Shorter Mark Ambinder: “I Have No Journalistic Ethics”
Does an afternoon of leisure with senior administration officials violate journalistic ethics? To many, the self-evident answer is: “Absolutely.” I have a different view, although perhaps it’s a way to rationalize my own decision to attend the Bidens’ first beach party for journalists. Later today, I’ll lay out some thoughts about the ethics of all of this, but to whet appetites, here’s a bit of video I recorded. The players include the president’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, David Sanger of the New York Times, and CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. Note the teasing banter between Emanuel and Sanger. (Note, too, that shortly after I shot this video, Emanuel sprayed me in the shirt with his Super Soaker. I have a picture of that, too.)
is it a breach of ethics for me to copy Ambinders article wholesale? To many, the self-evident answer is: “Absolutely.” I have a different view, although perhaps it’s a way to rationalize my own disgust at watching a so-called “journalist” attend the Bidens’ first beach party for journalists, which is something that shouldn’t be happening.
if you want to know why our press is SO bad, Ambinder’s article is the textbook example. if you opened a dictionary to the word “ethics”, the antonym would be Mark Ambinder, and the illustration would be Marc with Rahm Emmanuel dropping a junk shot in Ambinder’s gaping mouth.
Greenwald has more about the washington press corps whores, but put it this way: our journalists make the stars of bukkake films look like dignified models of personal integrity:
I personally don’t think that these types of interactions “violate journalistic ethics” because I don’t think such a thing exists for them. Rather, all of this just helpfully reveals what our nation’s leading “journalists” really are: desperate worshipers of political power who are far more eager to be part of it and to serve it than to act as adversarial checks against it — and who, in fact, are Royal Court Spokespeople regardless of which monarch is ruling. That’s why they’re invited into the heart of Versailles to frolic with the King’s most trusted aides: it’s their reward for loyal service as Court courtiers. Just marvel at the self-abasing joy in which Ed Henry wallows by virtue of getting to play water sports with Emanuel and the Bidens. He sounds like a gushing pre-adolescent who just met his favorite boy band idol and got his water gun signed. Digby asks, quite rhetorically: “do you think this sort of thing makes it easier or more difficult for journalists to maintain their independence?”
I can’t access the kind of picture I need to truly illustrate Marc Ambinder, but that’s because we have a firewall that blocks pr0n0graphy sites at work. i’ll have something suitably disgusting later today.
