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Comment by quaunaut | Hacker News Reader

Haven't seen the video yet, but I've gotta disagree with one part of the preceding article:

> Throughout the interview, Wark abandons even the pretence of doing what journalism is supposed to be about: interrogating the centres of power and holding them to account.

This is not journalism's role. It isn't even close to journalism's role. It is a closet perversion of journalism's role. It is some neo-anarchist's view of a journalist's role. This is not journalism's role.

Journalism's role is to get at the truth and to distribute it as widely as possible. That does not mean you target only centers of power. If that's all you do, you're just as much a schmuck for some other asshole's propaganda, just the difference is, this one can't pay you.

Once again, I haven't seen the video, but making such duplicitous statements about the role of journalism by someone who is fairly respected in the community is not the way to go.

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> Journalism's role is to get at the truth and to distribute it as widely as possible.

Many a time, that goal is directly related to what you're objecting to, namely:

>> interrogating the centres of power and holding them to account

Those with power most often have the highest motivation & ability to hide/obfuscate the truth, which is why journalists need to interrogate and confront them to get at the truth.

George Orwell summed it up best: "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations"

I would agree, but the "someone else" Orwell was talking about could also be another journalist or the public at large.

No, journalism is not simply printing controversial materials. It does require some amount of investigation and analysis.

Neither did I advocate for a journalism consisting of "simply printing controversial materials" nor one bereft of "investigation and analysis". So you're attacking straw men here.

My comment, as well as Greenwald's publicly stated views, only highlight the frequently adversarial nature of journalism against those in power.

> Journalism's role is to get at the truth and to distribute it as widely as possible.

This is obviously not the case; otherwise mathematicians, social philosophers and scientists — and their publishers — would often be journalists. Instead, there's a huge amount of literature on journalism in society's context. You might start with Robert McChesney. [1]

And which "truth"? News useful for the mother struggling to feed her children, or for elite investors? Part of the system is determining what's covered — and what isn't.

And what's a "neo-anarchist's view of a journalist's role"? Rather, "interrogating the centres of power" is a mainstream, elite myth, probably not far from Lippman's. [2] Do you mean someone like Chomsky, who studied media? He points out that media mainly serves power; propaganda, given that news agencies are generally corporations in the business of selling eyeballs to other corporations. The problem isn't that the media should ask questions of the powerful, but that it cares what they say in the first place. (Acting as stenographers for whatever lies "official sources" offer for public consumption.)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._McChesney

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism#Role

You can disagree with it as much as you like, but for most journalists holding the powerful to account is one of their biggest motivators and professional goals. So whether it's a weird perversion or a duplicitous statement about the role of journalism... just FYI it's a very widespread one.

I hope we can all at least agree that it isn't about being a shil for political power.

Well, everyone except this one reporter apparently.

It is. And my definition of journalism was plenty wide. Sometimes journalism has you holding centres of power to account, but by no means is that your modus operandi.

Well, up until now, it's only been the centers of power who have been breaking the law (not to mention the constitution), covering up, lying, and committing perjury - so yeah, they are the ones who journalists should be focusing on.

But sure, let's continue watching TV shows and cheap local news reports about brave police officers arresting drug addicts committing petty crime just to survive and call _that_ journalism.

Yes, because that's exactly what I was advocating, instead of trying to maintain any sort of an illusion of objectivity. Y'know, instead of dashing it out the window and acting as if that in itself was noble.

> Journalism's role is to get at the truth and to distribute it as widely as possible.

I agree. I think the article agrees. Unfortunately the hyperbole distorts the article's message. There's a better description of the problem here -

> This is actually how most Newsnight interviews run: creating the theatre of conflict between journalist and interviewee that conceals the real issues rather than revealing them.

This is a problem with Today (BBC Radio 4 'flagship' news programme) too. They have to maintain "balance", which sometimes means they get to polarised interviewees and have a ding-dong interview. Great entertainment, but not great at getting to the truth.

The notorious example is Paxman, on Newsnight, asking the same question nine times. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00r2912) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwlsd8RAoqI)

Here's a bit of discussion about it. (http://drmatthewashton.com/2011/03/11/great-mistakes-in-poli...)

It's a nice bit of ding dong, but Howard didn't threaten to over rule Derek Lewis. (Although Howard had asked a civil servant if he had the power to overrule Derek Lewis.)

And this bit of theatrics ignores the wider problem - Howard was a fucking terrifying idiot in charge of a monstrous party. When Ann fucking Widdecombe (handcuff to the beds prisoners giving birth) says "there is something of the night" about someone (Howard) you know something is scary.

That was my first thought reading this as well, and I agree that the author couldn't have missed the point about journalism more. As you said, the goal of journalism should be to publish the truth...and journalists should absolutely not be free from criticism by other journalists in the pursuit of that goal.

The article's reaction to the interview, which I did watch, seems to mainly take issue with the idea that anyone would dare question Gleen Greenwald about his coverage. There were some things wrong with the interview, the anchor questions were overall not all that good (particularly follow-ups), but objecting to the very idea of an adversarial interview of someone covering an important story seems exactly the opposite of what journalism should be about.

Basically, if we value journalism at all, we should support the idea of other journalists looking at Greenwald's (or any other journalist's) coverage with a critical eye.

There would be no problem if they would treat Cameron the same as they treat Greenwald.

Having Cameron or Obama be subject to the same type of interview is unthinkable.

Your ideal is a Unicorn, and if it existed, it probably wouldn't be able to find employment as a journalist.

Instead of evenly distributed journalists who are a perfect match for whatever yours or anyone's ideal happens to be, what we get is a group of media organizations with a range of social and political goals, who tend to be staffed with journalists whose ideals are approximately aligned, and also a bunch of schmucks.

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