Bertrand Pecquerie, director of the World Editors Forum, has long had a political agenda about the U.S. and its press (as well as bloggers — whom he has called McCarthyite). At CBSNews.com’s Public Eye, he lays out that agenda a little more clearly than probably even he knows, as he asks whether American journalism is self-destructing. A sample:
Why does this model seem to be dying today? First, I cannot help but emphasize the collateral victim of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks: American “mainstream” journalism. Everything that was positive – prosperity, diversity, credibility, the struggle for power – quickly turned negative simply because American media, and not just Fox News, transformed itself into a war machine alongside the Bush administration. From one day to the next, a “media nationalism” made them lose their critical spirit.
Go ahead and roll that fine French whine around on the palate and pick up the nuance. Taint of vinegar, eh? Pecquerie can’t stand anything that isn’t critical of Bush; that’s what this is about. But he also despises the democratization of the press. See how he goes after blogs:
What worries me most is the process of self-destruction into which American journalism seems to be falling since the wave of grassroots or “citizen journalism.” It is very difficult to understand how theories such as “news is no longer a lecture but a conversation” and “breaking news is the beginning, not the end of the news process” have imposed themselves on the media scene….
What surprises me the most is the ease with which the American journalistic community has accepted this process of self-weakening and, in the long term, self-destruction. Why doesn’t anybody dispute Dan Gillmor and Jeff Jarvis? Who will contest these theories, which could very well be just another “Internet bubble?” Who doesn’t see that under the new cover of “virtual democracy,” real democracy is being weakened?
Evil wizards that Dan and I are. Don’t flatter me, Bertrand. I’m just riding this train.
In the U.S., people blog but they don’t vote. Virtual democracy doesn’t seem to have any affect on real democracy. In Europe, we vote (last week’s elections in Italy, for instance, had an 83% voter turnout), but we blog in the political sense very little. Which democracy is the most vibrant?
Hmmm. And in France, they riot and burn and strike when they see a law they don’t like. Which democracy is the most vibrant?
Sorry, but here in the U.S., we call that a softball.
