
Shameful state of U.S. journalism, Part Infinity
Joseph P. Farrell
I hate writing on the same topic ad nauseum.
I hate criticizing the same corrupt institutions over and over again and sounding like I expect different results.
I hate all those things, but, nevertheless, I feel compelled today to address the shameful state of journalism in America, using, once again, for example, a recent dispatch from the largest news-gathering organization in the world today – the Associated Press.
May 18, 2011, 3:18 p.m. The dateline is Washington. The reporter is Erica Werner.
In what amounts to a shameless promotion of a fundraising effort by Barack Obama's 2012 presidential re-election campaign, the story begins: "You've seen President Barack Obama's birth certificate. Now you can wear it."
"The Obama campaign is selling T-shirts on its website that show Obama's face on the front along with the words 'Made in the USA.'
"On the back is an image of the president's long-form birth certificate from Hawaii – the one the White House finally produced in April in an attempt to squelch the 'birthers' who claim Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen, and therefore ineligible to be president.
"The campaign advertised the T-shirts Wednesday, along with birth certificate mugs, in an email to supporters describing a new book by birther Jerome Corsi, a longtime Obama attacker. Corsi has a new publication out titled 'Where's the Birth Certificate?' in which he makes false claims about Obama's purported ineligibility for the presidency."
Let me interrupt this incredibly unprofessional screed right here to draw your attention to the italicized conclusion to the previous paragraph. In the good old days of American journalism, there was an industry-standard requirement that any assertion by the reporter be backed up with hard-cold established facts. There was no room in news stories for reporters to express opinions – even those bolstered with facts.