SLL WILL BE ON A BUSINESS TRIP FROM 3/2 TO 3/6 AND WILL BE UNABLE TO POST. POSTING WILL RESUME 3/7.
Language evolves. A term has popped up—”presstitute”—a self-explantory amalgamation of “prostitute” and “press.” SLL believes this is a grevious injustice to prostitutes, who engage in straighforward trade, usually without any of the moral preening, undisclosed interests, condescending smugness, obvious bias, and rank hypocrisy that characterizes the press today. To equate the press with prostitutes unjustly elevates the former and demeans the latter. From Claire Bernish at theantimedia.org:
(ANTIMEDIA) United States — So-called political pundits are an ubiquitous sight on mainstream news, particularly during the run-up to a presidential campaign — but their ties to the candidates they analyze remain obfuscated, downplayed, or altogether left out by host networks.
As The Intercept’s Lee Fang reported, “Several consultants who work at firms retained by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and her affiliated Super PACs appear regularly on the major television networks, frequently touting Clinton.”
This cozy bedfellow relationship might not be an issue if the extent of their involvement with the candidates’ campaigns were forthrightly revealed by the networks. Instead, the failure by omission not only muddies the line between impartial analysis and campaign propaganda, it also marks a failure of journalistic integrity.
“Journalism 101 teaches that reporters and TV news hosts must properly identify their sources and analysts,” Ithaca College associate professor of journalism, Jeff Cohen, told Fang. The Intercept’s requests for comment from NBC, CBS, CNN, and ABC News were not answered.
Precision Strategies, co-founded by Stephanie Cutter, has been hired by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which has paid the firm $120,049 since June 2015 to perform “digital consulting.” Cutter, meanwhile, made appearances on multiple networks without so much as a hint of her current association with Clinton’s campaign. Instead, she is often introduced as a former campaign official for President Obama. Such association with a campaign doesn’t exactly lend itself to unbiased opinion.
“I think that Hillary Clinton has done everything right,” Cutter told NBC’s Meet the Press prior to the first presidential primaries on January 17. “She has run a good campaign. She has outperformed in debates. She’s raised money. She’s got a great ground game.”
It stands to reason the viewing audience had no knowledge of Cutter’s firm’s affiliation with Clinton’s campaign — and her virtual unavoidable bias in such a proclamation. But had they been aware, perhaps viewers would have been better positioned to judge for themselves whether or not that statement rang true.
To continue reading: We Just Found out Why so Many Political Pundits Seem to Love Hillary Clinton
