Andrew Potter, Managing Editor at The Ottawa Citizen and bridge over troubled water…
I spent the first 17 years of my adult life in academia. I’ve spent the last five years in journalism.
Potter has a PhD in philosophy. Like many bus drivers.
The key thing to understand about journalists is that they are the lowest rank of intellectuals. That is to say: they are members of the intellectual class, but in the status hierarchy of intellectuals, journalists are at the bottom.
It’s hard to find fault with this statement.
That is why journalists have traditionally adopted the status cues of the working-class: the drinking and the swearing, the anti-establishment values, and the commitment to the non-professionalization of journalism.
Along with an instinctive attraction to harnessing their writing to crude stereotypes.
The key thing to understand about academics is that they are the highest rank of intellectuals.
Lest you confuse him with someone who aspired to intellectual bottom feeder, Potter arrived at his current career “more or less by accident”. Like many bus drivers.
Despite inhabiting opposite ends of the intellectual status hierarchy, some journalists always saw some appeal in looking up towards academia (instead of down on the working classes) …
Known in the journalism business as “subscribers”.
…and some academics saw the appeal of journalism.
Caste system dirty talk. Don’t try to understand it.
Professors, after all, have the cachet of smarts.
Did he mention his three years as a philosophy prof?
Journalists, on the other hand, can become folk heroes.
A sweet deal, as journalists are the primary manufacturers of folk heroes.
And so within journalism there was a natural alliance to be found between journalists who wanted to give their stories some intellectual heft by quoting a serious researcher on the story at hand, and researchers who wanted an audience for their ideas beyond the faculty lounge and the conference circuit.
And that leads us to the punchline…
So far so good.
So what he’s saying is that most of the people on both sides who read and were offended by WhatsHisName’s initial critique didn’t actually understand it in the first place.
So much for the reading comprehension skills of both academics and journalists… Of course, we already suspected they were weak.
AND AS one sparrow said to the other sparrow “Don’t eat that Elmer, it’s HORSESHIT”
Remember: when a journalist is interviewing someone, the person in the room who knows the least about the subject being discussed is the journalist. (See journalism & firearms; science; religion etc.)
What a load of hooey over a simple exhortation to stop using political scientists:
. . . the tweeds and the sherry and the learning of obscure languages. . .
Let me boil that down for you: you “academics” are effeminate.
Many of the Toronto TV and radio stations consistently use this nerdy little poli-sci prof named Nelson Wiseman . . . for anything. I sent letters of complaint about this practice years ago.
The key thing to understand about journalists is that they are the lowest rank of intellectuals. That is to say: they are members of the intellectual class, but in the status hierarchy of intellectuals, journalists are at the bottom.
Say, where would that TorStar guy – who in the middle of the night peeked over Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s fence – line up in the hierarchy?
While the thought of academics and journalists at each others throats is delicious, I found this admission most interesting…
“But it should also change the way academics work as well. One of the more poorly-kept secrets of the academic world is that humanities professors and social scientists are the most ideologically committed members of society. People like to complain about journalistic bias, but journalists are in fact far less politically biased than most professors. A great deal of what passes as academic political commentary is little more than partisan opinion-mongering (I reviewed a particularly egregious example for the LRC a few years ago).”
Who knew..?..oh wait…What’s the opposite of Diversity again?
A plague on both your houses!
Here in the States, the TV programs use “GOP/Dem Strategists” or “GOP/DEM pollsters” or some such garbage. I for one vote for a ban on any talking head program that uses people who simply recite talking points that we’ve already heard for the past day/week/year.
He lost credibility with me when he classed journalists as intellectuals.
But it was an enlightening Freudian trip into the vacuous self-indulgence of the bus driving intelligentsia. This cloistered academic approach to journalism reminds me of the allegory of Plato’s cave – seems todays journalist-philosophers have traded places with the prisoners in Plato’s cave watching/creating shadow reality.
It takes a “special” kind of nosey person to want to stick their noses in everybody else’s business for a living.
It’s a whole other animal that makes it up and twists it around as they go.
Intellectual? Ok if they say so, I guess that’s supposed to mean something good. The only good Journalists are the independent ones mostly producing documentaries for distributers like Journeyman Pictures or VICE as examples.
Not that there isn’t any Liberal bias in all journalism even the good stuff – You can’t get the Liberal out of nosey people that love to inject themselves into other people’s business.
If you want different viewpoints watch foreign MSM occasionally, like Al Jazeera, Russia Today, China Today…. etcetera. Are they biased? Absolutely! But they are usually biased as polar opposites of western MSM on issues, which actually provides a good counter balance to Western Liberal propaganda, giving you a much better picture of an issue.
http://www.journeyman.tv/
http://www.vice.com/video
Journalists and professors . . . same smell, same useless opinions, same drag on society.
I thought it was good. I don’t agree with this part “journalists have traditionally adopted the status cues of the working-class: the drinking and the swearing, the anti-establishment values.” It is the rare journalist who is anti-establishment and J-school graduates would be horrified to be viewed as anything but firmly in the intellectual class. I think Thomas Sowell’s views on journalists and the intellectual class is more accurate in this respect.
Other than that I thought his views on the fragility of the academic ego was correct. I had two supervisors with advanced science degrees (PhDs) who came from university R&D type careers to industrial work. It is difficult to transition from that school bubble to one where regular people question and challenge you. One managed the change of attitude while the other moved on. Those political science profs who were offended by Glen McGregor’s post have likely never been contradicted by those they consider lesser intellectuals.
As someone who actually drives a (school) bus, I object to being lumped in with Andrew Potter.
…and now Al Jazeera, through their acquisition of Current Television, enters the Cable News world with a 99% bullshit rating and still ranks ahead of most of the MSM.
Look, MOST people go into “journalism” or the Media to advance their views. For example, SDA is Media. Do you REALLY believe that Kate would continue to spend the time and money to run this site if she felt it DIDN’T promote her viewpoint? And there is really NOTHING wrong with that. After all, that IS the very basis for the 1st Amendment here South of the Border. What would be truly nice, though, is if “journalists” and the Media were honest enough to clearly identify their biases. Same goes for academia. Nothing wrong with a professor being a member of the Communist party. Just need to show that clearly in the course syllabus.
Hello Jeffrey Simpson.
Hello Gwynne Dyer
Hello David Susuki
Hello Eric Margolis
Hello Frances Russel
Heyyyyy, stop bagging on bus drivers. At least they have standards.
So only a member of the journalist or higher caste is an intellectual? That is a demonstrably false premise; many people are not intellectuals by profession but are so by practice; they think deeply and critically on matters outside of their career path. Likewise there are many in the intellectual castes who are not thinkers but mere regurgitators of memorized information. Or worse, they are disseminators of falsified data who pretend that unproved theories are in fact scientific law in order to create public policy for the ‘greater good’.
What a load of condescending codswallop.
According to ancient wisdom, most grade school pupils who exhibited the
combined proclivities of working hard to become teacher’s pet and also
class sneak thief were destined to finally become journalists.
Alcoholism or drug addiction might help to accelerate the process.
The Sargent nailed it!
McGregor’s “Dogme95” list for political reporting hits on all the major issues we have been complaining about for years: the use of anonymous “senior” party sources, the use of the statements of putatively unbiased and arms-length academics/political scientists as the basis for “news” reports, and (think “Maher”) “picking up your own rebounds”. I find it curious that anyone, whether a reporter or an academic, could find fault with his reasonable and sound suggestions for improving the credibility of political reporting.
Robert Asselin’s tweet that Glen McGregor’s “assertion” that political scientists can’t be neutral or objective is false is very odd. For one thing, McGregor never actually said that (although he could have without being wrong, IMO). What he said was that when reporters quote political scientists it’s “lazy and signals the reporter couldn’t find any other apparently neutral or objective source” – in other words, he (over-generously) characterized political scientists as “apparently neutral and objective.” Secondly, for Asselin, a “policy advisor to several Cabinet ministers under the Chrétien and Martin governments” and “a senior adviser and speechwriter for the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada (including the Prime Minister of Canada) for three national election campaigns” to get the vapours over (non-existent, in the context of McGregor’s piece) accusations of possible political partisanship is a bit rich.
Wrt Andrew Potter, yes, his characterization of journalists as intellectuals is borderline laughable, depending on the journalists you have in mind (Sandy Renaldo? Susan Bonner?) but he does make some good points. His suggestion that “reporters should stop trying to launder their political biases through a convenient academic who will say the things the reporter wants to say, but can’t, given the conventions of unbiased reporting” is spot on, and is something that apoplectic news readers/watchers – myself included – have been saying for years. When the CBC turned anti-Conservative U of Ottawa prof Amir Attaran’s subsequently disproven allegations about Afghan prisoner abuse into top-of-the-hour news for days on end, for example, it wasn’t reporting, it was blatant, over-the-top partisan propaganda in the guise of news, and an obvious case of reporters/news organizations “(laundering) their political biases through a convenient academic.”
Anyway…kudos to McGregor for his objective and accurate criticism of the current state of political reporting.
Mark Mathis: I have no problem with bias opinion, my issue with the MSM and most “journalists” is they are not honest enough to admit they are partisan and pimping a partisan agenda. They spew partisan policy camouflaged as “balanced” news reporting. Most of the crap that passes as news should be under the opinion banner, at least that way we know there is no objectivity. However it is objectivity in reporting that has suffered, killed by partisan policy propagating masquerading as news and journalism. It’s the intellectual dishonesty of partisan propagandizing disguised as “balanced, unbiased” news and opinion which we detest, and this seems to be the stock and trade of pro journalists (AKA political activists in disguise).
If you have a paid position informing the public and you are partisan, have the intellectual honesty to tell them you spin the news and opinion to your particular biases. Don’t pretend to be unbiased or non partisan – like the CBC or CTV or most broadsheets.
I think McGregor’s piece is good, too.
I just find it entertaining that a self described intellectual felt he needed to explain anything at all, given the intimidating brain power of his intended audience.
The ultimate irony (as Kathy Shaidle notes at the top of this thread) is that the McGregor controversy erupted because their reading comprehension wasn’t quite up to the job.
“The key thing to understand about academics is that they are the highest rank of intellectuals. ”
Crap. Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.
Those who can’t teach, teach gym.
You’ve got that right Ron let me add to the list Larry Martin, Don Martin, Bob Fife, Roger Smith Hanoi Jane Taber, Greg Oliver, Greg Weston, Kady O`Maley, Jennifer Ditchburn, Andrew Coyne and last but not least Peter Mandsbridge………
mojo
“Those who can’t teach, teach gym”
I have never been taught!!
Of course they are angry, didn’t your mom ever tell you not to bother the dog when its eating?
They are feeding their egos and pocket books and they don’t want it to end.
I have a friend that used to be a journalist. He said the social pecking order, from the bottom up, was journalists, pedophiles, then lawyers.
Aside from the self-absorbed dog-chasing-its-tail feel to all of this (surprise, surprise), which is all very heartwarming and funny to watch while its happening, the one thing I do find intriguing is, why did Glen McGregor choose to start all of this? I mean, really: he is in as deep as Stephen Maher (National Political COLUMNIST for Postmedia News) on the Robocall nonsense, which has exhibited all of the worst characteristics of the malpractice he is supposedly decrying.
Does he feel that the Council of Canadians is going to win its lawsuit, and so he thinks he can gloat? Alternatively, does he feel that the Council of Canadians is going to lose its lawsuit, so he think he needs to show a bit of contrition? Did he have the best of intentions going in — namely to describe the credibility gap of journalism, in the context of declining public interest in the field? Was he born great, did he achieve greatness, or was greatness thrust upon him? (this last bit tongue-in-cheek, of course).
Those who can’t teach, teach gym.
And those who can’t run, teach journalism.
Dog chasing its tail: Remember that the topic that most concerns journalists is… The Media ™.
When the last issue of Newsweek put a Twitter hashtag on its final cover, this inspired plenty of witty, insightful tweets by journalists around America, about the state of their profession and so on.
None of them noted the irony: if only said writers put half as much humor and creativity and honesty into their ACTUAL news reports instead of their tweets to each other, Newsweek might still be alive.
This strikes me as mean and narrow-minded. Not worthy of you, Kate.
Are we talking about -this- Glen McGregor?
http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.ca/search?q=glen+mcgregor
Because if so, he’s got the morals and mental prowess of a raddled goat. This is the guy who publicly posted a full-up copy of the gun registry on the internet so it wouldn’t be “lost”.
Its an interesting contrast to note that McGregor did that and -nothing- happened to him, while Journal News Rockland editor Caryn A. McBride has armed guards at the newspaper this week after publishing the same information for two counties in New York State. Unsaid but probable, she most likely has them posted at her house as well.
Based on that I think Mr. McGregor can blow his journalism advice out his @$$. He’s undeservedly lucky, not smart.
Based on what I read from Mr. Potter, he’s a windbag. And when I say “wind” I’m not referring to the kind that blows through the leaves of a summer’s evening.
What did I say about “Piled higher and Deeper”
That’s what I said when I gave my formal redirection on paper to the Philosophy Dept.
Frack you. I would rather be a loser.
dwright
In addition to being reading comprehensionly challenged they are also irony deficient.
I’m told that if you accumulate a sufficient amount of fissionable material in one place, a chain reaction will result and there will be an explosion.
If the same were true of self-importance, The Ottawa Citizen would go off like the Tsar Bomba.
What was it my grandfather told me??? Oh yeah. If a newspaper/magazine has any of the following in the banner; Star,Citizen,Free,Liberty,Journal,etc….they are either commie,facsist,marxist,or any combo of the three.Very true.
“He lost credibility with me when he classed journalists as intellectuals” say Occam above.
I fear that it is also an error to class academics as intellectuals – intellectuals think for themselves and tend to take on larger questions; most academics are forced by the publish or perish logic of the modern university to become ever more narrow in research focus and, I fear, point of view.
Jay Currie
Good insight, And Why Philosophers have to stop staring at their belly buttons, on occasion.
Miss the big picture, if you stare at one part for too long.
drwight
Phantom – yeah, that’s what I was wondering about. I have a certain dislike for the man.
People are so weird about academic qualifications. Some PhDs are brilliant. Most are reasonably intelligent nerds. The “Womyn’s Studies” and such clown people, and even the Anthropologists, and the History and English types, are often borderline mentally ill and kind of stupid. The better ones of that sort are usually just dull, frightened, tedious little careerists.
I’m not talking about the hard sciences. You actually need to be able to count to do that stuff.
It’s really sad that people consider this glamorous. And sure, I’m an arrogant yadda-yadda, and who am I etc., but still I’m right.
Well, looks like we have the front runner for Douche bag of the Year, 2013.
There is no depths an intellectual will sink to, including lying to propagate his opinion. The same can be said of Journalists with a few exceptions. Both need the adulation from what they construe are higher sources mentally or socially. While looking at the rest of humanity as beneath them.Both species of ardor being mere Men who they can bask in their unearned glow.
Seems to me they both have a need for Parental approval, in fact crave some recognition or tend to wither.
They would forfeit all for this. From murder to lying being the least of it.
Its why I find used car salesmen with much higher integrity. They only want your money. Not a part of your soul. Not to twist your mind for rationalization for the obvious Man love they crave.
Well said.
Dwright.
This guy just proves they only talk to each other. They live in a bubble and have no idea what the public thinks.
But then again journalists are not reporters. Reporters report the news and then the public is informed; journalists read propaganda. There are not very many reporters left.