Lesley Stahl vs Lou Dobbs

8 May 2007

Lesley Stahl vs Lou Dobbs

This entry was posted on 5/8/2007 1:30 PM and is filed under Journalism, Journalists become the news.

Lesley Stahl should know better after 40 years in journalism to take on an old curmudgeon like Lou Dobbs. She started in journalism as a write for New York mayor John Lindsay in 1966. She railed on Dobbs on the 60 Minutes piece on May 6, 2007. The subject Stahl pressed was that Dobbs attacked certain issues like illegal immigration over and over again. Some of the dialogs is as follows:

"Reporters don't 'take on' issues. Reporters 'report' issues, and there's a big difference there," Stahl says. "Do you think you're a journalist?" 

"Absolutely," Dobbs says. "I may be an advocacy journalist, but I'm a journalists."

"The idea that a reporter should be disqualified because he or she actually cares, actually isn't neutral about the well-being of the country and its people, that's absurd," he says. (cbsnews.com)

Had Ms. Stahl majored in journalism rather than zoology, she might know journalism has no hard and fast rule other than to be mindful of slander and libel. One can be:

A "fly-on-the-wall" journalist or an "observer" journalist

An "undercover" journalist - infiltrating the mafia for example

An "advocate for an agenda" type journalist

A "corporate" journalist - writing for the boss

A "political journalist" - writing speeches (Lesley?)

A press secretary or public relations spokes person - giving out the talking points

A "news reader" journalist - reading someone else's stuff

A "news presenter" journalist - letting the audience decide if the class is half full or half empty

Also, one can be captured or injured and actually become part of the story one reports on

There are probably many other possibilities

The above things speak to philosophy, none address journalistic niches such as: sports; food; kids; weddings; death; entrainment; theater; cinema; opinion / editorial; law; medicine; farm; business; travel; war; etc.; etc;

I can't believe someone like Stahl could be so out of touch with the job she has had for decades. Unless of course, she was falling on the sword for CBS. Lou Dobbs has just been hired by CBS News to join The Early Show as a weekly commentator. This story also reminds me of the phenomena of journalist becoming the story. Is Lou the story or are the illegal immigrants he rants about, the story? Stahl has made Dobbs the story. The one thing I do think that one should watch out to avoid as a journalist is that of actually inserting oneself in an event or issue and stealing the show and veering attention toward yourself rather than the story you should be investigating.

This week's Wisconsin soldier to remember is Private First Class Rachel K. Bosveld, a member of the 527th Military Police, V Corps.  Pfc. Bosveld was killed Sunday October 26, 2003, in a mortar attack on the Abu Ghraib Police Station in Baghdad.  Rachel would have turned 20 on November 7, 2003.  She was a 2002 graduate of Waupun High School.  Rachel Bosveld was the fifth Wisconsin resident to die in the Iraq War.  She was the state's first female soldier to die since Sgt. Cheryl LaBeau-O'Brien, of Caledonia, who died in a helicopter accident during the first Gulf War in 1991.

3,377 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.

25,245 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring 2003.

72 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.

Soldier of the week and military casualty information sources: cnn.com; and, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.