Rise of the "Patriotic Journalist"

According to Robert Parry of the Consortiumnews.com, Judith Miller “may be an extreme case of mixing patriotism and journalism, (but) she is far from alone as a member of her generation who absorbed the lessons of the 1980s, that skeptical journalism on national security issues was a fast way to put yourself in the unemployment line.”

Parry traces the decline of “skeptical journalists” and the rise of “patriotic journalists” over the past 30 years in his essay. He wonders, in the wake of the Miller case and other embarrassments,

Will journalists return to the standard of an earlier time when disclosing important facts to the electorate was the goal, rather than … putting the comfortable relationships between Washington journalists and government officials first?

Parry’s analysis, which is admittedly left-leaning, nonetheless offers an interesting perspective on the evolution of the D.C. press corps.

Technorati tags: Journalism

Tags: Journalism, journalist, news, reporter