Ever since the last election, reporters have been blamed for anything and everything. They are not asking any questions, they are asking too many questions, they were being somehow unfair to Palin by asking her questions and talking about her family on one side of politics, while the same side was bashing Hillary and her family. And the same was happening from the other side. This has been an ongoing trend for a while now, but this last year has been as worst as I've seen it. Now, much is being made of this video of Matt Lauer's interview with Michelle Malkin about her new book "Culture of Corruption" on the Today Show. I don't even care what her book is about, the odd part of all this is how folks feel he lost his cool. Maybe I'm just happy when any "journalist" asks questions of an opposing side no matter how strongly they have to ask it in order to get a word in edgewise, but I was ok with him doing it. I'd be ok with any of them on any station doing the same to one of their guests. Or maybe I just have a different view of how "journalists" should do their jobs.
It is my belief that reporters/journalists should always ask questions as if they were the devil's advocate to any topic being discussed. And yes, part of that belief is because I do think there are too many people that only listen to the sound bites of whatever network news they choose to watch. And I also believe that many people don't know enough or care enough to dig any deeper than what they hear, or maybe they aren't even capable of doing so. So, any good journalist should ask opposing questions. Do I believe there are folks on certain stations that would never have interrupted Michelle because they wanted only her side heard by their listeners?... absolutely. I also think that there are stations that would not interrupt someone saying that Obama is all great and all knowing because that's their belief. However, that's not what reports should be doing. They should ask questions on both sides regardless of their personal opinions. That's the only way to get some listeners to think for themselves... something I think is sorely lacking these days by how news stations are providing their version of news.
I certainly get that there are many many people that are strictly partisan, no matter what. Personally, I'm not one of them. I'm not naive enough to believe that even if I vote for someone, or a particular party, that they will always do the right thing, any more than I believe that just because I didn't vote for them, that they will always be wrong. But a lot of people are and will never, given the stations they listen to, be able to even hear another side if journalists don't do their job correctly. They need to go back to the Walter Cronkite days and ask the tough questions regardless of their own opinions or what network they work for. Partisan reporting is like partisan government, and we all know how much work gets done when no one will even attempt to cooperate with the other side. It's been happening for far too many years now. It's like watching 2 year olds play in the sandbox... you just want to scream "why can't we all just get along". Or maybe we could just at least attempt to for the sake of this country that everyone claims to care so much about. Not much will ever get done to get us back on track if all we do is just stick to our own views and never ask the tough questions.
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