. . . . .

And it seems somehow that modern-day politicians with, in many cases, the help, I’m afraid, of journalists, are able to continue to bamboozle people. “We'll explain it tomorrow, that's too secret to tell you,” secret intelligence officials insist. Look at The New York Times’s first paragraphs over and over again, “According to American intelligence officials.” “American officials say.” I think sometimes The New York Times should be called “American Officials Say. Just look at it tomorrow or the day after. Or the L.A. Times, or the, not the San Francisco Chronicle, it's not much of a paper anymore unfortunately, but The Washington Post.

It's almost as if—you know the cozy relationship between American journalists and power is very dangerous. You want to look and see what that relationship is like. The osmotic, the host and the parasite together. You only have to look at a White House press conference, “Mr. President, Mr. President?” “Yes, Bob. Yes, John? Yes, Nancy,” that's the relationship. Journalists like to be close to power. They know that if they want to be close to power, they mustn't challenge power. And that goes back to the Amira Haas definition of journalism, which I am a total devote of: you must challenge power all the time, all the time, all the time even if the politicians and the prime minister, even if your readers hate you. You must challenge power. . . .

 

Retrieved from http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/20/1411211 on Oct. 21, 2005. Edited by Carl Mickelsen.

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