God Help Us!

In various posts over the past few months I have praised our major newspapers. Both the New York Times and The Washington Post actually employ reporters who engage in journalism. A quick glance at The Washington Times and at Fox News proves how remarkable and necessary this really is.
So far this week, however, I must join the throngs who mourn for just how low these papers have sunk. In today's WaPo the portrait painted of Sen "Bill Frist: A Doctor at Heart" is nauseating in its adulation of its subject. When a dentist describes him as "A little bit like Superman" you can hear the writer panting like the dog whose heart Frist once held in his hands. The heart never made it back into the dog, just as the capacity to think critically never made it back into the "reporter's" brain.  While discussing what a wonderful, caring surgeon Frist is, the writer never mentions either Terry Schiavo nor why Frist gave up his medical career in order to engage in malpractice on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
It was as close to journalism as yesterday's NY Times piece on the State of the Union, of the Clintons. The writer of that piece claimed to interview fifty people in order to prepare the worthless article. If only it had exerted the same energy in investigating the claims made in Bush's 2003 State of the Union, the lives of almost 2,500 soldiers might have been saved.
The reaction to the Times piece by Time magazine's blogger, Andrew Sullivan, was absurd. First he blames the Clinton's for causing the  piece by saying that that "they have all but insisted we analyze" the marriage. He then argues that Bill's having cheated on his wife with Ms Lewinsky all but disqualifies Hillary from the Presidency. Not only is this clearly sexist; it's unfairness to Mrs Gingrinch and Mrs Giuliani is obvious.
I can only hope that the Sulzberger, Graham, and Luce families, all accept my condolences for their, and our nation's, loss.

Comments

[QuestionGirl]

God help us indeed.... the article on Frist was nothing short of creepy,(as is he) and the article on the Clinton's was in very poor taste.

Great blog.....going through the anti torture blogroll.

[bbbustard]

Many thanks for your comment, and compliment. I'm going to have to got through that blogroll as well - somehow I think I'll agree with a lot of the posters there