Or maybe just “extraordinarily honest” full stop.

Honest? MSM and honest in the same breath?!?

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That was a good one!

What people seem to keep forgetting is that Mr. Williams is NOT a journalist. Want proof? For what news organization does he work? I’ll wait. . .

NONE!

He is part-owner of the Graham Williams Group, a what...? Public Relations firm! GASP! SHOCK! HORROR! A PR flack on the take?!? Say it ain’t so, Joe! Further, the corporate offices of GWG are located where...? Washington, D.C.! Oh, my stars and garters! A PR flack on the take in Washington! What are the odds?!? I mean, whodathunkit?!?

Now, you want conflict of interest? Have you ever seen the MSM do an in-depth investigation of ANY of their #1 advertisers? Ever? Have you ever seen a newspaper take on any major advertiser, even if it was the right thing to do? Heard a radio station stick it to a heavy-hitting advertiser?

If and when that day arrives, then let’s sit down and talk conflict of interest.

Armstrong William’s column was carried by the Tribune Media Services—a major media owner and syndicator.  Even if Williams wasn’t a “journalist” the fact that he appeared in a number of newspapers gave him the legitimacy of a journalist.  I’m sorry, but it appears Buster is using a double standard.  Liberal Dan Rather is a traitor, but conservative Armstrong Williams is just a PR flack and excusable.

The media will of course never investigate the hands that feed them.  Do you think ABC is ever going to run criticism of owner Disney? Is NBC ever going to investigate owner General Electric? Of course not. That’s why the attempt by the FCC to deregulate media ownership was such a bad idea,

King—I do appreciate your fairness about media accountability and I think you and I are in agreement that the media on both sides needs to be held accountable.

I think that with blogs and the internet, media is going back to a situation similar to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  During that period, most major cities had several newspapers that were all fiercely partisan, however, the consumer had several choices.  Ideas about media “fairness” only came later when the amount of newspapers began to decrease.

Now when anyone with a computer and an internet connection can be a “news source” the amount of points of view that someone has access to is multiplied, but the media will be partisan.

So that also begs the question—how are the bloggers and other internet media to be held accountable as well?

I had not found time to respond to Buster yet, but I definitely agree that Armstrong Williams has been correctly labeled as a journalist.

So that also begs the question—how are the bloggers and other internet media to be held accountable as well?

We are held accountable by our peers and our customers, just like the ‘old media’ used to be (and still should).  You are a consumer of this site probably because you place some measure of stock in what I have to say.  You don’t agree with me, but you ‘trust’ me because I back up my assertions with fact (by linking) and by my own logic (which I know you disagree with often). 

Even though we rarely see eye to eye, you have discerned (I hope) that I am an honest source of information, even if it is just a source of conservative viewpoints and reaction to current events.  (I have the same trust in what you have to say, because you back up what you say in the same manner.)

If a ‘new media’ player is dishonest or doesn’t understand the rules (like confirming information and avoiding baseless slander), they either wise up as links and attention dry up or they continue on in their ways, preaching to an empty room.

Granted, there will always be a few rabid unbalanced partisans who will receive regular attention, but most of those are either preaching to the choir or else get linked for comedic reasons.  (Like Frank J for instance - this guy says things I would never dream of saying, usually taking things out to their illogical conclusions, but he is pretty funny.)

I should have read this sooner, but here are a few points from this OpinionJournal article by Peggy Noonan which deal with the accountability question (and actually dovetail directly into what you were saying regarding the olden days of news):

6. It is not true that there are no controls. It is not true that the blogosphere is the Wild West. What governs members of the blogosphere is what governs to some degree members of the MSM, and that is the desire for status and respect. In the blogosphere you lose both if you put forward as fact information that is incorrect, specious or cooked. You lose status and respect if your take on a story that is patently stupid. You lose status and respect if you are unprofessional or deliberately misleading. And once you’ve lost a sufficient amount of status and respect, none of the other bloggers link to you anymore or raise your name in their arguments. And you’re over. The great correcting mechanism for people on the Web is people on the Web.

There are blogs that carry political and ideological agendas. But everyone is on to them and it’s mostly not obnoxious because their agendas are mostly declared.

7. I don’t know if the blogosphere is rougher in the ferocity of its personal attacks than, say, Drew Pearson. Or the rough boys and girls of the great American editorial pages of the 1930s and ‘40s. Bloggers are certainly not as rough as the splenetic pamphleteers of the 18th and 19th centuries, who amused themselves accusing Thomas Jefferson of sexual perfidy and Andrew Jackson of having married a whore. I don’t know how Walter Lippmann or Scotty Reston would have seen the blogosphere; it might have frightened them if they’d lived to see it. They might have been impressed by the sheer digging that goes on there. I have seen friends savaged by blogs and winced for them--but, well, too bad. I’ve been attacked. Too bad. If you can’t take it, you shouldn’t be thinking aloud for a living. The blogosphere is tough. But are personal attacks worth it if what we get in return is a whole new media form that can add to the true-information flow while correcting the biases and lapses of the mainstream media? Yes. Of course.

Szdfan,

I personally don’t care who carried his column - was he EMPLOYED by any news organization? Answer : NO. No matter how you wish it to be otherwise. Hey, I can get a recipie published in a newspaper, that doesn’t make me a chef. I can ride in a police car, but that doesn’t make me an officer. I can sit in the cockpit of a plane, but that doesn’t make me a pilot.

What I hear you complaining about is being too intellectually lazy to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Your fantasy got skewered, and you don’t like the reality. Well tough. If you want to suffer from the delusion that everything in a newspaper is true and accurate, then be my guest.

As to the regulation of bloggers - if you have to ask the question, then you lack the requisite knowledge for me to give an answer. In short, you don’t “get it”. This is no surprise, as everything you have said and done up to this point indicates a proclivity for intellectual laziness. Why go out and dig up information, evaluate it, and make rational, well-informed decisions when you can just sit back and be spoon-fed?

A little research reveals that Armstrong was employed by Tribune Media Services.  I don’t think that there is any question that TMS is a legitimate news organization.

Getting something published does not make one a journalist, however I think any further argument denying Armstrong’s media credentials would be foolish.  He was published regularly in newspapers across the nation and under contract with a national media syndicate.

I did just a little research and found the following columnists who are also syndicated by TMS: Arianna Huffington, David Horsey, Cal Thomas, Kathleen Parker, Clarence Page, Walt Handelsman, Don Wright and Ann Telnaes.

It’s a dead argument, Buster.  Armstrong did wrong and we cannot redefine wrong unless we redefine it for the other side as well.

That link does not mention any employment at all. There is a wide gulf between a distribution agreement and an employment contract.

So, just what in the hell are “media” credentials? It should be well established that people assumed Mr. Williams was a journalist. That’s their problem, not his. Just because he is on TV and in the paper doesn’t mean he is a journalist any more than Rush Limbaugh or Neal Boortz. I think you would have to say they are carrying “media” credentials as well.

From where I sit, there is only shame to be had on the people who operated on a huge assumption. And rightfully so. If you buy a car and don’t ask if anything is wrong with it, are you at fault, or the dealer? Funny, we used to operate on caveat emptor in this country, and the country worked pretty well. Then again, caveat emptor only works for well-educated, intelligent people.

I fail to see any law requiring Mr. Williams to disclose money HIS COMPANY received. As for me, I assume everyone in the media is on the take somehow, and I have yet to register the level of disappointment everyone else exhibits. This also allows me the luxury of discerning the truth of most matters. Follow the self-interest, and the truth shall indeed set you free.