November 1, 2007

Press this meat, douchebag

"You're not a journalist, you're the worst kind of hack." Yeah!

"I have a fantasy that at one of these moments, a candidate will say, 'You know what, Tim, I'm not going to answer that question. This is serious business. And you, sir, are a disgrace. You have in front of you a group of accomplished, talented leaders, one of whom will in all likelihood be the next president of the United States.

"You can ask them whatever you want. And you choose to engage in this ridiculous gotcha game, thinking up inane questions you hope will trick us into saying something controversial or stupid. Your fondest hope is that the answer to your question will destroy someone's campaign. You're not a journalist, you're the worst kind of hack, someone whose efforts not only don't contribute to a better informed electorate, they make everyone dumber. So no, I'm not going to stand here and try to come up with the most politically safe Bible verse to cite. Is that the best you can do?'"

-- Paul Waldman.

Timmeh!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great citation, Maru! I personally don't think that Tim Russert is alone in this kind of thing -- too many other video-journalists seem to focus on the same sort of inane things. Probably because -- as part of a COMMERCIAL/PROFIT-BASED media business -- they virtually HAVE to talk about things that are ultimately NON-controversial (ie; little sex-scapades, dress, personal habits, etc) while carefully avoiding the elephants in the living room (warmongering/militarism/imperialism, peak-oil, population, declining job-base, etc), otherwise they'll lose their precious advertisers and/or get some rich old white-man pissed off and he'll complain to their rich old white-man boss, jeprodizing their career..