The two poles of journalism
Michael Hastings and Lara Logan illustrate the difference between afflicting and serving the powerful
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With his Rolling Stone article on Gen. McChrystal, Michael Hastings has become both the personification of, and spokesperson for, Real Journalism, and as a result, has provoked intense animosity from establishment-serving “reporters” everywhere. He apparently committed the gravest sin: he exposed and embarrassed rather than flattered and protected a powerful government official, and in our upside-down media culture, doing that is a sign of irresponsibility rather than fulfillment of the basic journalistic function. As Barrett Brown notes in this excellent defense, Hastings in 2008 did to the establishment media what he did to Gen. McChyrstal — exposed what they do and how they think by writing the truth — after he quit Newsweek (where he was the Baghdad correspondent) and wrote a damning exposé about how the media distorts war coverage. As Brown put it: “Hastings ensured that he would never be trusted by the establishment media ever again.”
Yesterday, Hastings was interviewed on CNN’s Reliable Sources about the criticisms he has received from media figures over his article, and that was followed by a segment with CBS’ Lara Logan, who lambasted him. I really recommend watching these two segments (video below), as they illustrate the two poles of journalism: those who view their role as exposing the relevant secrets of the powerful (Hastings) and those who view their role as protecting those secrets and serving the interests of those officials (Logan). Amazingly, Logan sounds like the most devoted member of McChyrstal’s P.R. staff or even his family: so furious is she that Hastings would publish an article that reflected negatively on this Fine, Great Man (whom she supposedly covers) – so devoted is she to the interests of this military official — that, at one point, she drops the neutral journalist mask and shows her Bill Kristol face, and actually spat: “Michael Hastings has never served his country the way McChrystal has.”
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