Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Edward M. Gomez - A Revealing Journalist

In his last column at the SanFran Gate Gomez, whose world view includes this:

the long, dark, destructive, Bush-Cheney-Republican experiment in American fascism


tries to explain himself:

As a brief, quick-read news digest, "World Views" was never intended to be an opinion feature. Nevertheless, admittedly, this reporter-writer's point of view could sometimes be discerned between the lines; certainly and perhaps inevitably, "World Views" found and conveyed its own distinctive voice. However, critics who detected in the column's content any sort of political point of view or agenda, and who lambasted it - and myself - for supposedly expressing one, were mistaken.


and continues

News flash: There is no such thing as objectivity in American journalism. Instead, in large part as a result of the formulaic practices that are taught in U.S. journalism schools, what most mass-media news organizations pursue is what might be described as merely the presentation of the appearance of objectivity (or "objectivity") in their reporting about any particular subject. Thus, on television, the same talking heads from the so-called left and the so-called right (American media incorrectly use the terms "liberal" and "conservative" all the time, but that's the subject of another discussion) routinely appear, simplistically representing their host programs' dutiful attempts to appear "objective."


Honesty, admittedly, is refreshing, no?

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