Richard Engel, NBC’s savvy, chief foreign correspondent, had some pointed comments the other day in the wake of the Nuseum’s controversial decision to not honor two cameramen–working for Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV–who were killed in the line of Middle East “duty.” It’s a microcosm of the increasingly controvertible issue of activists as journalists. Basically, who’s a “journalist” these days? And we’re not even talking free-lancing bloggers.
Said Engel: “Just because you carry a camera and a notebook doesn’t make you a journalist. A journalist has the responsibility to seek the truth no matter what it is, even if the story hurts your cause. Journalists shouldn’t have causes. They should have principles and beliefs.”
News gatherers/disseminators in the field, however, have typically been accorded the benefit of the doubt, even if they’re obviously not all Ernie Pyles.
The journalistic hybrid that we are most familiar with, however, is the one much closer to home: the studio-side punditocracy. It’s a reminder–thanks, again, Fox and MSNBC–that it’s no longer journalism when you’re taking sides, even if you’re a former journalist such as Chris Matthews. (The Glenn Becks, Sean Hannitys and Bill O’Reilly’s, of course, never even trafficked in the fact-finding field in the first place.) It’s advocacy; it’s propaganda; it’s, well, show business. When you’re dependent on ratings and advertising, your first priority is ideologically varnished truth. Next is the sort of over-the-top-personality and conflict that appeals to viewers looking to be entertained and validated. Nothing else matters.
Now it’s a slippery partisan slope, a political pop-culture staple that is arguably beyond redemption. As for the Richard Engels reporting from harm’s way, it’s still more of an old-school slog. For now.