At RATM we are often asked: “Are there really no honest investigative journalists among the Mainstream Media?”
Until today, we could say: “Yes, there’s one. Sharyl Attkisson at CBS is the guiding light, the one journalist we can count on to dig into stories that no other “journalist” will dare to touch.”
In fact, at RATM we created an “Integrity in Journalism” award for her, described here.
Indeed, Ms. Attkisson was the exception that proved the rule: the mainstream networks are staggeringly biased, and now even that one beacon of actual reporting has gone. From Dylan Byers at Politico:
Attkisson, who has been with CBS News for two decades, had grown frustrated with what she saw as the network’s liberal bias, an outsize influence by the network’s corporate partners and a lack of dedication to investigative reporting, several sources said. She increasingly felt that her work was no longer supported and that it was a struggle to get her reporting on air.
At the same time, Attkisson’s reporting on the Obama administration, which some staffers characterized as agenda-driven, had led network executives to doubt the impartiality of her reporting. She is currently at work on a book — tentatively titled “Stonewalled: One Reporter’s Fight for Truth in Obama’s Washington” — that addresses the challenges of reporting critically on the administration.
Agenda-driven? If the truth is an agenda, then yes, guilty as charged. That the one lone voice in a sea of agenda-driven propaganda is accused of this is proof-positive of the liberal bubble inhabited by those entrusted with informing us. And it can’t have been easy, being that lone voice.
But we always come to this. We have ceded our education system to the left, and now complain about the damage they do. In like fashion, we’ve ceded the dominant media to the left, and now complain about the damage that they do. One lonely voice can’t make the difference, indeed – it is too easy to make life difficult for the outlier, as CBS has.
So what are our options? To either join the Attkissons who are out there, or to create our own “separate but equal” systems, which is what we seem to be doing. RATM seeks to expose and fight against the propagandistic media, while also elevating those doing the reporting we require; by supporting her, we had hoped to give strength to that one dissenting voice, and to empower her and others to diminish the feedback loop of the liberal echo chamber that is our “news media.” In retrospect, we were laughably naive, but that was the hope and the intention, that is why we chose to honor her with our inaugural “Integrity in Media” award. And while we completely understand how untenable it must have been for Ms. Attkisson and frankly have expected this for some time, it is hard to not be somewhat awed at the thoroughness of our capitulation in this arena.
For more:
from Jonathan Tobin at Commentary: If Attkisson is being shown the door at CBS it is not because her work is not highly regarded but because she has violated the prime directive of liberal media insiders: thou shalt not report on Obama in the same way that you reported on George W. Bush or even Bill Clinton. The liberal bias that conservatives have long complained about is out of the closet. …. read more…
from The Foundry
from Newsbusters:
We are sorry to see her go. In the future, when asked about any true investigative journalists in the mainstream media, the answer now will be “Not anymore. We lost the one good one.” But we are very much looking forward to her book!