Enough With The Gotcha
by John Weckerle
Today we find ourselves a bit behind the news – as we try to be when we think a situation should be given time to develop before commenting on it. We refer, in the current situation, to the most recent video hoax perpetrated by James O’Keefe, this time a purported “sting” against Ron Schiller, a National Public Radio fundraiser, resulting in yet another doctored video that supposedly depicts the target doing something horrible – in this case, harshly criticizing the Tea Party. For information on the situation, we provide the following links from NPR and Glenn Beck’s The Blaze:
- Questions Raised About O’Keefe’s Editing Of NPR Sting Video
- NPR: O’Keefe ‘Inappropriately Edited’ Video; Exec’s Words Still ‘Egregious’
- Elements Of NPR Gotcha Video Taken Out Of Context
- Ends vs. Means: The Ethics of Undercover Journalism
- Does Raw Video of NPR Expose Reveal Questionable Editing & Tactics?
Not surprisingly, neoconservative “news” outlets and blogs both local and national gleefully and immediately pounced on the “story” as either confirmation of longstanding claims of liberal bias or yet another reason to cut all funding to NPR and/or public broadcasting, and perhaps only a little more surprisingly the “mainstream” news media jumped right on the bandwagon. To the latter: the fact that something sells advertising space doesn’t mean it’s news. Nice job on the verification.
Once again, we find ourselves disappointed in those who so enthusiastically rebroadcast and/or promote material that comes from demonstrably questionable sources. Mr. O’Keefe has been shown more than once to be a purveyor of falsehoods, with his practice of taking hidden video and editing it in such a manner as to mislead. He is, quite frankly, a dishonest person, and this was pretty much universal knowledge following the phony ACORN “sting” and his attempt to “punk” a CNN reporter. We find it surprising that anyone with a modicum of sense would bother to relay his productions to anyone else, and still moreso to cite one of them as support for any position. Yet that is exactly what happened. We’ve been fairly clear about our opinion of this practice – knowingly or uncritically republishing and/or citing information from questionable sources. Whether through dishonesty of their own, an unwillingness to take the time to verify information, this practice leads not only to a misinformed public but to an eventual degradation of the credibility of the “relay team.” We acknowledge that people can make mistakes, but doing the same thing over and over certainly gives the impression that perhaps there were no mistakes to begin with. In short, we don’t care whether the “forwarders” like the way this garbage sounds – it’s still garbage; it stinks; and past a certain point the smell is certain to rub off. We again encourage all to ignore people like Mr. O’Keefe and other proven liars like Andrew Breitbart, and use honest means to make whatever case they think they have to make – because if you have to lie to make a case, it seems to us that you have no legitimate case. Unfortunately, that tends to suggest that we should ignore those who cite them, as well.
We’re also sick of the entire “gotcha” genre. In almost all cases, people have a right to know whether their remarks are being recorded. From time to time, we all express ourselves differently in private than we would publicly, and this childish need on the part of some to see those with whom they disagree embarrassed and damaged is exactly that: childish. While we do not necessarily defend Mr. Schiller’s statements (those which were actually his, which turned out to be relatively few), we do defend his right to have an opinion and state it in private conversation. Whether his statements were appropriate in the context they were made is subject to question. However, to his knowledge that context was a private discussion, not a public one. And with respect to those comments: we see little reason why having a negative opinion of the Tea Party represents a grand and horrible crime. Tea Party supporters may contest that the opinions are unfounded or unjust, but they are neither illegal nor immoral. And because they were made in what was considered to be a private situation, we see little parallel to the situation involving NPR’s sacking of Juan Williams, who made his statements in a broadcast on Fox News. Mr. Williams was employed as a journalist, and Mr. Schiller was not. Both were probably guilty of bad judgement, but the situations were very different.
Are broad generalizations such as those purportedly made by Mr. Schiller fair? Possibly not. However, given that the Tea Party itself is no stranger to making broad generalizations, we think that perhaps Mr. Schiller’s critics in this regard are playing catch with boulders around the ol’ solarium. We find it absurd that a movement whose members so readily (and, as it turns out, inaccurately) toss out words like “Marxist” and “socialist,” and some of whose members have publicly voiced a number of discriminatory (from both the racial and religious standpoints) positions (some of our Tea Party-gate articles contain some local examples), should be so sensitive to criticism. Absurd, perhaps, but not surprising; there are quite a few people in the world who like to dish it out but can’t take it.
Regardless, whether or not Mr. Schiller’s statements were appropriate, we are perplexed by NPR’s decision to fire its CEO over the content of the video (along with the fallout Juan Williams’s firing) without first having seen the entire footage – especially given Mr. O’Keefe’s record. We understand that, with Congressional funding hanging in the balance, NPR is sensitive to being seen as having a “liberal bias.” However, NPR has likely come out of this mending few fences with the right and having burnt a few bridges with the left. Either way, New Mexico Central recognizes the value of NPR and public broadcasting in general, and supports continued Federal funding for both – and we’ve called our Congressman to let him know.