The Two-Faced Profession of Journalism In The Face of Death

I have never, ever gotten the theory that because someone dies we're supposed to make believe they suddenly possessed a nobility that their entire lives demonstrated they never did.  When Reagan died a decade ago, as other people were doing the "nil nisi bonum" routine, I maintained that the forgiveness he needed wasn't mine to give and that I couldn't forgive him till the tens of thousands murdered in Central America and elsewhere as a direct result of his official actions gave me permission to.   Lying about the fact that he was one of the major terrorists of his time in power served no one but the terrorists who followed in that office. Especially weird, to me at least, was that may of those scandalized by my bringing up the names of slaughters, terror campaigns and mass graves produced by Reagan and his fellow criminals were also loud-mouthed atheists.  I was still rather naive about atheists back then but that they had such a regard for someone they held no longer existed seemed bizarre.

It was striking to me at the time how we were to treat the death of Ronald Reagan with a dishonest reverence that the same media and establishment doing that never gave to any of the victims of his terror campaigns in places like Nicaragua and El Salvador.  But it was never anything but a given that the rules were different with income and status.

In thinking about the response to the murders of those at Charlie Hebdo and two police officers yesterday (one of whom was Muslim, about whom in a few minutes) I thought of a column that Katha Pollit wrote for The Nation, two years ago, maintaining that Blasphemy Is Good For You.   Here is how she began that column:

As I write, mobs all over the world are rioting about an amateurish video portraying Muhammad as a horny buffoon. Death toll so far: at least thirty, including Christopher Stevens, US ambassador to Libya, and three embassy staffers. Not to be outdone, Pakistan’s railways minister announced he would pay $100,000 to anyone who murdered the videomaker, and added, “I call upon these countries and say: Yes, freedom of expression is there, but you should make laws regarding people insulting our Prophet. And if you don’t, then the future will be extremely dangerous.” More riots, embassy closings and a possible assassination attempt or two followed the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo’s retaliatory publication of cartoons of Muhammad naked. To bring it all full circle, an Iranian foundation has raised to $3.3 million the reward it’s offering for the murder of Salman Rushdie.

Ignoring the inclusion of Christopher Stevens as the only (wrongly?) named of at least thirty, mostly Muslim,  dead as a result of the video, you will notice the response of those who produced Charlie Hebdo, retaliating with exactly the same stuff that led to those deaths. It's like a food processor during a national outbreak of salmonella, with deaths, responding by injecting Salmonella enterica  into their products for sale to the public.   But, when it's a publisher, a cartoonist, a "journalist" that makes it OK.

I didn't have anything near a full appreciation for the ultra-super-jumbo sized narcissism of that kind of "journalism*" in which, clearly, any number of dead are an acceptable price for even their lowest and stupidest content, until this morning.  And the late staff of Charlie Hebdo are not atypical of that sense of homicidal entitlement as freedom of the press.  Pollitt certainly exhibits it, as does just about everyone who makes money from scribbling or drawing who I have read or heard express an opinion on how their profession gets people killed.  That they have a clear, mercenary motive in holding that oh-so-self-interested position would seem to be a natural first assumption of your typical cynical "follow the money" journalist. Only, not so much when it's their own profession.  We, who don't make money or gain anything from that racket have no reason to pretend we sniff the odor of sanctity about them.

A few days after Pollitt posted that column, a far more insightful one about Charlie Hebdo was posted by Sophie Gherardi  at Religion Dispatches.  It should be read by the 99.94% of those English speaking folk who are talking about it now who never saw or heard of Charlie Hebdo until yesterday.  It ends.

In France, such[anti-religious] jokes have long been accepted, and even relished. They mainly target the Catholic Church, especially the Pope, bishops, and priests, but also sacred figures such as Jesus or Mary. Jewish and Muslim bigots were gradually included, and this continued without any consequence for thirty years or so—except for some regular whining by offended faithful. Then came 9/11, followed four years later by the global outburst of violence after a Danish newspaper published cartoons mocking Muhammad, and then, in November 2011, Charlie Hebdo’s headquarters were burned down after it published caricatures of Muhammad.

Charlie Hebdo never stopped publishing this type of cartoon, but it gradually lost readers. A new generation leads the magazine and people like me now hardly ever buy it. Times have changed, the humor has changed; the nastiness that used to make us laugh our heads off doesn’t seem as funny these days. Perhaps because reality has turned bloody, for good.

Pathetically, the left-wing radical magazine that once mocked left-wing radicals—as well as everyone else—has turned somewhat sour. It only seems to sell papers when it insults Muslims and plays with the lives of anonymous people (as well as its own reporters’).

"It only seems to sell papers when it insults Muslims and plays with the lives of anonymous people (as well as its own reporters)."   That isn't rare for the media, it's their standard operating position.  I don't see any reason, at all, to pretend we didn't know that was what they were doing and that they were doing it to sell their product.  If someone was doing it without any profit being made, they were called racists, bigots, fundamentalist fanatics, zealots....  Only, when those guys died, no one pretended they weren't doing what they were doing.  That's only done when it's someone else such as American, Republican presidents and "journalists".  Ms. Gherardi in one sentence proved to have more insight into the reality of that situation, proved by the events of yesterday, than anyone else I recall reading has.

NOTE:  In regard to the fact that one of the dead police officers was Muslim, even as the Muslim bashers were using him to bash Muslims, I saw several slams at a tweet someone had posted

Dyab Abou Jahjah‏@Aboujahjah

I am not Charlie, I am Ahmed the dead cop. Charlie ridiculed my faith and culture and I died defending his right to do so. #JesuisAhmed

Avatar Provider_UNE ColeDBiers • 3 hours ago Putting words in a dead guys mouth to further an agenda...classy move.

Truly the internet generates a whole new level of ironic unawareness of what you are saying.  As I said in my last post, the language of the pseudo-left and the fascist right has a remarkable overlap, that would be because the ideas do, as well.

*  As someone who used to read Pollitt's column in The Nation and frequently found it both right and amusing, I have to say that her more recent work doesn't cut it.  Either the quality of her work changed or I did.  Out of curiosity I checked her work history and don't see that she ever worked as a reporter of fact, which I've come to conclude is the only sound basis for someone being entitled to the title, "journalist".   Unless you're willing to do the hard work of finding fact, verifying it and reporting it without regard to it supporting your opinion, you're just like everyone else who has one of those and they often stink.

I noticed sometime last year that Pollitt seemed to have joined up with some of the standard religion-bashing operations.   Perhaps she is feeling the pinch of the crisis in the for-pay scribbling racket that we read so much about and she's searching for new professional opportunities.  I hadn't thought before this morning about the coincidental timing of the crisis in her profession and the rise of webloid and other religion bashing- atheism promotion.   It shouldn't surprise me that "journalists" would be doing it, I did notice it had become the retirement option of some past it science folk years ago.

Update;  Hate Mail Bag

Perhaps you're right and no one reads what I say - the statistics of my blog could be wrong - or, perhaps, what I write is too hot for most people to admit to reading it.  I can't be responsible for who reads or doesn't read what I write, it's more than enough work to try to write responsibly, having something to say that isn't being said all over the place.  I'll leave that last stuff to your kind of blog.