When Reporters Become the News We All Lose

-By Warner Todd Huston

As the media systematically ignores the good news in Iraq, the AP instead turns to “reporting” on a “journalist’s” Iraq love tryst. Why we need to see a story of CBS’ Lara Logan’s romance troubles is anyone’s guess? But apparently the AP thinks that Lara Logan’s love tryst with a married contractor in Iraq is “news” while the surge and the complete lack of any real civil war in Iraq is not.

Here is the problem with the news media. Dan Rather fell for it. Walter Cronkite was overcome by it. Each of these “journalists” imagined that they were the news, that their lives and opinions were just as important to the nation as the news upon which they reported.

Sure Logan is a slightly better than average looking newsbabe, but so what? Is her horsing around with a married man something that is important to the world? Is her slutting around with multiple partners during her time as a correspondent in Iraq something that we all have a hunger, a NEED to know?

I just don’t see it. I just don’t see how her loose moral choices could be a compelling story of any kind… unless it is as an object lesson against her actions. Even then. But, here is where we are in the media today. Instead of pursuing the news, instead of worrying about the integrity of the truth, we have “journalists” who want to be the story instead of just reporting on it.

So, while the news media is steadily and universally ignoring the good news in Iraq we DO get to see the story of the somewhat comely Logan and her romantic saga involving out of wedlock birth, multiple partners, and all the mess that entails.

All the news you can use.

(Image credit: USA Today)

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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston


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