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| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
Following up on some past discussion of PBS anchor Jim Lehrer, this makes me feel somewhat vindicated:
Don't watch my "NewsHour" to be entertained, says Lehrer
Austin American-Statesman | Daily Texan
"You want to be entertained? Go to the circus, please," says Jim Lehrer. "We did 30 minutes [on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer"] comparing naturally grown tomatoes to unnaturally grown tomatoes. Don't ask me why we did it. We did 30 minutes on the Portuguese elections that not even the Portuguese cared about." || Related story.
The Statesman story goes on to quote Lehrer telling an audience, re: the future of journalism, "I believe we mostly have fear itself to fear, to coin a phrase." Actually, I think a larger fear than fear itself is the mindset of journalists like Lehrer, who once described his zombie-like editorial philosophy this way:
"I don't deal in terms like 'blatantly untrue," he averred. "That's for other people to decide.... I'm not in the judgment part of journalism. I'm in the reporting part of journalism."
Some of us like our news 'boring', thankyouverymuch. Nothing made me so happy as when Jim Lehrer said, "OJ Simpson was arraigned in court today. When there's a verdict, we'll let you know."