Claiming the Kneepads
Mar 9th, 2008 at 10:29 am by Susie
Glenn Greenwald on Tucker Carlson’s revelation of the appropriate role of the handmaiden press:
The number one rule of the standard establishment journalist is to avoid offending the powerful because the more offense they give, the fewer favors the powerful will do for the journalists. Conversely, and by logical necessity, the more journalists please the powerful, the more favors the powerful will do for them. As Carlson put it: “People don’t talk to you when you go out of your way to hurt them as you did.” I can’t think of any single dynamic that better explains what has happened the last eight years than that one.
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As for Carlson’s snide, self-loving claim that “journalistic standards in Great Britain are so much dramatically lower than they are here,” just watch this relentlessly probing, adversarial interview by the BBC’s Jeremy Paxman of John Bolton regarding the Bush administration’s invasion and occupation of Iraq, and ask yourself: how many American TV reporters would ever dare to conduct an interview of a high Bush official like this, especially when it’s with a Serious Foreign Policy Expert regarding our being a Nation At War?
I liked the part where Bolton was asked if he was just parroting the party line. I think he was actually scared there.
Wow. Too bad reporters here in the US didn’t interview officials like that. Not as good as this one by BBC - but Jon Stewart did a pretty good job on Bolton too.