A reader at Newsbusters correctly points the NJ.com reporter is probably violating several standards in the Society of Professional Journalist Code of Ethics.
- Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.
- Deliberate distortion is never permissible.
- Examine their own cultural values and avoid imposing those values on others.
- Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context.
- Show good taste
Speaking of unethical journalists using the "teabagger" slur, here is video of Anderson Cooper and David Gergen (plus some unknown grinning fool) on CNN giggling after Anderson Cooper lets loose with a couple of "teabagger" jokes:
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About Anderson Cooper and his "teabagger" jokes, a reader at this blog said it best:
"Anderson Cooper traded a few minutes of knowing sniggering with his buddies for a lifetime of disrespect. Only a liberal reporter could get away with using a sexual slur with which he is intimately familiar to ridicule people who have no first hand experience with the practice."
Update: P. J. Gladnick says the offending post at NJ.com has been removed.
Related:
- Gwen Ifill apologizes for using "teabagger" slur, says 'I didn't know it meant that'
- Dem Congressman uses vulgar sexual term to slur constituents
- CBS online editor refers to town hall protesters as "teabaggers"
- Tuscon councilwoman apologizes for "teabagger" slur
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16 comments:
It's funny, but the first time I heard "teabag" used as a verb was on a conservative website...
http://teabagobama.blogspot.com/
Read the "Teabagus Maximus" Post For Proper Teabagging Instructions
http://teabagobama.blogspot.com/2009/03/teabagus-maximus_21.html
Is NJ.com a McClatchy owned site?
An e-mail I received from a senior editor at the Charlotte Observer on this very subject:
"Hello [redacted],
I shared your concerns with colleagues at other McClatchy sites as the dictionary of banned words and phrases is a shared dictionary with 30 other web sites around the country. Despite its lewd beginnings, "teabagger" has become a term associated with tea party protesters, especially on blogs, forums and in comments. We felt if we disallowed this term in that context, we'd justifiably hear howls of protests from users who had no intent to be lewd and may not even know it's a sexual act. With the readers help, we can weed out posts that clearly are using the term to denote a sexual act. Please send an abuse violation report when you spot a post that uses the term in a way that is obscene or profane -- and ask your fellow forum posters to so so as well.
Thanks,
[redacted]
Senoir editor/Online
CharlotteObserver.com
704-[redacted] (office)
AIM: [redacted]"
Yes, she misspelled "Senior" in her job title. Go figure.
What you can take from this is that they are totally OK with using the word "teabagger" because it's "commonly-used". The double standard, of course, is that if the conservative media started referring to Obama supporters as, say, "douchebags", the liberal media would howl like the banshees they are.
What they mean is that the term is commonly used in the liberal hothouse they have created for themselves and that they don't give a damn if its derogatory or not.
The people who go to tea parties, in the mind of the typical reporter, don't deserve any respect anyway. They sure don't get any.
The irony here is that few if any of the protesters actually knew what the term meant until the perverts of the left referred to them using it.
Even more irony in the fact that if you refer to them as being perverts, or morally perverse they get huffy.
UPDATE: NJ.Com has now pulled the Jamie Duffy "teabagger" story from their site.
Just another of the many reasons not to buy a McClatchy paper
Holding your customers in contempt is not a good business strategy.
Holding your customers in contempt, and lying to them, is an even worse business strategy.
They justify it in their tiny little minds as, "The customer is not the customer. Advertisers are the customer. You are the end user."
Then they wonder why no one will advertise with them anymore. To the socialist mind a business owner is an unknown, unseen force completely divorced from the remainder of humanity. It never occurs to them that the people who would buy ads are also the people who subscribe to the paper...er...used to subscribe to the paper.
Cooper made one joke, not "a couple" of them. He and Gergen were talking about Republican politicians (who Gergen said were not coming up with viable proposals of their own), and with the way politicians are caught in sex scandals I wouldn't be surprised if those politicians actually already did know what "tea bagging" means. As many media commentators pointed out, Cooper got it wrong (it's hard to talk when you are being tea bagged not when you are tea bagging) so he clearly is not familiar with the practice himself.
And if you are going to post the clip of Cooper making a joke about tea bagging, you should also post the earlier Daily Show clip where he participated in making fun of Code Pink protesters.
Isn't it amazing how these main stream media apologists insist on balanced reporting from a blog about McClatchy and manage to ignore any semblance of balance in their own world.
Well, guess what... McClatchy watch has never made a secret of their political position. It is the biased main stream media that claims to be unbiased and proves it by covering up the Obama sticker on their knee pads.
Anderson Cooper made his choice in using the slur to get a chuckle and his future will reflect that choice. His moment is consistent with Cooper's other "reporting". So is MNI's continuing use of the slur.
Demanding "balance" from one side while giving the other a pass is a tried and true but fundamentally dishonest approach.
Is it acceptable for us to refer to Anderson Cooper as a c*********? I mean, it wouldn't be a lie because he actually is a c*********... right?
Are we no longer allowed to call things (and people) what they actually are?
Anderson Cooper is just a lightweight. CNN keeps trying to make him into a hard news reporter but he keeps shooting them in the foot.
This screw up probably destroyed his ability to ever get past Olberman.
How can CNN think anyone would give Cooper a shred of credibility? He let his bias show and he is tainted not.
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