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Friday, September 17, 2004

Beldar on Hugh Hewitt show

Hugh Hewitt generously invited me to call in for his national radio show this afternoon after reading my post about journalistic ethics and their application to the Rathergate scandal. 

Hugh gave a fine dramatic reading of the relevant portions from the

Society of Professional Journalist's Code of Ethics (2.9MB .mpg file here), and then interrupted a pretty good anecdote — one I'd have like to have heard the end of! — to take my call-in (6.0MB .mpg file here).  In hindsight, I suppose I was pretty guarded in the opinions I expressed about CBS News' experts and Mr. Burkett — I might have more colorful opinions to express over a beer — but in comparison to many other talk radio hosts, Hugh doesn't cater much to the red-meat-and-rabies-froth crowd anyway, so I hope I didn't disappoint.

You can always listen to Hugh's show via free internet streaming audio — either live or on a looping rebroadcast — via his home station, KRLA-AM in Los Angeles.

Posted by Beldar at 01:17 AM in Law (2006 & earlier), Mainstream Media, Politics (2006 & earlier), Weblogs | Permalink

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Comments

(1) FredRum made the following comment | Sep 17, 2004 7:37:36 AM | Permalink

Everyone should be sure to check out the brand new Swift Boat Veterans for Truth advertisement, called "Dazed and Confused." It's a good one, and as John O'Neill promised a few nights ago in an interview, it stars John Kerry himself.

http://humaneventsonline.com.edgesuite.net/unfit_video5.html

(2) kevin whited made the following comment | Sep 17, 2004 7:47:52 AM | Permalink

More colorful opinions? Okay, I'll bite -- when can I buy you that beer? :)

(3) David S. Lott made the following comment | Sep 17, 2004 11:13:57 AM | Permalink

Re: Ethics and Dan Rather's “Perfect Storm” of Bias

Bias isn’t just political. My guess is that if Dan Rather were only contending with his inherent political bias, his journalistic skills might have cautioned his political predisposition on the guard documents.

But it's clear Mr. Rather had lots of other bias to contend with.

Aside from the overflogged political predisposition, how is Mr. Rather biased?

Let us count the ways:

• Relational—An apparent distaste for George Bush

• Dynastic—The suspicion of the self made man for the sons of privilege.

• Competitive—The need for speed. (Would USA Today get there first?)

• Professional—Lift the sagging ratings.

• Institutional—Our network is better than your network. (Take that, Fox!)

• Generational—Just who are these annoying pajama people?

• Intellectual—Who is right and or wrong? I report, I decide.

• Stylistic—Mr. Pugnacious.

• Personal—Huge ego, doesn’t suffer fools gladly, thus can’t easily imagine himself being fooled.

None of these are fatal flaws. All are normal characteristics of human beings, especially hard driving, successful ones.

But this is why codes of ethics are written down. Had CBS been scrupulous in following the code, they would not have made and compounded their mistakes.

Bias plus sloppiness equals mistake.

Bias plus sloppiness without ethical checks and balances equals disaster.

(4) GOP Guy made the following comment | Sep 17, 2004 4:08:13 PM | Permalink

Great work folks! Keep it up!

(5) The Drill SGT made the following comment | Sep 17, 2004 6:00:51 PM | Permalink

I good Journalist ethics statement from the NewsHour on "contracts with source"


http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/july-dec04/cbs_9-16.html

TERENCE SMITH: Susan Tifft, what do you think on the sources issue? If indeed the documents are demonstrated not to be genuine, if indeed CBS therefore concludes it has been duped by someone, by its source, what do they do about that?

SUSAN TIFFT: I think the bottom line is that you... your first obligation is to, in this case, your viewer. I agree with Ken, that you don't just give up a confidential source.That's really a sacred thing in journalism.

But I think if CBS finds that the source knowingly misled CBS, I think that the contract between the source and journalist ends there. And they owe it to their viewers to reveal who that source is. And as far as, you know, what kinds of investigations they should do now into themselves, there are lots of different models; as Ken said, there's the internal investigation, outside panels.

(6) Pat Curley made the following comment | Sep 17, 2004 6:10:50 PM | Permalink

I enjoyed the segment and finding out where "Beldar" came from; you came off as a serious person who doesn't talk out his rear end. By luck I got on the program just before the end, although I was about halfway through my spiel before I realized I wasn't talking to the screener; the last hour they were doing unscreened calls.

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