The Macho Naivete of Right Wing Desk Jockies

[paft.livejournal.com]

From Think Progress:

Marty Peretz, on pro-Mubarak mobs attacking foreign correspondents: Frankly, I thought that you guys were – and women – engaging in a little professional narcissism. Revolutions are not birthday parties. And what happened in Beijing, in Prague, in Budapest, in Berlin, uh, was about the same as what is happening now. And since the media has in fact made itself, by announcing its techniques a very legitimate target in a certain way. I mean, it’s cruel, but if you’re going after the regime, the regime will go after you. This regime is not a sweet regime. This regime is not tolerant…

Think Progress put together a video round-up of the right wing media reaction to the reporter beatings. What comes through is an apparent inability to grasp that covering dangerous situations is a reporter’s job. Denouncing a foreign correspondent for going in to report on a volatile situation is kind of like denouncing a fireman for heading towards a fire.

There’s also a thudding ignorance that conflates hard working reporters with cable anchors. Marty Peretz has the gall to pretend that correspondents like Amanpour need to be told that revoluations “are not birthday parties” and “this regime is not a sweet regime.” Especially offensive is Mike Gallagher’s rant about Amanpour and Anderson Cooper, where he implies that Amanpour is anti-American and says of Cooper:

Maybe that isn’t where you ought to go wandering around Anderson, all, what are you about 5’7” – 5’8”? What do you go Anderson about 160? With your little perfectly coiffed grey hair and your little delicate features you might not want to go over to Egypt and walk around the middle of a crowd that’s screaming 'death to America.'

The fact that you’ve seen Anderson Cooper or Christiane Amanpour being interviewed in a studio doesn’t mean they’re merely pampered celebrities. Cooper did on the spot reporting in Rwanda during the genocide. Amanpour has worked as a wartime journalist in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

It is beyond hubris for the likes of Gallagher and Peretz to paint either of these seasoned correspondents as fluffy-headed naifs.

Crossposted from Thoughtcrimes

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

If they are really in favor of the Egyptian Revolution then 1989, 1968, 1956, and 1953 aren't the best analogies in the world to use. It almost makes you think they've a hard-on for an autocracy that effectively and brutally represses people who really do want freedom. Certainly it's the equivalent of considering John Wayne a better WWII vet than Harry Belafonte.......

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

don't punch me, bro.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Sounds like Mike has the hots for Anderson.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

You clearly don't know anything about the manly world of radio broadcasting.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Yeah. He does go on about it about how good looking Anderson is, doesn't he?

That, or he's jealous of Cooper's looks.

[paft.livejournal.com]

I noticed that about Peretz' cites too.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I mean, it's hard, manly work to hoist up and bear down and lug 200 pounds of extra weight each and every day... to sit in a chair probably not even ergonomically designed for your particular body-type, to flap your bulbous flesh-flaps called "lips" takes a lot of energy and grit!

[tridus.livejournal.com]

It used to be that people of different political viewpoints could at least agree that beating up and kidnapping reporters was a bad thing, no matter who it was being done to.

Kind of sad the way the US is declining right before our eyes.

[paft.livejournal.com]

VBG.

I remember hearing the same kind of nonsense from right wing online posters after the Palestine Hotel was shelled. They talked about the reporters who were killed as if the journalists were a bunch of blow-dried tv stars. In fact, the dead included veteran war correspondents probably more battle seasoned than the American soldiers who shelled them.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

These are hard working journalists of the highest caliber. They have put their heads in the bag, to use that metaphor. And for what? It is not money that they want, neither fame. This is what many people cannot understand. It has become a calling for them, already a way of life. Most journalists of this type cannot imagine how they would be able to live if they were told that "tomorrow you are stopping reporting". This would kill them more than all the mobs throwing stones and punches at them. This is something that all those wannabe journalists that only call themselves journalists but who in fact are just talking heads sitting comfortably in their chairs in a studio far, far away from any danger (other than tripping on their way to the bar downstairs) and who like to think of themselves as "smart" and "influential" while regurgitating someone else's points at the bidding of their corporate masters, would never understand. But do they really matter that much? Not really. Because it is not them who are doing the real journalism and it is not them who will be remembered with anything good. The likes of Marty Perez will be forgotten. They will never be like Ernie Pyle, Margaret Fuller, Mathew Brady, Nellie Bly, Margaret Bourke-White, Robert Capa, Katherine Graham, Seymour Hersh, Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, and yes, Christiane Amanpour and Anderson Cooper.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

True. Such people are the eyes and ears of society, and to a large extent its conscience. We have our own living legends, like Elena Yoncheva (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elena_Yoncheva) whom everyone deeply admires. And that, in a country like mine plagued by chronic nihilism, does mean something.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Watching it from here is excruciating.

[anadinboy.livejournal.com]

christiane amanpour who was seeing clintons spokesman all through the kosovo war. being called a bimbo would be getting off lightly

[paft.livejournal.com]

Christiane Amanpour is a veteran foreign correspondent who has ably covered dangerous situations. She is neither stupid, nor ignorant, nor inexperienced. She is no "bimbo."

[404.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, my outrage quotient is maxed out; I gave all I had at your last Op about wikipedia being too make dominated.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Well that's such a major relief to everybody, isn't it?

[paft.livejournal.com]

Oh noooooooooo!

What will I DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO???????

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

You're complaining about other people complaining? I don't get your point here. Are you being offended because someone else is being insulted? Do you think that AC can't handle a little criticism on his own or something? Do you think that Ms. Amanpour is going to curl up into a ball and hide? What is your issue? It seems to be that some people are mean poopy-heads.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It's not criticism, it's approving of a dictatorship roughing up foreign journalists pointing out that there is a man behind the curtain. Not that this point can or will matter to the Right because Mubarak is *your* bastard.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

What's more disgusting is the ease that people segue into thinking that Muslims have two settings: strongman and theocracy. And of course that all Islamists are Khomeini. Not that such things as facts ever stop apologists for dictatorships the USA likes.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Where is the approving?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Maybe that isn’t where you ought to go wandering around Anderson, all, what are you about 5’7” – 5’8”? What do you go Anderson about 160? With your little perfectly coiffed grey hair and your little delicate features you might not want to go over to Egypt and walk around the middle of a crowd that’s screaming 'death to America.'

Said, of course, from the jungles of the United States.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'Denouncing a foreign correspondent for going in to report on a volatile situation is kind of like denouncing a fireman for heading towards a fire. '

the job of a fireman isn't to risk his life unnecessarily. Many a firemen have watched a house burn down because they weren't taking stupid risks.

Walking into a violent mob is in no way comparable to a fireman entering a burning house. It is however comparable to being Steve O.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

I saw nothing approving of his beating or even supporting the guys who beat him up

like always, the lefts outrage is manufactured fiction.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That would apply only if I were a Leftist which I have explained repeatedly that I'm not one. Why does the Right treat every little criticism like it must be Leftist in origin? The Left has plenty of issues with itself, but it doesn't have a major news network that preaches its message 24-7 or mistake failed reality TV stars who can't hack being governor of a huge, thinly-populated state where there are more rabbits than people for major political leaders.