-By Warner Todd Huston
Last month, broadcast TV lifer Morely Safer of CBS’s 60 Minutes fame appeared on CSPAN and pronounced himself “appalled” by the denizens of the new media.
Citizen journalists aren’t trained well enough to be trusted as a source of news, Safer declared to CSPAN’s Brian Lamb on Sept. 13.
In fact, he’s downright “appalled” by the whole idea of Internet journalism and seems to wish it would all just go away. We need to leave the “reporting” to him and his professional class of “real” journalists, Safer sonorously declared.
The question about citizen journalism was put to Safer after host Lamb showed the aged newsman a clip of former Daily Caller correspondent Michelle Fields. On the clip, Fields was seen celebrating the advent of the new media.
Safer, a Canadian, admitted that he “sounds like a Neanderthal” with his hatred of citizen journalism — which, he said, he’d trust as much as he’d trust “a citizen surgeon” — nonetheless he rejects the idea that mere citizens can be a legitimate source of news reporting.
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Morely Safer is ‘Appalled’ By New Media”