Tomorrow Barack Hussein Obama will be sworn in as our next president. I congratulate him in advance and I hope that he does well in leading our country to a better tomorrow. He seems like a decent man who has the appropriate amount of idealism mixed with grasp of reality to make positive strides in a very difficult time. He'll need our patience and our support. A 70% approval rating seems to indicate that he has that right now.
But what he doesn't need, and what we don't need as a country, is a fawning press that will not interpret his actions as president fairly. The title of this blog, Jourtegrity Lost, is what scares me the most. Without a questioning press Obama will feel any step he takes, any step, will be received as correct and brilliant. No man or woman is flawless and without criticism can only become more flawed.
I'm hoping the giddy optimism and deification of Obama by the press - Brokaw "he's Lincolnesque", Chris Matthews "he gives me a thrill up my leg" and on and on, is toned down a bit because true journalism is supposed to be balanced. The liberal press got away with running journalism into the ground during the campaign with it's shameless misreporting and biased "analysis". It has shown no penchant for being anything less than an arm of the Democrat National Committee since.
When the hangovers from the inaugural parties subside I hope journalists take stock of their profession and seek to become real journalists who report fairly, evenly and with an inquisitive air.
If they do, I will shut this blog down.
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2 comments:
Even if Brokaw is right that in some ways Obama is Lincolnesque, the press in Obama's day certainly weren't fawning. And Lincoln had to earn whatever positive reviews he got from the media. His first inaugural address, for example, got very mixed reviews -- in the South, of course, they hated it, but even in the Democrat newspapers of the north, the reviews were scathing. Obama is not helped by all the fawning -- he needs constructive criticism and truthful coverage if he is to connect not only with the public but with reality. Keep up the good work!
Hey, thanks for the Lincoln lesson!
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