Banana republic journalism

They really don’t get it, do they?

Could this Luckovich skew on reality possibly be any farther from the truth? In truth, it’s the elite media (principally The New York Times) that are out of control, not Homeland Security or the Bush administration. As a matter of fact, a great case could be made that the real problem is government’s failure to enforce national security under assault from a marauding mainstream mediocracy. We, for one, would make that case.

Speaking of out of control, could the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) be any farther from the truth when it denounces the U.S. government for “banana-republic intimidation of the press” in closing access to Gitmo by journalists in the wake of several terrorist suicides? Sure makes a fellow (a former newspaper journalist himself) wonder if these folks ever worked the police beat and had to deal with authorities securing a crime scene. But then, if you read the fine print, you find out that half these folks aren’t exactly journalists. They’re journalism professors.

Now does the picture start to come a little clearer? In this case, the full quote was: “This is the sort of banana-republic intimidation of the press we sneer at when it occurs on other points on the globe,” said Charles N. Davis, co-chairman of SPJ’s Freedom of Information Committee and executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition—and an associate professor of journalism at the University of Missouri.

This is the same Charles N. Davis who was a co-signator to the anti-Iraq war petition (along with—no relation—Angela Davis, et al.) “Not in Our Name” and who was the subject of a complaint by Students for Academic Freedom for his anti-free speech behavior on the U of M campus when it concerned a conservative voice.

Oh, my. Yes, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. We don’t want to pick on just SPJ President-Elect Christine “Abe, Baby” Tatum when there’s this much other good stuff. When it comes to the mainstream mediocracy, it’s like shooting fish in the old hypocrisy barrel.

Meanwhile, we’d be remiss not to give out a couple of kudos along with the lumps. One kudo to Mark Steyn (who admits to borrowing from Ann Coulter) for making the point on Hugh Hewitt’s show yesterday that this kind of treachery by the mainstream mediocracy might be forgivable if they showed the same enthusiasm—or any kind of interest, for that matter—in exposing the schemes of the enemy. Ever read that anywhere in the mainstream?

The other kudo goes to Norah O’Donnell, who Wednesday on MSNBC did the kind of no-holds-barred interview with Cindy Sheehan that should be a model for all the Davises and Tatums of this sorry profession. Our friend Robin over at Chickenhawk Express has the link for this.

And, while we’re at it, we might as well give thanks for the state supreme courts of Georgia and New York, which yesterday upheld traditional marriage amendments in those states. We agree with Dr. Dobson, who said he hoped it signals a growing recognition that Americans don’t want their courts functioning as “super legislatures” to re-engineer society. Amen.