An Honest Journalist?

I have to admit I was a bit surprised when I read this from Carl M. Cannon:

Sarah Palin’s rambling abdication speech was hard to follow, let alone acclaim, but in her abrupt announcement that she is withdrawing from public office, the Republican governor of Alaska was hardly the only player in a 10-month drama who demonstrated a lack of self-awareness. Democrats scoffed at her “politics of personal destruction” line, but it’s a maxim they originally popularized, and one they will undoubtedly trot out again the next time it happens to one of their own. But the true villains in this political morality play may have been the press.

The mainstream media is undergoing its demise, drip by drip, day by day, and its practitioners, which include most of my friends in life, are under considerable pressure. In my opinion, however, these pressures do not excuse the treatment accorded Sarah Palin. On the contrary, to me the entire Sarah saga revealed that it wasn’t only the traditional media’s business model that is broken. Our journalism model is busted, too.

We no longer expect that level of honesty from a journalist. It is a shame but anymore journalists are often put in the same category as used care salesmen and personal injury attorneys.

To say that journalists have put out misinformation about Sarah Palin would be generous to a fault. So called “respectable” media outlets have lied about Palin on everything from rape kits to library books. They’ve lied about her children and they’ve lied about her policies. In between the lies they filled the gaps with snark. Exhibit A from Judith Miller:

"[Sarah Palin] is the 21st-century face of the backlash against women’s progress. . . . The hatred of women . . . is still alive and well in our society, and when directed at well-educated women, it’s socially acceptable, too."

To which the only sensible response is, “Meow.”

Cynthia Yockey, A Newly Conservative Lesbian, has Cannon’s full article.