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September 17, 2006Oh, those goofy “mediating intelligences!”A few months ago Samuel Freedman, professor of journalism at Columbia University and a columnist on Education for The New York Times, wrote a guest piece over at CBS’ Public Eye, in which he groused about bloggers, and cable news outlets and “citizen journalists” and tried to make the case for the superiority of what I like to call “big-time-professional journalism.” Among other nonsense, he wrote: To treat an amateur as equally credible as a professional, to congratulate the wannabe with the title “journalist,” is only to further erode the line between raw material and finished product. For those people who believe that editorial gate-keeping is a form of censorship, if not mind control, then I suppose the absence of any mediating intelligence is considered a good thing. Ah, yes…those “mediating intelligences,” the bastions of truth and accuracy and balance, our last and best protection against frummery and partisan hackery. The necessary “gatekeepers.” Real Clear Politics has a nice example of how they operate, these days. One AP story, two headlines:
and
RCP discovered the changed headlines after a reader accused them of themselves doing their own edit. You’ll want to read the whole thing, and get the whole story - and to find out which headline is “accurate,” too. H/T Blue Crab Boulevard This is, of course, not the first time we’ve seen headlines push inaccurate ideas - remember the 800,000 jobs “lost” except they never were?. We saw inaccurate (and inflammatory) headlines just a few days ago concerning Pope Benedict’s most recent speech, and as I wrote then, the playing around with headlines by “mediating intelligences” matters a great deal: Headlines have a powerful effect on the world. Busy or incurious people rarely read past them. For some, the headline tells them all they will ever know about a thing. Yes, and the press knows it. Those “mediating intelligences” though, defended and praised by Sam Freedman (did I mention he is a Professor of Journalism at Columbia J-School?) they just want to be sure we get the “correct” story. If by “correct” you mean not “accurate” or “true” but the one they want to push. As I wrote back when Freedman was gassing away last March, who will guard the gatekeepers? http://theanchoressonline.com/2006/09/17/oh-those-goofey-mediating-intelligences/trackback/ 7 Responses to “Oh, those goofy “mediating intelligences!”” |
September 17th, 2006 at 6:04 pm
Well, in fact, a lot of us do rely on “gatekeepers.” My #1 crutch would be Glenn Reynolds. I read lots of other things, in depth, including keeping the AP wire up with excite.com. Then I rely on instapundit to help me not miss important things that those sources miss. Oh, yeah, and I rely on Taranto to make sure that I don’t miss important snark opportunities. (Hey, wait a minute, he’s a WSJ editor — doesn’t get more mainstream than that!)
September 17th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
“mediating intelligences”
Thanks so much for ferreting this out. I am laughing my socks off. Is there a Nobel Prize for Journalistic Pomposity? This clown is a shoo-in.
September 17th, 2006 at 9:29 pm
I get the feeling that journalists were more honest back in the days when they were drunk all the time.
Doubtless there are things that come with experience. A good education can help, too, though preferably not in journalism.
The J-school types, led by Victor “legislate through the courts” Navasky of all people, already have their universally valid and luminous interpretations, why check facts?
Freedman maunders so pompously about skills with the crystal ball of facts. It’s not too far from from heaving and sighing about getting “really professional” psychics.
Facts are real, but they’re tricky and knotty, like verification itself. Note that scientists don’t prate about “professional scientists,” instead they talk about “doing real science” and about methods of checking. The scientific theory of inquiry is not “leave it to the professionals,” instead it’s “do science.”
September 17th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
“mediating intelligences”=Leftist Agenda
Any questions?
September 18th, 2006 at 4:52 am
“Mediating mediocrities” might have been a more apt description. This has never been more obvious than in the case of the Pope’s recent speech. A genuine attempt to reach out and establish an intellectual dialogue has - through the helpful mediation of professional journalists - been transformed into a crude slur and a provocation to violence. Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a situation where the global conversation about an extremely complex crisis must be conducted at the intellectual level of a third-grade playground fight thanks to the incompetence and dereliction of the media.
September 18th, 2006 at 9:09 am
The good Italian nun in Somalia must be a liberal.
No Catholic with common sense would stay in Somalia following the takover of the radical Islamists.
On the up side - the Pope didnt’ apologize at all for his speech.
He apologized for the radicals that “over reacted” to his speech.
September 21st, 2006 at 1:02 pm
[...] The Anchoress too, sees the imbalance and inelegance of the media and the agendistas. Her post, Cap’n Goes Int’l, Hugo Goes Home, Press Goes Missing, is like fresh squeezed orange juice- no freezing, processing and with nothing added. This clown comes to the United Nations, calls the American President a “devil,” (not that the religion-hating folks minded that - the irony!) and the other clowns in the room (whom we fund much-too-much) laugh and applaud, and it’s not a leading story the next day? Well. I guess we can quickly figure out that the “mediating intelligences” who determine what we will and will not see have decided that - for some reason - we’re better off not seeing the behavior of a pack of mad jackals…we might not want to continue funding them, or rushing to their aid when disaster strikes, you know? Or maybe, they figure the American public would look at yesterday’s very telling absurdities and say, “you don’t come to America and say that about her president…” [...]