Obama May Fire Gen. McChrystal

You are essentially comparing Watergate to Twilight interviews.

The definition for news is subjective, but that doesn't mean there are not universal standards. There are people who might be interested in dogs, who might find dog news valuable. Depending upon the placement of the story, and the way it is reported, there are many more situations where "dogs" are news than classified troop locations.

Geraldo's a hack former talk show host. He fucked up and accidentally reported something in his zeal to self aggrandize that endangered lives.

By contrast, the Rolling Stone article was one of the best examples of reporting in the last decade. It was carefully written, carefully researched, carefully reported. It's subject matter was of crucial value to the American public, and in fact it may result in American lives being saved.

There is good reporting and there is bad reporting. We have examples of each in this discussion. Your argument seems to be they are both reporting. Strictly speaking, that's true, but then Citizen Kane and Battlefield Earth are both movies, too. Doesn't make them the same.

 

I am not comparing the two. I am saying that the media(someof it) does give up important information that hurts the united states. I just used rolling stone and geraldo as examples of them doing it.

 

Hurting the status quo is not the same as hurting the US. You cannot simply trust the authoritiy figures to do everything in our best interest. that's why we have the fourth estate in the first place. The Rolling Stone article was an example of a reporter revealing truths in the interest of an informed public. We are better off as a nation because of articles like that.

Mostly, however, I was objecting to your argument that Geraldo was just doing his job. That's only true if you don't define his job as journalism. By every test of journalism, his work that day fails. Ask just about every journalist in America and they'll agree.

 

I don't know how his employer defines it so you will have to take that up with the employer. I never said he was a journalist. I just said he was doing his job.

 

If his job is officially listed as "asshat", then I agree.

 

Even at the detremint of your own country, people, and quite possibly your own life. I for one am not giving up any strategic information, I think I can report on what's going on without doing something like that.