Posted by Hidari
on October 31, 2009, 12:06 pm
'David Brooks today says he wanted to write a column about Obama's pending decision over Afghanistan, and in order to write this column, this is what he tells us he did: "For the past few days I have tried to do what journalists are supposed to do." Sounds intrepid. What, exactly, is it that "journalists are supposed to"?
As he describes it, Brooks "called around to several of the smartest military experts [he] know[s] to get their views on these controversies." These are people "who follow the war for a living." He wrote down (at least some of) what they said. He then passed it on without quoting -- or even identifying -- a single one of these experts. That's his whole column....
So apparently, this is what "journalists are supposed to do." They call handpicked invisible people on the phone and then write columns summarizing what they claim they said without identifying or describing a single one of them. ....He just faithfully serves as a mindless stenographer for hidden people whose credibility you're told to accept even as they do nothing but spout manipulative, vapid idiocies about Churchillian Resolve designed to promote endless war. In that regard, Brooks has certainly accomplished -- as he usually does -- the typical establishment journalist's conception of "what journalists are supposed to."'
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/10/30/brooks
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