Words got heated on Meet The Press Sunday when host David Gregory asked Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald — one of the reporters to whom Edward Snowden leaked classified NSA documents — if he should be charged with a crime for “aiding and abetting” Snowden.
Greenwald strongly responded that it was “pretty extraordinary that anybody who would call themselves a journalist would publicly muse” about that, adding that he was acting as an investigative journalist and there was no evidence he aided Snowden.
Gregory said he wasn’t embracing anything, simply asking a question that has already been posed by many people.
Right, the passive voice. I’m not SAYING ANYTHING. I’m saying that “many people,” none of whom I will quote, most of whom don’t know shit about shit, are saying this. I’m giving imaginary people a megaphone by which to yell at somebody who, at worst, reported what somebody else told him, making myself look pure in the process. I’m just ASKING, after all.
It’s not like I set an agenda, or anyone listens to me, or I’m at all a part of the story by being the TV talking heads’ preeminent voice of the status quo. It’s not like I have anything to DO with what people think. I’m just here, asking stuff.
Forget Greenwald entirely. Gregory probably at some point in his life broke a big story and remembers what that was like, and now he has to interview people who generally say nothing of importance, and people on the Internet look like Edward R. Murrow compared to Gregory’s fuzzy ass now. Let’s not pretend his peckish resentment of people like Greenwald isn’t about theft of a spotlight. It’s not David Gregory’s story everybody’s talking about, is it? That has to burn his ego.
Too bad.
A.
sunday’s are for the publikkklans + gerbils.
Oh, I think conventional, establishmentarian views were a prerequisite for Gregory’s job (at least, that’s the way Russert defined it). Because of that, it’s really important to note that Gregory isn’t a journalist. He’s a television personality. He’s a Regis Philbin for the Washington cocktail party circuit.
But, he’s not a journalist, and he’s certainly not a reporter. He’s well-coiffed keel ballast, to keep the boat from rocking.
IIRC David Gregory didn’t exactly cover himself in glory during the Valerie Plame leak. What I’ve read strongly suggests Ari Fleischer leaked Valerie Plame’s name to Gregory (on orders) and then Gregory proceeded to play dumb about it for BOTH his viewers and his colleagues. It was only during the case itself that Gregory’s connection came up in the unsurprising role of simp.
If anyone ever wondered what “journalism” was like in the East Bloc…
You are being generous assuming he ever broke a story.
I used to try to explain to people that people on the right think that Sean Hannity or O’Reilly are journalists. And that being a journalist to them means muckraking on the people they already hate. When the MSM does balances stories they are “in the tank for Obama” especially when they do stories that have reality (aka) liberal bias.