time for mainstream media to get re-introduced to its job.
It's interesting to see the up-tick in interest over Watergate right now. Book and DVD sales of All The President's Men surged. Makes sense.
I was always surprised and a bit disappointed in high school that history books said very little about the Watergate scandal. So in my freshman English comp. class (good ol’ W131, for all you IU grads out there) I decided to make Watergate the focus of my major paper.
I, of course, read All The President's Men, which was a fascinating read, really. I also read several other books and volumes about the break-in and subsequent scandal. In the span of a few short weeks I went from knowing very little to naming every Nixon cabinet member and their assistants.
I think I got an A on that paper.
In hindsight, though, I realize I was just writing a re-count of the whole thing. I thought I was trying to understand it and had to write a paper to do that. But all I was doing, really, was re-stating the facts. I offered very little in the way of my own perspective. I was 18 years old at the time (wow!) and probably have a much better worldview than I did back then.
If I were doing it now (well, before Felt came out) I'd probably try to speculate as to who is Deep Throat and, most importantly, dive deeper into the "why" question.
What's a bit disappointing to me right now is the fact that everybody is hashing over Mark Felt. They're only focusing on the "who" in the mainstream media. Why isn't anybody openly asking the "why" questions?
Why were Nixon's men so sycophantic, to the point of breaking the law?
Why was there so much paranoia in the White House?
Why did Felt feel compelled to act as an informant, rather than coming forward?
Why?
No. Instead we're fed a daily diet of "he's a hero" vs. "he's a villain." That's lovely pabulum for the first hour of the first day of the news cycle. But if we're going to continue to talk about Mark Felt and the Watergate scandal, let's truly revisit what's at the heart of the matter: the abuse of power.
But nobody likes to ask hard questions anymore. Just look at President Bush's last press conference, where nobody in the Washington Press Corp asked a single question about the 10 Downing Street memos.
Not one question about the memo that implies lying on the part of the Bush Administration to start a war. So much for this "elitist liberal" media out to get Dubya.
I digress.
Forgive me. I just miss the days of journalists who actually did their jobs.
I was always surprised and a bit disappointed in high school that history books said very little about the Watergate scandal. So in my freshman English comp. class (good ol’ W131, for all you IU grads out there) I decided to make Watergate the focus of my major paper.
I, of course, read All The President's Men, which was a fascinating read, really. I also read several other books and volumes about the break-in and subsequent scandal. In the span of a few short weeks I went from knowing very little to naming every Nixon cabinet member and their assistants.
I think I got an A on that paper.
In hindsight, though, I realize I was just writing a re-count of the whole thing. I thought I was trying to understand it and had to write a paper to do that. But all I was doing, really, was re-stating the facts. I offered very little in the way of my own perspective. I was 18 years old at the time (wow!) and probably have a much better worldview than I did back then.
If I were doing it now (well, before Felt came out) I'd probably try to speculate as to who is Deep Throat and, most importantly, dive deeper into the "why" question.
What's a bit disappointing to me right now is the fact that everybody is hashing over Mark Felt. They're only focusing on the "who" in the mainstream media. Why isn't anybody openly asking the "why" questions?
Why were Nixon's men so sycophantic, to the point of breaking the law?
Why was there so much paranoia in the White House?
Why did Felt feel compelled to act as an informant, rather than coming forward?
Why?
No. Instead we're fed a daily diet of "he's a hero" vs. "he's a villain." That's lovely pabulum for the first hour of the first day of the news cycle. But if we're going to continue to talk about Mark Felt and the Watergate scandal, let's truly revisit what's at the heart of the matter: the abuse of power.
But nobody likes to ask hard questions anymore. Just look at President Bush's last press conference, where nobody in the Washington Press Corp asked a single question about the 10 Downing Street memos.
Not one question about the memo that implies lying on the part of the Bush Administration to start a war. So much for this "elitist liberal" media out to get Dubya.
I digress.
Forgive me. I just miss the days of journalists who actually did their jobs.
