Real Journalism Versus “Professional Journalism”
hat tip: George Washington‘s blog
Sunday, March 29, 2009
If Jon Stewart walked out of his studio with his camera crew, went to where establishment figures were speaking, and threw tough questions at them, you’d get something like We Are Change.
The We Are Change reporters have asked the tough questions – a la Stewart (well, minus the comedy) – to former presidents, secretaries of defense, leading Neocons and Iraq war architects, and many other establishment figures.
So their interviews are syndicated nationally and they’ve all received Pulitzer prizes, right?
Not exactly . . .
We Are Change founder Luke Rudkowski was arrested for trying to ask New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg about his refusal to pay for the health care of 9/11 first responders.
The charges? “Impersonating a member of the press” and trespassing.
Professional Journalism
Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, created the concept of “professional journalism”. What is professional journalism, you may ask?
Renowned veteran journalist John Pilger summarizes it as follows:
Edward Bernays, the so-called father of public relations, wrote about an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. He was referring to journalism, the media. That was almost 80 years ago, not long after corporate journalism was invented. It is a history few journalist talk about or know about, and it began with the arrival of corporate advertising. As the new corporations began taking over the press, something called “professional journalism” was invented. To attract big advertisers, the new corporate press had to appear respectable, pillars of the establishment-objective, impartial, balanced. The first schools of journalism were set up, and a mythology of liberal neutrality was spun around the professional journalist. The right to freedom of expression was associated with the new media and with the great corporations, and the whole thing was, as Robert McChesney put it so well, “entirely bogus”.
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