More on Dan Froomkin

After checking out Adam Short's fine new article on this site, I highly recommend reading PressThinks interview of John Harris and Jim Brady (respectively the Washington Post's national politics and web site editors) re: their recent clampdown on Post columnist Dan Froomkin.

I have come across few things in recent months which evince the character (or lack of it) of the Washington press corp to such a degree as this interview. As Mr. Short aptly terms it, a case of "institutional sclerosis" indeed. Hell, here the Post seemingly didn't even need the predictable stream (scream?) of right-wing accusations of 'liberal bias'; it seems the impetus for censuring Froomkin came primarily from within. In the interview the two senior editors do their best to affect a fine show of reason-ability and a strong sense of professionalism, as they pile up a stack of spurious justifications for their position. Yet they still can't help a little vulgar venom from leaking out. (Harris: "Many readers responding to his blog—the ones that prompted my response—hailed what Dan {Froomkin} does as courageous reporting and denounced other reporters as stenographers. To be blunt: that is total bullshit.") PressThink reprints an e-mail from Harris to Brady as a further illustration of Harris' indignation: "The very idea of independent reporting, in which a reporter is trying to cover news and institutions without an agenda—in other words, our professional code—is under widespread assault. That is why I have been up on a horse about Froomkin in ways that probably seem disproportionate to you." Yes, Harris is certainly "up on a Horse" and has responded in a fashion highly "disproportionate" to any possible wrongdoing on Froomkin's part. "Independent reporting?!?" Is that what Harris is so vigorously defending? Largely at his instigation, he and his paper have publicly and ostentatiously criticized one of their own, even to the point of expressing a measure of sympathy for--and thus tacitly affirming--what the wingnuts of the world have had to say about him. Gee, I am sure all of this has filled Froomkin--and any of his peers who might dare follow his example--with the strongest sense of 'independence.' Wasn't there a time when editors defended their staff publicly and delivered any criticism privately? Silly me, I thought that that was part of the "professional code" of journalism.

Froomkin violated a code, but it was one of decorum, not professionalism. The decorum of a press corp which has degenerated into a vain, insular, and self-entitled clique, for whom the defense of the public interest ranks a distant second to careerism. In such a clime appearances are of primary importance, thus the affectation of journalistic professionalism so often trumps the real thing. Accordingly, moral cowardice is passed off as 'objectivity'; the craven avoidance of any controversial contention is presented as sober, 'professional' detachment; in short, any act of genuine journalistic integrity is to be avoided lest it jeopardize the half-calculated illusion of it. Thus, in America we have journalists covering controversial subjects who are terrified of provoking controversy. Froomkin's cardinal sin is to be controversial by criticizing his peers dread avoidance of it.


Robert

money, power, connections have replaced the journalism some of us knew.

everytime i hear a journalist or editor defend the current state of journalism and journalistic integrity -- i want to scream.

that the party needs to move to the right. And others say we need to move the party further left.

ALL BULLSHIT!

It's the GOP control of the media and the voting machines - expose that and we can have some democracy back in this country.

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