"a group of weirdos...."

[flowomo]

Should Media 'Call a Duck a Duck'? Top Web News Director Says Yes
By E&P Staff
November 17, 2006 3:45 PM ET

(snip)
NEW YORK -- Love it or hate it, you don't see this kind of this frank assessment and self-criticism in the "mainstream" media very often, even in this age of obsesssive Web opining and blogging. But Dick Meyer, editorial director of CBS.News.com, based in Washington, has raised eyebrows with a piece on his Web site titled, "Good Riddance to the Gingrichites....

"Really, it's just a simple thesis: The men who ran the Republican Party in the House of Representatives for the past 12 years were a group of weirdos. Together, they comprised one of the oddest legislative power cliques in our history. And for 12 years, the media didn't call a duck a duck, because that's not something we're supposed to do." (snip)

(more): http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003409701

[kenny blankenship]

1. It's just too bad his assessment wasn't being read on television

--and that it came so late.

The media absolutely should call attention to glaring any discrepancies between self-promoting claims on one hand and available independent evidence on the other, whenever politicians claim to be exemplars of religious faith, or traditional family roles and backgrounds, or good business sense, or protectors of the little guy, or crusaders against special interests, etc. or any other kind of mythic representation whether conservative or liberal that politicians build up around themselves to cloak their true loyalties and actions.

It's just about exposing hypocrites and their misrepresentations, and that IS what journalists are supposed to do.