Today on Facebook, a fellow I don’t know dismissed a story I’d posted, that of Himself’s refusal to attend intel briefings. He countered that Obama had reportedly skipped a number of similar briefings in his pre-inaugural period, which is true.
But the prime reason for his dismissal was the source of the story, CBS News, which he claimed was “Left” and therefore untrustworthy.
I explained that large news organizations are owned by larger corporations which are, under law (as codified in the Revlon v. MacAndrews case), bound to no ideology whatsoever, only the ever-present demand of maximizing shareholder value, and that, aside from some anomalies like FOX News and some MSNBC programming (which truly do follow the strictures of Revlon) are a great deal more trustworthy than most things one might read or view.
He said little in response, other than a generic affirmation that he knew what he believed.
Tonight, a friend of mine is far away from home and family, out in the remotest parishes of our state, covering races for judges whose names you’ll never know. My friend is a journalist.
My friend is usually stuck on stories like tonight’s, but sometimes is in a position to break some real news. The controversy of compound pharmacies illegally selling execution drugs to prison officials was largely born of my friend’s reporting.
And none of those reports was something my friend “believed.” Every report, every break, was double-checked, and nothing was run until triple-sourced.
My friend doesn’t work for CBS News. Most often, my friend works for one of our dailies, even the neighborhood-interest websites. On rare occasion, a gig will come in from a respected national or international rag, but most often, it’s just the daily grind of reporting.
Which my friend grinds with fine, professional precision. Because that’s the job.
And that’s why my friend, and countless others, are hired by large, shareholder-enslaved corporations. Because the stock in their trade is credibility. Because they know that, while they don’t know the whole story--ever—they understand that what they tell of it had better be right. Or they won’t be working long.
So, to all those, on the left or the right or the proudly, smugly independent, who refuse to credit the reports of the “mainstream media,” I ask:
Has what “you know you believe” been independently verified? Have you questioned a second source that could believably know the tale? How about a third?
There is such a thing as reality and, while those who ply the reporter’s trade know they will never know its whole scope, they work tirelessly, often far from home on cold nights, to assure themselves, their corporate overlords and their readers and viewers, that the piece of reality they’ve presented is as true to the facts as can be known by anyone save the people reported on.
So I don’t much care what you believe. Bring me two more credible witnesses before we even talk about it. Come to think of it, make it three, because what you “believe” isn’t a source.
And if you think it is, I’d purely love to see an editor’s face when you make that assertion.