmanuel, the White House chief of staff, for quite some time. This is clearly a conflict of interest, as Brent Bozell of the MRC has stated recently, and I think it goes to show that he isn’t a reporter, but a mouth piece for the Democrats. We have enough of those on TV already, we don’t need another…

He has more in common with Paul Begala than Diane Sawyer, and should have been further down on this list… My apologies for thinking this ABC reporter could possess integrity…

Barbara Walters – What a hag. I will have to say that within the last year or so, all the good will and respect this woman built up over her long career was pissed away in countless displays of rabid partisanship. What is even more troubling is that you can now turn on her talk show, The View, to see these disgraceful performances on a daily basis. Most recently, these vultures tried feeding on Ann Coulter, assaulting the best selling author with their own bias fueled fiction. Even Jerry Springer was nicer to his guests than these women… Pathetic, but that isn’t all…

In an interview with Rush Limbaugh, Walters took a swipe at “Rushbo” by asking if he was worth all the money he was making, if he felt bad about it during a recession, when so many people were losing their jobs. Of course Barbara doesn’t feel bad about the money she makes, but that is besides the point to her. This is a woman who feels she doesn’t have to live by the “standards” she uses to criticize others. Walters is also the same woman who went on the Oprah Winfrey Show last year, bragging about a past affair she had with Edward Brooke, the first African-American elected to the United States Senate. Does that somehow justify her support for Barack Obama then? Seeing as how Brooke was a Republican, Walters can’t say that her adoration for “The One” is due to his radically left philosophies can she? Its true, “once you had black, you can’t go back” right Barbara?

I think at the age of 79, this woman has lost her mind… That and her morality…

Rachel Maddow – I really don’t know how a prepubescent boy can masquerade as an intelligent female political analyst for MSNBC. Honestly, I have a hard time seeing this “woman” as a woman. She is constantly appearing in interviews dressed up like a high school student, and if you take the time to listen to her, she even sounds like one… I knew anti-social outcasts in my youth with more political sensibility then her, and she gets the attention? Mind-boggling…

One has to take anything this hack says as nonsense, especially when she rails against Fox News while admitting she has never watched the station. I have made the mistake of sitting through her dribble numerous times, and each and every time Maddow tries to make a point, it comes across as a mindless rant. Why do we put up with this? It is because she is a lesbian? Is she the “equal-opportunity” rabidly partisan hack? I don’t think that her gender (of lack there of in Maddow’s case) gives her the right to push this garbage, especially when no caller can question her on it…

One final note, while her supporters can discuss how she has doubled MSNBC ratings, that doesn’t really mean much when they are still garbage anyways… I guess an angry lesbian isn’t the rating grab it used to be… Eh Rosie?

Randi Rhodes – While not a journalist, her actions should be addressed. For someone who claims to have a “reporter’s eye”, she sure has a sailor’s mouth,

Geraldine Ferraro turned out to be the David Duke in drag … What a whore Geraldine Ferraro is! She’s such a fucking whore! I wanna see her have to stand beside her husband at one of those mandatory ‘I have sinned against you; I’m a whore’ kind of a press conference. Mr. Ferraro should have to stand next to his whore of a wife … Hillary is a big fucking whore, too. You know why she’s a big fucking whore? Because her deal is always, ‘Read the fine print, asshole!’

The rant was the “straw that broke the camel’s back”, leading Rhodes to seek employment elsewhere. One has to wonder how bad was she if even Air America won’t take her? If she isn’t attacking Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton, she is taking shots at Sarah Palin…

She’s the woman who shows up at the kid’s birthday party and starts opining about everything from politics to lawn care. This is the woman that knows it all. Will shout you down, will get revenge on you. That’s who she is…. She’s friends with all the teenage boys. You have to say no when your kids say, ‘can we sleep over at the Palin’s? No! NO!’

This is nothing more than libel, slander which cross the line into criminal. Let’s not forget that she also threatened President Bush’s life and advised Hurricane Katrina survivors to go out and steal from the wealthiest stores they know, both actions which should have landed her in prison, if not a padded room…

How can this even be considered “acceptable” in mainstream media? Pathetic…

Heather Mallick – Not to say that Canada doesn’t have its own disgraces, but they are few and far between when compared to what the MSM in the United States has become. Meet Ms. “Few and Far Between”, Heather Mallick, the woman who decided verbally assault Sarah Palin in her column. As Jonathan Kay of The National Post reported, in a display of absolute classlessness, Mallick called Palin a “redneck dressed as a porn star”. She then went after the rest of the family by saying Todd Palin was a “roughneck”, Track was terrified about being forced to go to Iraq, and Bristol had a “pramface”. What a classless act eh? On a hypocriticial note, while Mallick claims to be a feminist and socialist, she went after Palin from an almost shovanistic approach, and then decided to knock her husband for being a union member. That doesn’t sound rather feministic or socialistic does it? You can’t even defend this behaviour by saying she was “sticking to her guns”, especially when she wasn’t “packing” to begin with…

It should also be noted that Heather Mallick used to write for the Globe and Mail before she was let go for her left-leaning rabid anti-Americanism. Why should tax payers fund the CBC when they hire partisan hacks like her? Pathetic… Absolutely mind-boggling and pathetic…

Paul Begala – I can’t stand this Begala, political analyst or not, he looks like a troll… AND ACTS LIKE ONE TOO! Seriously, when CNN removed him, along with James Carville, for their close connections to Hillary Clinton, it should have been noted that this man carries a strong political bias. He is Democratic to the core, so much so that he shares his DNA with donkeys… No wonder he has been an ass lately…

This isn’t the first time he has taken a swing at Rush for his past OxyContin addiction (the man had severe back pains, it is understandable… for people with souls), and it won’t be the last. For partisan hacks like Begala who lack facts (and a soul), this is they’re only defense when dealing with Limbaugh. What do you expect from a man who thought Micheal Moore and MoveOn.org were politically “centered”? President Bush didn’t betray the American people, he wasn’t a “high-functioning moron”, and he certainly is more popular than venereal diseases… Where do you get off even saying these things about the former President?

All I can say is that people should remember that this troll represents the worst of the Democratic party… Another reason why he should be banned again… This time PERMANENTLY…

Rick Sanchez – CNN has a list of disgraces working for them, but none as twisted as Rick Sanchez. Where to begin? For starters, this sad excuse for a journalist likes to invent his own stories. Remember that story about President Bush not being liked by other G20 country leaders? A complete fabrication. And remember how he tried to twist the words of Manfred Nowak, trying to get the United Nations’ special investigator on torture to somehow say that Donald Rumsfeld could be brought up on charges? You could teach a class on the ethical rules being broke in that interview… That’s not all though…

Sanchez has also done his best to belittle those he deems “inferior” to himself, most recently attacking Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (aka Joe The Plumber) in a display of pure partisanship and utter classlessness (twice). Well “Dirty” Sanchez, I am calling YOU out. You want to attack people like Joe for their “sins”, well how about we turn the tables on you? Your driving ruined a man’s life, and depending on who you ask, the officer who pulled you over or your slick lawyer, you were drunk at the time.

Time to step down from that “high horse” and get off television… I can’t believe that anyone takes you seriously…

Keith Olbermann – I could spend hours discussing how awful this man is, but let me try and keep it limited to a paragraph or two. For a good starting point, let’s go to Olbermann Watch and see what “sins” he has committed lately…

Aside from the usual “inaccuracies” in his reporters, Olbermann should explain to his viewers why he isn’t “the worst people in the world” on a nightly basis. Do explain Keith why you were you paying for an apartment for 17-year-old Katy Tur, a girl who is now also your girlfriend? Look at this girl, barely drinking age and he is fifty. Like them young don’t you? I don’t care much for his mid-life perversion… I care less for his politics…

Ignoring that Said Ali al-Shihri was an enemy combatant picked up on the battlefield in Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban, Olbermann decided that it was the Bush Administration’s fault that this man is now an al-Qaeda deputy leader. This derangement also lead him to compare the former President to the Nazis AND the segregationists, all in one segment no less (that must be some kind of radical liberal record). How can he say these things and not get fired?

One has to wonder what standards MSNBC has (if any), to have the likes of Maddow, Matthews AND Olbermann on staff…

*****

There are a few I haven’t mentioned, but I think, by proxy, I have covered every disgraceful journalist we still see spin the news in print or on television. For example, Brian Williams, much like George Stephanopoulos, should come up with his own talking points instead of letting Barack Obama write them for him. That goes for Matt Lauer as well, mainly because his interviews with Barack Obama have never had any real journalistic substance. Chris Matthews shares many common traits with Rachel Maddow, contrary to what she has been saying, but to his credit, he does have moments of clarity where he stops being a partisan hack for a minute to raise a valid point. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer has really gone the way of Barbara Walters, once being the man who stood up to Michael Moore, but now the partisan hack who interrupts a serious political discussion because he wanted to hear Bruce Springsteen sing for “The One”. I could go on, but I feel I have said enough…

I will commend those who do make an effort to bring the news to their viewers with no or very little spin, pointing directly to Joe Scarborough, the only reason to watch MSNBC at all, as he isn’t afraid to stand up and challenge rabid partisanship and slander. While he is far from perfect, in comparison to many of those who work at the station, he is Edward R. Murrow. One has to wonder about the quality of reporting when you can count the credible journalists at a station on one hand (or finger in this case)…

All in all, I really think we should start questioning those who who report the news. People forget that they are just like us, just as imperfect and flawed like we are, perhaps more so (looking at Walters and Olbermann for this one). At the very least, we have to wonder why so many of these faux-journalists are ignoring the blatant corruption which Barack Obama’s administration now embodies after only two weeks. Why didn’t they do their job at help vet this candidate? Why is it that only a select few, like NewsBusters.org will challenge this partisanship?

Oh no, that would have been too hard for some of them… Lord knows that performing their duties, like ACTUALLY investigating the claims of those critical of President Obama, isn’t part of the job description anymore… Right Charlie Turner?

UPDATE: I finish my post on problems with journalism, and I go to Hot Air to check out what’s new… Sure enough, MSNBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd is running defense for the Obama Administration. Urgh… Add his name to the list of people who should grow a spine and report the news, not repeat Barack’s talking points…

No Todd, it wasn’t them vetting Tom Daschle, it was us… Just like with “Sweet” Caroline Kennedy and Timothy “Tax Cheat” Geithner…

UPDATE: NewsBusters.org is reporting on Seton Motley’s interesting conversation with “Fox and Friends” this morning. Motley was discussing the fact that many journalists, including Time magazine’s Jay Carney, have joined the Obama Administration after saying that media bias didn’t exist during the campaign. I think it is obvious NOW that these people were simply NOT doing their job in investigating Barack Obama, but instead, had been working to get him elected. Matt Lewis from AOL news has more on Carney’s hypocrisy…

Pathetic… Absolutely pathetic…