Archives
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Oh Please...
JOURNALISM IS ALL ABOUT HONESTY. Damn, the mass media love to praise themselves, especially by proxy. I'm sure Don Hewitt loved his family and knew how to get 44 minutes of 60 Minutes on the air every week (Hmmm, how's that for ironclad journalistic integrity?), but as a journalist he was a propagandist worthy of Goebbels. Even otherwise glowing depictions of the man were forced to concede that his work had its less than shining moments:
Inevitably the program has also been
charged with bias. "You get the feeling they sometimes shape a story to
fit their preconceptions," says Los Angeles Times TV critic Howard
Rosenberg. "I remember a 1991 piece on animal rights where the
activists were depicted as screaming zealots while scientists against
animal rights were calm distinguished figures in suits. It was
incredibly slanted." But Hewitt stands by his record—and his staff. "We
have an editor," he says, "whose sole job is to compare the cut segment
to the uncut transcript and answer the question 'Have we been fair?' "
uh, frequently the "fair" answer has to be no. The faked Audi story, the Alar fiasco, and so many corporate ambush hackjobs that leading PR executives counseled companies in this particular instance not to appear on 60 Minutes even while standard advice called for maximum openness and cooperation on controversial stories. Insiders knew Hewitt and his crew were not to be trusted.
That's all I'll say about Hewitt. But I will remind you there's something significant about the speed with which 20th century dinosaurs are dying off. Something big is going to happen. Something the citizens of the last age don't want to be part of.
P.S. An interesting and baffling question has been posed at the Metalkort. Everyone's encouraged to weigh in. You don't need to be an approved poster to comment.
