WHAT DECADE IS THIS? – AT 7:35 P.M. ET:  Journalists like to think of themselves as ahead of the curve, on the cutting edge, people who know more than the rest of us do.  In fact, it's been my experience that many journalists are behind the times, often stuck in the world of their youth, or the world they wallowed in while at university. 

In part, this is because the craft of the "reporter" has given way to the presumption of the "analyst."  While truly first-class journalists have deep respect for the discipline of the reporter, some others consider that work beneath them, and consider the title an embarrassment.   They prefer to contemplate the world, the better to rub shoulders with intellectuals, professors, and UN diplomats.

To demonstrate what happens when reporting caves in to contemplating, consider this fantastic remark by Roger Cohen of The New York Times, a recent recipient of Urgent Agenda's prestigious Pompous Fool Award:

The Sept. 11 attacks, seen now with a little perspective, shattered America’s self-image. A continent-sized sanctuary, flanked by the shining waters of two oceans, was no longer. A hideous neologism, the “homeland,” was coined to describe a country that now needed vigilant protection from within and without. Two wars, one longer than any in the nation’s history, deepened the trauma.

Huh?  What decade is this man living in?  America hasn't thought of itself as a sanctuary, protected by two oceans, since before the Second World War.  Indeed, we learned the lessons of that war better than anyone else, and maintained, throughout the Cold War, a vigorous national defense precisely because we knew there was no longer a sanctuary.  Mr. Cohen is 70 years out of date.

And since when has "homeland" had such an evil connotation?  The word is commonly used.  In Cohen's universe, everyone is presumably entitled to a "homeland" except Americans. (Just as, among so-called "multiculturalists," everyone is entitled to cultural respect except Americans.)  And Cohen writes that America, after 9-11, "now needed vigilant protection from within and without."  Just wait a second.  Isn't "vigilant protection" exactly what we were doing during all those years of facing down the Soviet Union? 

This is what happens when the reporter is crushed and the pompous fool emerges.  Accurate history goes right out the energy-effient window.  Jack Webb said it best:  "Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts."  I wish my profession would go back to that basic theme.

September 10, 2010