Helen Thomas: Bad journalism is bloggers’ fault
Update: Patterico - She’s right. We don’t have their “standards.”
***
The deterioration of journalism–from Janet Cooke to Stephen Glass to Scott Thomas Beauchamp to Staged News Galore to Rathergate to Reuters-gate to More Fake News Galore–isn’t the fault of individual MSM reporters, editors, or shoddy journalism schools.
Whose fault is it? The “dean of journalism” Helen Thomas blames bloggers. Damned bloggers!
Via the Business and Media Institute:
“What I really worry about is that I think the bloggers and everyone, everyone with a laptop thinks they’re journalists,” Thomas said. “And, they certainly don’t have our standards. They don’t have our ethics, and so forth. There’s a deterioration,” she continued. “Reporters laid down on the job in the run up to this [the Iraq] war.”
Thomas made those remarks in a January 4 round-table discussion that followed the premiere of a documentary about the National Press Club 100th anniversary, “The National Press Club at 100: A Century of Headlines.” The documentary chronicled how the National Press Club has changed over the years as forms of media have changed – from newspapers to radio, TV, magazines and now bloggers. The most recent changes were underscored by Matt Drudge’s June 1998 National Press Club luncheon address.
“I think they did a lousy job and we’re making for it now because the questions that should have been asked were not asked and because of 9/11 and the fear of being called unpatriotic, un-American and so forth. We let the country down,” Thomas added.
So, not only is their incompetence our fault. Their cowardice is our fault, too!
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“The National Press Club and Helen Thomas at 100: A Century of Headlines.”
Thought I’d correct that for ya.
She is right about something you know. We don’t have her ethics.
I don’t know whether to laugh or hurl.
“Bad journalism is bloggers’ fault”
That is like saying Thomas’ looks are the fault of her barber.
Again, she is right. Truth, honesty, integrity, the old media lacks all the above.
Long live the “new” media!
How wonderful to be lectured about ethics by Helen!
/sarc off
The truly saddening thing about this is that they actually believe that they are ethical - they honestly can’t see it.
Some days I just fear for the Republic…
FTA: There’s a deterioration,” she continued. “Reporters laid down on the job in the run up to this [the Iraq] war.”
Helen hasn’t been laid down since the Civil War.
HolyGoodGarbage!!!What a Mug!!!?! yeow…
“Helen hasn’t been laid down since the Civil War.”
One would also have to assume it was face down for dear Helen.
There, Helen. I’ve made your statement true.
Nothing worse than someone filled with so much self importance that they don’t have enough sense to sit down and shut up. She is the female version of Dan Rather. That’s almost too tough on Dan…maybe.
Does she not ever notice how everyone in the room during White House press conferences is laughing at her??
Was Helen in the field of journaliam when the Guttenberg guy invented the printing press?
At least we don’t ususally have to look at the “new media’s” face. They are comfortable with their words.
Thank goodness.
Jake
And damned glad we don’t. This old battleaxe needs to just go away.
MSM Journalists have standards?
A local Boston talk show host and columnist, (Who Michelle knows), once said of Helen Thomas:
“Helen Thomas shouldn’t be writing for newspapers, she should be fetching them!”
Is it April 1st already?
evilned….
That quote is hilarious
Helen Thomas really is a pioneer. A Lebanese dhimmi bigot socialist mole in America’s media conversation. She was years ahead of her Iranian modern counterpart Christiane Amanpour of CNN.
Still the age bashing is tasteless and weakens the argument against her.
Talk about a classic case of projection. Maybe if she could get that redwood out of her own eye, or perhaps it’s stuck somewhere else?
We Americans of Lebanese descent do not claim her!
Good lord, what an imbecile! Helen Thomas is a joke.
They don’t have our ethics
Thank God for that!
No offense meant, every tree produces a few bad apples. Her allegiances and influences need to be forthrightly discussed. Best if someone from your community does a thorough and reliable, warts and all, job of it.
She’s as much of a joke as the rest of the MSM. She reminds me of the mean old lady neighbor that takes your ball if it goes into your yard.
I meant HER yard. I had such a neighbor when I was a kid.
She deserves to have an Award named after her.
My eyes! My eyes!
Krykee doodle.
I think shakespeare wrote a witchy play with three of her kind.
All I gotta say, helen, is it’s a brave new world. Thank technology for a paradigm shift!
And thank goodness we don’t. Thomas is one of the most appallingly poor excuses for a journalist that MSM ever spit out. She is a stranger to professional ethics. The woman is foul and should have been put out to pasture a long time ago. Thomas never has been in search of the truth but has always been an agenda pusher who didn’t care what truth, honor and professional behavior was.
All of the political/news bloggers I know have more standards in their pinkie fingers than the entire press corps Thomas is a part of.
Just because bloggers don’t have a journalism degree on the wall doesn’t mean they are incapable of accurately, fairly, and articulately reporting the news. Add to that the fact bloggers (9 times out of 10) do the work “real” journalists can’t or refuse to do (usually because of political bias) and I trust this blog and others like it more than I would trust *any* nightly news program.
You mean like the NYT helping out the terrorists in the name of “journalism”? Unpatriotic and un-American are just the beginning of how we feel about the MSM!
Funny, that rag is in the tank whilst people like Michelle are doing a bang-up (pardon the firecracker reference) job!
We love you Michelle - keep up the “crappy” job! Deteriorate their brand of journalism some more will ya!
Blame ugliness on the mirror.
Of course it is your fault. If the bloggers weren’t around, noone would be the wiser of their deterioration.
Thank GOD for that.
What lies and deceit did the MSM get away with for all those years???
(well, they did allow Helen in for one thing.)
Don’t be so modest, Helen — you and the rest of the MSM are still letting the country down.
BTW, I saw a rebroadcast of “Shattered Glass” yesterday; in case any of the “real journalists” are interested, it was a Forbes online web journalist who busted The New Republic, not the traditional MSM.
Actually the Hearst Corporation is the one keeping Helen Thomas in the news businss.
MM, please post a warning before using the picture, some of us have weak hearts.
Well, they’re crying the blues about bloggers, the issue is if they have done their jobs with honesty and integrity it wouldn’t come to this.
I say that the new media is on the rise and they are scared out of their wits.
hahahaha
I must go watch the game now. Michelle, how dare you post something like this without a warning of viewing something of a frightening, disturbing, & graphic nature!!??
Its stunning the total lack of perspective. Could this be BSS (the barbra strassand syndrome)?…
Well lets see, kos, media matters, move on and others match her standards.
She is a lying moron, though rather cute.
BWWWAAAAAHAAAAAHHHAAAAAAAA
That is the funniest post in some time (but I am a sick man).
This is how the dead tree newspapers, and the dinosaur MSM respond to fear. Bloggers are quicker to get the story out, and more accurate. Helen Thomas is running scared in the only world she knows, an obsolete world of old media.
Yowzer. Scary photo—trollish under the bridge scary.
>
cmills just nailed it. The bloggers wouldn’t be so popular if Helen and her beloved MSM hadn’t kept screwing up!
Trouble is, Helen is so ossified that she isn’t aware of her biases.
And she thinks that just because she has a pencil and paper that she’s a journalist. What a sad illusion she lives under.
Old media based on twists, lies, and probaganda!
lol *propaganda
“And, they certainly don’t have our standards.”
well thank f*** for that!
I dunno, they oughta be happy with Politico - its pretty good at printing MSM spin and disinformation.
Politico does smears and hitjobs pretty well.
Helen Thomas and the old guard elite media hate citizen journalists, pure and simple.
Bloggers like Michelle makes Helen and her ilk look bad.
That screen cap made me jump in the chair any little kids would ask if thats what a terrorist looks like.
The clocks in her house are right only twice a day.
No wonder the Whitehouse can’t keep a press secretary, they can only take it for so long.
I understand James Carville has the same problem.
She’s still alive?
Dear Mz. Thomas:
You blaming bloggers for the deterioration of journalism is like Billy Jeff Clinton blaming dress manufacturers for his impeachment. The fact that bloggers exist shows what a lousy job you and your colleagues are doing at hitting the mark. The same with Clinton. Maybe when you have better aim, i.e., actually report on the events of the day instead of pontificating on what should happen, bloggers won’t be able to make clear how biased you (and your MSM) pals are.
Never mind.
If I didn’t know better I’d think this was an April
Fool’s joke.Helen Thomas talking about standards and ethics—now that is funny.
Helen Thomas died 20 years ago and nobody told her. I think she became a suicide bomber, given her love of all things Palestinian.
Her ethics can smooch my Hebrew rumpus.
Respectfully,
eric aka the Tygrrrr Express
This is by far one of the most unpleasant and ugly people on the planet. Inside and out! There is no reason anybody has to listen to what she has to say. If one listens to a fool, then you become one.
Helen is pining for the good old days when the MSM had a monopoly on the news and everything they said went unquestioned. Just like the liberal view that “the constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is”, the MSM believe that journalistic standards and ethics are what the liberal media say they are. Helen thinks she should be able to define what truth is. If it were not for bloggers confusing facts with reporting, she could continue to define the news as she sees it and no one would question her. That’s what she really regrets.
That could explain why I originally thought someone had mixed up her photo with one of the Crypt Keeper.
Ok, is it just me, or does this woman look like Yoda in drag?
I’m going to have nightmares…
Emperor Palpatine
Just think of how things would have been if there weren’t bloggers like Michelle:
Al Gore probably would be president after Dan Rather’s smear campaign.
We would have pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan years ago and thousands (if not millions) of Iraqis and Afghans would have been killed. Just like what happened in Vietnam when Cronkite and company had a monopoly on the news.
Israel, if it still existed, would be a free-fire zone for the palieos after the UN effectively ties their hand after all the ‘fake but accurate - and unchallanged’ news report following the war last year.
The war on terror would be fought in the US - with little, if any, help from the government who views it as a civil problem.
It bears remembering that when the Danish Muhammad cartoons were central to the ongoing story of how embassies were being burned, innocents were being killed, and Muslim demonstrators worldwide were bearing signs with slogans like “Free expression is Western terrorism,” “Our religion does not allow unconditional freedom of speech” and “A Muslim’s faith is above Western values,” only three major American papers (the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Austin American-Statesman and the Rocky Mountain News) had the integrity to push back, defend their rights, and print any of the cartoons. The rest demurred, spouting weasel words about “taste” and “responsibility.” Had it not been for the bloggers, few Americans would have seen them and been able to judge for themselves whether Muslims’ wrath was justified. “The people’s right to know,” it’s called — and the mainstream American mass media did their damnedest to abrogate it. And this garrolous gorgon dares prattle about the loftiness of their “ethics” and “standards”? Give me a break.
Ouch, CrazyFool! That’s a little too “real possibility”, ain’t it? Well, but scarily, put…nice job.
BTW, she is a total Muslim sympathizer. A real anti-Western, Anti-American loon.
Is that a real picture? If so, that may be the ugliest photo of a human being that I’ve ever seen.
OT: Soap, when are you going to have something interesting and/or original to say? “LOL” at your own weak material is lame bra.
Maddie Albright’s better looking sister.
Recently on HuffPo, Hell-en said that every time journalist has made a major error, he/she was gone the next day. She apparently forgot about Dan Rather.
To hell with her.
I am not famous, I am not rich…my opinion doesn’t mean a damn thing. But just like most “bloggers” I feel my comments/remarks are those of the “people”…..NOT those who already have a soapbox. Maybe my opinion, and yours, should be what the “powers that be” should listen to. Isn’t that the way it was supposed to work????
#66: This comment may be censured by the UN (Useless Nations) Islam is the religion “of which we speak no negativity”. Now if you want to bash me as a Catholic….bash away. lol
Oh, Helen. “STFU” says the new media to old. (strict tenacity for understanding)
Helen’s Depends have been in a bunch ever since Pres. bush shut her up a few years ago. I mean, somewhere, in some attic, there is a portrait of her that is getting prettier and prettier.
No Helen, we don’t have your morals, standards and ethics. We actually tend to write what is the truth, not what we want the truth to be. We tend to write all the lines, not just the ones that won’t upset the bad guys and make them….upset. We tend to see the world with both eyes open, through clear glass, not with one eye closed, myopically through rose-colored hippie glasses trying to relive the good old days when we would all gather round the hooka, smoke a big fattie and figure out how to bring down “The Man” and “Speak Truth To Power”(whatever the Hell that means), and write and report whatever we have to inorder to change the world into the Socialist hippie Utopia that the Liberals who now run the MSM always wanted it to be.
So you are absolutely correct.
I will take all of us morons with a laptop over you fat, ugly dinosaurs who should have retired back when Armstrong walksed on the moon any day. You are out of touch, out of time, and definately out of your mind, old lady. There is a nice room in the retirement home and they are waiting for you. I promise, all your buddies from CBS will come and visit. Just go already.
Thanks a lot CrazyFool,now I’m going to have nightmares for weeks.Seriously,a very good analysis,and probably 100% corrrect.
When is this woman going to retire?She is like the freaking bunny,she just keeps going and going.After all these years,hasn’t she found a life?
Thomas also accepted personal blame. “We let the country down.”
That’s something that our hostess Michelle has never done.
Maybe Helen isn’t all that bad after all. You could learn from her, Michelle.
I can imagine Howie Carr coming up with that line! I lived in NH from 1999 to 2004 and he turned me on to the illegal immigration issue BIG TIME.
Phew! That photo would make a great halloween mask - sorry, I don’t approve of ad hominum attacks, but she has had a personal vendetta for all Republicans, while playing huggy/kissy with Billy Jeff on more than one stage during award ceremonies. She is an embarrassment to her alleged profession in so many ways.
If anyone is biased in her reporting, it is certainly this lady. I thought she retired long ago. Certainly haven’t been paying any attention to her.
Ok, that one got a spit take. Thanks, Latino.
This is Maxine’s dog Brandy, and I am insulted,even with a skin allergy that sometimes makes me scratch bald patches in my fur I am much prettier than Helen Thomas.
I am also sweet even the mail man loves me. On the other hand my mommy likes the surprises I leave for her on stormy nights more than she likes Mrs. Thomas.
Personal blame, eh, David?
I think Helen Thomas was the first M.C. at the press club;
Why does the administration let her have a white house press pass?
If the MSM hadn’t gone of the reservation in the 60s and started their left leaning rant against America they would still be able to compete with the new media. Their failure to present only the facts instead of the editorial’s against all we believe in just about every story you read. They failure to check their so called facts presenting their agenda has turned off many of us. The trend toward the tabloid style of European MSM along with their obvious left content continues their slow march into illrelevance. I have more faith in Bloggers that link to their facts then to the MSM that only bends the facts or completely ignores them to fit their anti-American agenda.
Helen dear, to have your ethics would be to have no ethics at all. You take your peevishness, prejudice, and sense of entitlement and wrap them in a news-like format. You are now irrelevant. In fact, I thought you were dead. What a surprise, and not an altogether happy one, to learn that you still grace the public square. To monitor yourself, do this: Ask yourself how many times you have written anything positive, or even neutral, about Pres. Bush. Or any conservative anywhere, anytime. Zero, right? Case closed. Now get some rest.
Helen Thomas is the ‘hack’ if there ever were one. Have you noticed in the last few press conferences she was totally ignored by Bush… you go GW.
Helen Thomas needs Hillary’s make-up artist. Look at what it did for the aging hippie.
Is Helen really dating Keith Olbermann??
Not to mention a serious deterioration of grammar, spelling and usage!
Reporters laid down what on the job? If they laid (past tense of lay, as in “lay the book down”) something down, the verb needs an object. On the other hand, if she meant the past tense of “lie” down, she should’ve said they lay down on the job!
Maybe it’s something about that word “lie.”
/snicker
Leave it to an English major to lay it on as it lies.
That’s either a picture of Watto from “SW:Epi 1 - The Phantom Menace” or Billy Crystal as Miracle Max in “The Princess Bride,” I can’t decide
witchwhich.Thanks for the compliment (I think), but no. Journalism and lifelong (65 years) newspaper brat.
Bloggers eroding th MSM information monopoly is a perfect example of “speaking truth to power.” Why aren’t they being praised by the NYT and Vanity Fair? I thought they were for the underdog.
Hey, #77,
What exactly has Michelle done to let the country down?
How have Michelle’s standards been as dismal as this Helen Thomas creature?
What color is the sky in your world?
I would say helen looks like Emperor Palpatine, but not even young Anakin Skywalker would have associated with someone that biased and monkey but ugly!
Maybe the Borg from ST/TNG though. Funny thing, they look an awful lot like dhimicrats
GSP
As do I my friend
Latino must have left the reading glasses on the night stand.
#43, Latino, who are you talking about?
“She is a lying moron” — could be any liberal.
“Though rather cute” — Huh?
Oh, ouch, NOT. Ummmmm, the fact that you are considered a Moby on this blog speaks volumes. To answer your question; point to one post where I LOL’ed myself. I think you have a problem with comprehension. I believe I LOL’ed another post i.e. post #44 I laughed at #34 (because it was funny BTW).
In the future, take your own advice. Now, go back under your bridge and scare some kiddies.
P.S. Who can take trolls seriously when given an opportunity to wish the hosts of this blog Happy New Year and they pass.
I just pasted the picture of Dame Thomas above a troublesome pest hole and am pleased to note that all rodents have vacated the premises.
Will that work for trolls meatpie?
Well, Soap, her pic was below the link to these comments, but the trolls came anyway. Maybe she is what a female troll actually looks like….
Not even I would wish that on Keith…
I should be upset at Michelle for even having that picture up. *shudder* Now I’m going to have nightmares…
Helen Thomas was an embedded journalist at Valley Forge and sided with the Redcoats.
The ultimate in diet aids is a life size picture of Helen Thomas in a thong on your refrigerator.
Responding to #107 –
I’M BLIIIIIIIIIIIND!
As if the Chantix wasn’t making it hard enough to sleep…
pd, you are a horrible, horrible person.
Helen Thomas: “And, they certainly don’t have our standards. They don’t have our ethics, and so forth. There’s a deterioration.”
And that’s why we bloggers are eating their lunch. Journalists have set the bar so low on standards and ethics that professionals from other fields can blog and beat them at their own profession. When sloppy and biased journalists like Helen Thomas are whining about bloggers, that means we are having a good effect on journalists, who love to dish it out to others but don’t like having it dished out to them at all.
Thank the Lord! The MSM fabricating so-called “news” is enough for me. If it weren’t for MM and the like in the blogosphere, more people would still be buying into the MSM talking points for the left.
I want to hear the truth, good, bad or indifferent.
AUUAGH!
Christ. Thanks for the pic, Michelle. Now I have to go sandpaper my eyeballs…
A little advice soap: a guy of your “stature” and overall physical appearance is probably best off refraining from referring to anybody as a troll. Know what I mean?
Troll
Tool.
Dakine,
Soap is a bigger man than you will ever amount to be. Not cool.
You called me out: #69.
I asked you to prove it: #100
I brought up: #101
The best you can do is: #113
So, you threw the first punch and you will not let up.
Go back to DKOS where you will get some respect.
Gee, lots of digs at Thomas’ age and looks. How mature of you all.
On the substance of the story, she’s dead wrong, of course . . . the “new media” (aka blogs) is rising strong precisely because the “old media” represented by Helen Thomas and her peers have failed so completely to live up to their obligations as journalists.
aj, tool or not, I think soap can take care of himself.
soap, your “LOL” at yourself stuff was in another thread. I’m a traditional/old school conservative (think Goldwater and Reagan (w/o the religious right nonsense)) with a libertarian streak, but I do enjoy listening to and reading other points of view. As a result, I’m not afraid to visit sites such as DKOS. It’s not a very good site though IMO, so I don’t visit very often. The format sucks and most of the posters are mirror images of guys like you…extreme, irrational and no ability to appreciate another point of view and engage in intelligent dialogue.
You mean engage in intelligent dialogue like:
I see what you mean. So what part of your intelligent dialogue did I miss?
Depends on the person. I loved BuckI when he posted and we did not agree on much. lgm has little to offer and you have less at times (such as now).
You came on this thread and made a deliberate attempt to attack me for no reason so, I can’t even give you “intelligent dialogue”.
Your attempts belittle me are sad and pathetic.
The photo of good ‘ole Helen was intended to result in silly/personal comments about her physical appearance, so your point as it relates to that portion of my post is off base. However, I will admit that the second portion of my post was a bit out of line, so I apologize for that. I stand by what I had to say in my last post though.
You stand alone. In the furure, leave me out of your comments.
You’re a funny little man soap.
And you stand in my shadow - troll.
What, she can be an ugly old harridan mostly famous for interviewing William T. Sherman and I’m not supposed to mention it?
Where’s the fun in that?
Touche you clever wordsmith you. Last word goes to soap.
You might have inferred that, dakine. Put “Helen Thomas” into the google image search and it’s the first photo. Take a look through other photos of Helen. I don’t think the intent of the photo was quite what you thought it was. She’s just not photogenic.
I hear ya Salt, but c’mon. There’s no way that Michelle picked that particular photo without thinking that folks around here were going to go to town on it.
Dakine, Salt’s point is that any picture of ol’ Dame Thomas was likely to not be very appealing.
We can’t halp it that she might actually be what a female troll looks like.
Remeber, Michelle has too much class to place that picture so we can hurl………jabs at it.
SHoward, you’re kidding right? Take off your Michelle colored goggles for a minute. Michelle regularly uses the worst pictures ever taken of those individuals with whom she disagrees (or otherwise has a problem) on this site. I gotta believe there are somewhat better pictures of Helen Thomas available. Having said that, however, this site is about entertainment as well, and that picture made me chuckle a little. Interestingly enough, that picture of Helen looks a bit like soap would if he was an 80 year old female.
The old bag is obnoxious and delusional. Her “ethics” and “standards”??? That’s the LAST thing the main stream media possess or practice. Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair, Eason Jordon, Mary Mapes, Dan Rather, William Arkin, Keith Olbermann, Helen Thomas….what a collection of moonbats.
Those self-appointed foreign policy “mavens” are a laugh a minute.
They want all of the rights of free press but none of the consequences.
They fear the general public’s ability to access and utilize the internet as a forum to counter their half-truths and confront them on their belief that they and only they can define the facts and how they’re presented.
It doesn’t take a degree in journalism to discuss issues, dissect the blatant leftwing advocacy, fill in the parts they convieniently omit, or point out all the distortions they pass off as “news stories”.
Thomas should just consider bloggers as a force that ’speaks truth to power’.