I actually think its surprising to see how much investigative journalism has grown in sports when compared to political coverage. Athletes are regularly exposed for relatively minor shortcomings (infidelity, etc.) whereas many political actors and organizations rarely get criticized the same way.
You're right with Anthony Wiener being a possible exception. It's all in an effort to distract & entertain the masses while wealth is being transferred to the top .1% through credit bubbles and wars. Roger Clemens? Barry Bonds? Truly an incredible amount of waste of the govt's resources.
I think the answer is clearly yes. If the media gets a hold of a list of US undercover agents' names, should they publish it? If they get a hold of troop movements in the middle of a war, should they publish them? If they uncovered that the US was about to launch an assault on Bin Laden's compound, should they have reported that? The news media's purpose is to report. But if they report any of the above, they create news (and deaths) instead. There is such a thing as irresponsible journalism - remember, you're talking about information vs people's lives. At some point, lives comes first.
Good point. Journalism covers affairs of the state obviously but not all collateral is a life or death scenario of troops. Political fall out, financial ruin, embarrassment, exposure of corruption with government and specific corporate interests could all be considered collateral. That's the collateral I was considering when I posed the question. By the way, did we ever find WMD in Iraq?
Agreed - and many of those things are acceptable, especially when people are doing things that are illegal/etc of course. I don't think there is a perfect dividing line there - but that's why I think it's good when the media has an open debate about whether publishing certain things crosses that line or not.
Maybe the news coverage was slightly over the top, but it's almost as if more than a few reporters are collecting an under-the-table paycheck from the RNC to make everyone sick of this story so Obama can't flout it as an accomplishment. We can also say reporters got a little starry-eyed with their stories when bin Laden was taken out---Biden and his rosary beads, the reactions of Obama's daughters and such---but that's the sort of stuff you're gonna get when a President actually does his job and orders the assassination of bin Laden, something his predecessor couldn't be bothered with. Reporters will hit every angle to get a story.
^^ are you/glenn saying that American news media often and frequently has the same type of guests on as Assange's show seems to include? That doesn't make sense. He says so himself: "An interview with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, the first in many years given by the controversial and powerful figure" his very first episode included an interview with someone who generally doesn't give interviews. or is the point the complete opposite? that last paragraph was poorly worded.
I would say he's saying the exact opposite. "I thought it would be worthwhile briefly to review the six programs Assange has now produced and let everyone decide for themselves how these programs compare to the criticisms voiced and, more generally, to the quality, substance, and range of debate from America’s cable and network news programs."
Remember the earlier article comparing Assange's first program to Anderson Cooper's first program off CNN. Assange interviewed the leader of Hezbollah while Cooper interviewed Any Winehouse's father soon after her passing.
Of course not. The point was that you never see these sorts of perspectives, these interviewees, or this sort of dialogue on American news channels. These ideas/people/debates simply don't exist in major American media.
