Slate media critic Jack Shafer weighs in with a blistering critique of Fox News, saying it …
… tends to appeal to our emotions, exploit our fears, and pander to our vanity. It places a political agenda in front of the quest for journalistic truth and in its most demagogic forms tolerates no criticism, branding all who question it as enemies of the people.
Right on!
Oh, wait, what’s that? You say he’s not turning his prominent megaphone against a media juggernaut with millions of viewers? You say he’s turning it against the tiny niche of green journalism?
Well gosh, that’s stupid.
But wait, it gets stupider. The subject of Shafer’s indignation? A contest Slate ran with Treehugger about how people can reduce their carbon footprint.
Yes, a contest. Not a piece of journalism, a contest. What that has to do with journalism, green or otherwise, escapes me.
This is the coup de grace, though:
I don’t mean to suggest all greenies are well-meaning dolts or propagandists. Some possess all the skepticism of their more enlightened brothers and sisters in the capitalist press.
That’s rich.
Hey Jack, do me a favor, don’t compare my skepticism to that of the capitalist press, which already in our young century has cozied up to power and consequently helped systematically misinform the American people about war, terrorism, climate change, tax policy, government corruption, and health care, among many, many other subjects, while ineffectual enablers like you sat by kvetching about inanities. You live and work every day among dolts and propagandists, and you are complicit in the horrors they’ve wrought, yet even at this late date you wouldn’t know one if it bit you in the ass.
My skepticism’s just fine, and unlike you, I bring it with me when I read the work of your pals.
I want nothing to do with your corrupt, dying press establishment, you desiccated old fart. Let’s agree to go back to ignoring each other, ok?
