Riding the black horse

(Read time: 5 minutes.)

I once worked with an old, grey-haired editor, a recovering alcoholic wise beyond even his years, who told me that since large corporate chains had taken over journalism, it had become “a whore riding a black horse.” The “black horse” in his colorful description is printer’s ink.

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My Toronto friend David must have been reading my mind when he emailed me the thoughts of an L. A. Times columnist.

Since Don Imus lost his morning microphone, I’ve thought a lot about silenced critics of the Bush administration.

Along comes Patt Morrison’s column, “9/11’s free speech casualties,” explaining that similar thoughts about the Imus controversy “got me thinking about two other media guys - working stiffs, not multimillionaires; professional informers, not inflamers - who got fired for saying something controversial and wise.”

It’s important here to make a distinction:

* Editorials are the voice of the newspaper and carry no by-line.
* Columns are the sole opinion – the speech – of the columnist and are not attributed to the newspaper.
* Letters-to-the-editor express the opinions of readers.

Morrison writes about two award-winning newspaper columnists who were fired and even threatened for criticizing George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11. Read her column: LINK

There have been others.

* Ashleigh Banfield, the highly promoted rising star at MSNBC, who filed daily reports from Afghanistan. She criticized Bush's handling of Iraq in a college speech and was immediately fired by MSNBC.
* Phil Donahue, veteran TV host and liberal voice, lost his talk show on MSNBC.
* Bill Press lost his job as co-host of "Buchanan and Press," an MSNBC show which was canceled, it seemed to this viewer, to silence Press' liberal views and criticism of Bush - while the president’s poll figures were in the stratosphere. While Press has occasional TV appearances, Buchanan seems to have a sleeping cot at MSNBC.
* Peter Arnett, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who covered Vietnam and reported live from a Baghdad hotel for CNN during the first Gulf War, was fired by NBC, MSNBC and National Geographic at the beginning of the Iraq invasion. Arnett, who in 1997 was the first-ever television journalist to interview Osama bin Laden, had made critical remarks about the war and the political climate in the U.S. in an interview on Iraqi television. Read “Was Arnett’s Firing Fair?”, an analysis from the Poynter Institute: LINK
* Tim McCarthy, award-winning editorial writer, was fired from the Littleton, N. H., Courier for editorials criticizing Bush after 9/11.
* Jon Lieberman, Sinclair Broadcast Group’s Washington bureau chief, was fired after he publicly criticized the company’s plans to air “Stolen Honor,” a documentary aimed at discrediting 2004 presidential hopeful and Bush opponent John Kerry. Lieberman called the film "biased political propaganda, with clear intentions to sway the election." (Now in the vernacular: “Swift boating.”) Sinclair, one of the country’s largest broadcasting chains, altered the format of the film after stockholders complained.
* Dan Rather, another Bush critic, who was silenced by CBS and right-wing critics after a CBS investigation into Bush’s National Guard record. Conservatives were highly rankled by Rather's newsworthy last interview with Saddam Hussein.

I'm certain Walter Cronkite, once voted “the most trusted man in America,” would have been fired, if he were not retired. He has been a harsh critic of Bush and his Iraq policy.

And, do you know who has been the loudest and most unrelenting critic of the Bush administration’s policies foreign and domestic? Don Imus. Imus didn't just bring up an issue and comment on it: he hammered away at it day after day. Despite the reason, his voice, too, has been silenced.

The L.A. Times columnist says Bush's poll numbers are "circling the drain." Nevertheless, there is still hestitancy among cable and network journalists to criticize him.

They prefer to couch the issues as "Democrats say, Republicans say" or "liberals say, conservatives say."

What are the media saying?

Seems the glory days of muckraking are history.

Apparently, responsible investigative journalism - at least on TV – is passé.

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UPDATE; "'Devastating' Moyers probe of press and Iraq coming," Editor and Publisher, 19 April 2007: LINK