J. Nichols: Moyers' search for truth, Limbaugh's trash talk collide

[rodeodance]

Oh--i long for more of the Moyers's type that chat/scream "news".!!



http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion//index.php?ntid=41060&ntpid=11

John Nichols: Moyers' search for truth, Limbaugh's trash talk collide

By John Nichols
May 24, 2005

Bill Moyers says that journalists have a responsibility to question those in power. Rush Limbaugh, speaking for the economic and political elites that currently hold sway, responds by charging that Moyers is "insane." ...............


Let Limbaugh bellow, like the Wizard of Oz when he was trying to keep his machinery hidden. Moyers is pulling the curtain away and telling the American people what is wrong with the "rules of the game" by which so much of today's so-called "journalism" is practiced.

"These 'rules of the game' permit Washington officials to set the agenda for journalism, leaving the press all too often simply to recount what officials say instead of subjecting their words and deeds to critical scrutiny," Moyers said. "Instead of acting as filters for readers and viewers, sifting the truth from the propaganda, reporters and anchors attentively transcribe both sides of the spin, invariably failing to provide context, background or any sense of which claims hold up and which are misleading.

"I decided long ago that this wasn't healthy for democracy. I came to see that 'news is what people want to keep hidden and everything else is publicity.' In my documentaries - whether on the Watergate scandals 30 years ago or the Iran-Contra conspiracy 20 years ago or Bill Clinton's fundraising scandals 10 years ago or, five years ago, the chemical industry's long and despicable cover-up of its cynical and unspeakable withholding of critical data about its toxic products from its workers, I realized that investigative journalism could not be a collaboration between the journalist and the subject..........