Helen Thomas resigned/retired after yesterday's blog was posted.
While I think Helen Thomas should be able to a bigot if she wants to, she did not belong as member of the White House press corps. It is a very selected and coveted position, and Americans deserve a more competent journalist than Thomas. I don't want to shut her up, she can run a blog, write for a publication etc., but an anti-semite does not belong as a member of White House press corps.
Good riddance. She was always overtly liberal in her questioning, and often completely off base. The only time she asked liberal leaders a tough question was when she thought the leadership wasn't being liberal enough.
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I believe your idea of a journalist would, in reality, more accurately be labeled "spokesperson." A spokesperson's job is to take the message from the source, and disseminate it into the public without question. This makes for good PR, but it isn't journalism.
ReplyDeleteJournalism--and, indeed, the concept of free press--is by nature a liberal pursuit; the reason we have the right to free press is so we can question the status quo (without intervention from those who hold power) in order to learn more about it. It's a journalist's job to pass this knowledge on to the people. If it weren't, a journalist would never have to ask a question-- they could just ask for a press release. Like it or not, Helen Thomas was doing exactly what a journalist is supposed to do-- if you were surprised by it, that might be because the majority of our country's media (and their employees) are controlled by large corporations, and are protecting/promoting conservative, capitalist interest. It is indeed a rare thing when a real journalist appears and questions what others simply trust is truth.
If you oppose this pursuit, you clearly do not believe that we should have the right to free press in this country; perhaps you would be more comfortable with a state-run, conservative media organization-- a spokesperson, if you will, that simply tells us what our leaders want us to know.