Martha Raddatz and the Faux Objectivity of Journalists

[woo me with science]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/12-4

Martha Raddatz and the Faux Objectivity of Journalists
Establishment journalists are creatures of a highly ideological world and often cause ideology to masquerade as neutral fact.

by Glenn Greenwald

.....

The highly questionable assumptions tacitly embedded in the questions Raddatz asked illustrate how this works, as does the questions she pointedly and predictably did not ask. Let's begin with Iran, where Raddatz posed a series of questions and made numerous observations that she undoubtedly believes are factual but which are laden with all sorts of ideological assumptions....
....
The US has Iran virtually encircled militarily. Even with the highly implausible fear-mongering claims earlier this year about Tehran's planned increases in military spending, that nation's total military expenditures is a tiny fraction of what the US spends. Iran has demonstrated no propensity to launch attacks on US soil, has no meaningful capability to do so, and would be instantly damaged, if not (as Hillary Clinton once put it) "totally obliterated" if they tried. Even the Israelis are clear that Iran has not even committed itself to building a nuclear weapon.....That Iran is some major national security issue for the US is a concoction of the bipartisan DC class that always needs a scary foreign enemy. The claim is frequently debunked in multiple venues. But because both political parties embrace this highly ideological claim, Raddatz does, too. ...

Note what Raddatz did not ask and never would. Even after both candidates re-affirmed their commitment to attacking Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon (Biden dismissed Gates' warning about an attack by saying that "it could prove catastrophic, if we didn't do it with precision&quot , there were no questions about whether the US would have the legal or moral right to launch an aggressive attack on Iran. That the US has the right to attack any country it wants is one of those unexamined assumptions in Washington discourse, probably the supreme orthodoxy of the nation's "foreign policy community".
......
Exactly the same is true of Raddatz's statements and questions about America's entitlement programs. Here is the "question" she asked to launch the discussion:...."Let's talk about Medicare and entitlements. Both Medicare and Social Security are going broke and taking a larger share of the budget in the process.....Will benefits for Americans under these programs have to change for the programs to survive?" That Social Security is "going broke" - a core premise of her question - is, to put it as generously as possible, a claim that is dubious in the extreme. "Factually false" is more apt. This claim lies at the heart of the right-wing and neo-liberal quest to slash entitlement benefits for ordinary Americans - Ryan predictably responded by saying: "Absolutely. Medicare and Social Security are going bankrupt. These are indisputable facts." - but the claim is baseless....That's because she's long embedded in the DC culture that equates its own ideological desires with neutral facts. As a result, the entire discussion on entitlement programs proceeded within this narrow, highly ideological, dubious framework....
....

[woo me with science]

1. kick

[senseandsensibility]

2. For all the praise of Biden, and I enjoyed his performance

the fact that he didn't call her on the social security is going broke lie was very dishearteningl.

[WinkyDink]

3. The Soc. Sec. question was phrased the way her bosses and both sides wanted it phrased, IMO.

[undeterred]

4. And we don't allow third party candidates who might reframe the discussion...

that goes without saying.

[randome]

5. A poor article.

So she didn't ask questions as flawlessly as some wanted. BFD. She was a great moderator and Biden shined like a star in that format.

[rudycantfail]

6. K&R

[SidDithers]

7. It's funny to see Greenwald write about the "Faux Objectivity of Journalists"...nt

Sid