Matt Taibbi - Abusing the Truth
Crisis in America
by - John Albanese

It is a singularly disturbing attribute of any journalist, whether a creature of the right wing media – or left, to inject themselves so thoroughly into a story that they themselves BECOME the story. This is the stuff of narcissism and yellow journalism.

Matt Taibbi is not alone. We have all seen the Geraldo Rivera video clips involving prurient subject matter, designed to incite his guests, resulting in flying chairs and bloody noses. This does not pass for journalism. It is the job of journalists to report on accidents – not incite them.

At its best it is purely the stuff of entertainment - and Jerry Springer. At its worst it is intentional disinformation put out by major news networks like FoxNews who regularly incite their guests with an agenda of insults and spin, designed to make their ideological opponents look bad.

All of this may be entertaining to watch, but it is surely not the stuff of legitimate objective journalism.

And while it may be impossible for any reporter to truly remain a fly on the wall, truly objective and emotionally uninvolved in their story, (since journalism is in fact a product of the human experience) we do expect that journalists will at the very least attempt to limit their involvement in any given story to the bare necessities of reporting the facts to the public, with at least a basic foundation of personal integrity and fairness, even when editorializing.