Last week on Fox News Sunday, Mike Wallace claimed that Bill Moyers' essay “The Rove Legacy” lacked some fact checking on Rove’s religious beliefs. Wallace also suggested that Moyers essay was absent of some good ole “Reporting 101.”
The dispute between Wallace and Moyers is a great example of “red media and blue media.”
Moyers simply placed his voice in his commentary on Rove, which by the way seems what commentary journalism is, isn’t it? A commentator responds to a newsworthy event (Rove’s resignation) and expresses views of his own and others.
Moyers’ stated that reports had circulated on the Internet that Rove confessed his own agnosticism. Moyers also cited Rove as a “skeptic and a secular manipulator” in his weekly journal.
Days after Moyers’ essay, Rove was a special guest on Wallace’s program Fox News Sunday. During the program, Wallace asked Rove his take on Moyers’ claims.
Wallace used Rove’s response that “he reads a devotional every day and that his biggest charitable contribution he ever made was to his church” as support to claim that Moyers needed to get back to “Reporting 101.”
This dispute exposes the great danger and realization of what has happened to our media; it’s become objective to the subjective and subjective to the objective.
Wallace claims that Moyers did not conduct basic “Reporting 101,” which was to simply go to the source (Rove) and ask him if the rumors were true if he was agnostic. So Wallace did go to the source and found out he was a church going man (but wouldn’t a political official that reads a devotional daily be willing to testify under oath to get to the truth?).
Wallace and Moyers are brilliant examples of what is occurring in the media today. The problems that face journalism are not as much bias as it is "linguistically interpretive."
Interestingly Wallace did not take his own advice and do some good ole fashion “Reporting 101,” doesn’t a good reporter give more than one side of his story? Wallace just gave the viewer Rove’s voice. Maybe Mike Wallace should ask his father for some “Reporting 101” advice.
2 comments:
Sandi,
This is a really interesting exchange to analyze. And it does seem to represent opposite extremes in journalism. I would like to know more, however, about where Moyers got his facts, because even opinion must be well-sourced. In addition, I am not sure what you mean by the "objective has become subjective" and vice versa.
But really interesting work, and right on topic.
Prof Kraeplin,
I had this link included in my blog, which gives several sources to support Moyers' claim:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/08/26/bill-moyers-chris-wallace
think progress did a blog on the dispute between Wallace and Moyers.
Here's one of the interesting sources they included
While taking Rove’s “word as gospel,” Wallace completely disregards the numerous contradictory reports that justify Moyers’ claims:
3) “[Rove] told his friend Bill Israel years ago that he was agnostic and that ‘he wished he could believe, but he cannot.’” - James Moore, co-author of Rove bio, Bush’s Brain, [8/13/07]
4) “Rove once told a colleague that he had no religious affiliation and was ‘not a Christian.’” - James Moore and Wayne Slater in Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential.
Post a Comment