I wanted to ask Gabe if having anti-war views could affect your
employment prospects in the current climate. But then I saw a few
stories which seemed to confirm this, and felt depressed.
Journalism is always compromised by the climate of the place where
you work, by what the guidelines are which constitute "news"; this
kind of censorship, self censorship, is by far the most effective,
since journalists will generally rebel if told outright to suppress
things. I think John Pilger's analysis in the forward to (I think) A
Secret Country describes this process very well; it certainly fitted
with my own experience of working in a newspaper office. On the
other hand, I also knew when I was a journalist that if I adhered to
the _tropes_ of journalism I could get pretty well what I wanted in
the paper; I always thought of it as a kind of necessary subversion,
getting things in "under the wire". So it works both ways, and much
actually depends on the individual ethics of the reporter. This kind
of thing, though, where news outlets are absolutely upfront about not
telling the truth, is a bit new to me: in degree if not in kind. It
is also explicitly against journalistic ethics (yes, they do exist).
Best
A
--
Alison Croggon
Editor
Masthead Online
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
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