Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Faux Journalism

Friday September 28, 2007

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On the Road
The National Federation of Republican Women
Palm Springs, California

I am a huge fan of Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tn). I have been for a long time. She is among the most steadfast of fiscal conservatives in the House without allowing herself to be cast as mean or harsh.

She was also a vocal critic of the MoveOn.org trash which was the New York Times advertisement about General David Petraeus. You know the one I mean.

That issue landed her on Tucker Carlson's MSNBC program. Tucker was not hosting at the time. The guest host was the beat reporter on Chris Matthews' MSNBC program, David Shuster.

Shuster asked Rep. Blackburn if she could name the most recent soldier from her district to have been killed in Iraq.

Rep. Blackburn could not.

Shuster then named a soldier, whom he said was from her district and had been killed in Iraq. He then attacked Rep. Blackburn by, essentially, accusing her of being more interested in making political points by attacking MoveOn.org than in a soldier from her district who had given his life.

First of all, this is journalist crapola. Anyone can find a fact - important or not - which the subject of an interview is not likely to know and then beat him or her over the head with it.

Do you think al-Anbar province is important to the stabilization of Iraq? You do? Name the current provincial leader. Can't do it? HYPOCRITE!
You voted against raising the minimum wage. What's the average hourly wage in your district? Don't know? IGNORAMOUS!

See what I mean?

The Conservative Blogatorium is, of course, all over Shuster impugning his motives for treating Rep. Blackburn like an intellectual pi�ata.

I will not impugn Shuster's motives because I don't know what they were - although I am willing to speculate that the words "Guest host for Keith Olbermann" enter into it.

What I will do, though, is suggest most strongly that Shuster is guilty of practicing faux journalism at its worst. This isn't "gotchya" journalism. This is on the level of a grossly unprofessional and ugly Three-Stooges-Whoop-Whoop-Nyuk-Nyuk fraternity prank.

It has nothing to do with attempting to enlighten or inform viewers. It has everything to do with embarrassing someone to score a cheap political point or worse yet, score even cheaper news-room points.

As it happens, Shuster was wrong. The Newsbusters.com website found out that the soldier Shuster named had not lived in Blackburn's district after all.

Shuster went on the air saying, after he had skunked Blackburn:

"I identified who I believed to be that fallen soldier, a Tennessean killed in Iraq last month. But according to Pentagon documents, that young man came from a town inside a neighboring congressional district � I apologize for that mistake."

Note the crocodile-teary construct of "that fallen soldier." I think there may be an entry in the Democratic National Committee's Book 'O Spin which counsels:

"If you are accused of being disrespectful to a service member who has been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan use the word "fallen" or the phrase "fallen hero" which will have the effect of appearing to soften your views."

I wonder if, in the production meeting ahead of the show as the staff was giggling over how they were going to "get Blackburn" anyone considered this: What if the young man's folks happened to have been watching the Tucker Carlson program and had been treated to the low, callous spectacle of hearing their son's name used, not to honor him, but to embarrass a Member of Congress?

Not so funny now, is it.

Shuster doesn't have to apologize to the MSNBC viewers. Nor does he have to apologize to Marsha Blackburn.

Here's what NBC should do: Suspend Shuster until he agrees to take his parents (if they are still alive) with him to the home of the soldier's parents and apologize to them, not for some staffer having mis-read a ZIP code map, but for having abused their son's memory to perpetrate a despicable on-air stunt.

What if someone on the Fox News Channel had done this to a Democrat who had been defending the MoveOn.org ad? The Popular Press would demand the offending "journalist" be removed from his or her job. And rightly so.

We're waiiiiitttttting.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to the Newsbusters.com website and a map of the oddly drawn district of Rep. Blackburn. Also a Mullfoto which will make you smile and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Also, if you haven't yet, you should check out the Mullblog!. There is interesting stuff there and, you can respond for the whole world to see.

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