From Political Buzz:
The Society of Professional Journalists national ethics committee is calling foul on the Washington News Council for conducting an online poll on a complaint against KIRO TV.
The Washington Secretary of State had complained to the News Council, a self-appointed watchdog group, about KIRO’s pieces on voter registration irregularities. KIRO declined to participate in a hearing. So the News Council posted an online poll, which turned out lopsided against KIRO.
“A hearing can be worthwhile if all parties voluntarily participate and work toward a common understanding,” the SPJ said in a news release. “The committee strongly objects to having a public online vote, or virtual hearing, on journalism ethics.
Now, the KIRO stories were suspect and full of factual errors, basically part of the noise machine crap about ghost voters and such. You can read all about it at the Washington News Council web site. KIRO did eventually pull the stories down, so that was good.
Still, I’m amazed that the Washington News Council, this self-appointed collection of rich people and formerly powerful traditional journalists, could make such an error in judgment by conducting an on-line kangaroo court.
Many readers likely recall that the P-I refused to appear before WNC in 2006 concerning an expose of the King County sheriff’s office, citing, among other reasons, the fact that WNC director John Hamer was married to a district director for Rep. Dave Reichert. (By way of clarification, Reichert used to be sheriff, and I have no idea what Hamer and his wife currently do, nor is that the point.) The P-I stood by its reporting in the face of the attempts by WNC to intimidate them.
The point is that the Washington News Council has little credibility, and deservedly so. But I’m not all that worked up about it, frankly, because this blog isn’t a “real” journalism outfit, and thus doesn’t fall under WNC’s self-defined jurisdiction, as far as I can tell.
And that’s just fine with me, because every time I hear the word “ethics” and “journalism” I flash on Commander Codpiece, and that’s something I really don’t like popping into my brain.
Yeah, let’s talk some more about ethics, guys. Here’s a topic: let’s say a reporter falsely accuses a candidate of lying about her education, writes a story full of half-truths and distortions spoon fed to reporters by the other side, and the candidate then loses by a cat’s whisker.
What should happen? Or more to the point, what did happen? As we all know, the answer is: nothing at all. Ethics, yeah, Uh-uh.
I’ve never heard of Washington News Council. Is this another Republican front group, like American Center for Voting Rights was?
Nothing happened because it wasn’t a lie. She claimed to have a degree in something when she didn’t.
And she was taught a lesson by the voters for it.
So what is this “News Council”? A self-appointed elite with the presumptuous ambition of regulating what journalists can write and newspapers can print — in the interest of furthering a particular ideology and promoting a specific political party and its candidates?
@2 What smoke are you blowing out of your ass now? Darcy Burner has a degree in economics from Harvard.
@4
Nope. Her degree is in computer science. But yeah, she took a few classes in economics. I’ll give you that.
Wingnuts learned nothing from the hidings they received in the last two elections. They still believe that endlessly repeating a lie makes it true.
@5 A “few classes in economics?” Get your facts straight, twit. Let’s start with the fact that you weren’t the dean of Harvard’s computer science department when Burner was a student, and next let’s quote the professor who was:
“Darcy had an Ec specialization within her CS concentration. … The way Darcy is describing herself is accurate.”
Now let’s see what other Harvard faculty members and students said about it:
“It’s perfectly reasonable to say that Burner has a Harvard degree in computer science and economics.”
“If you wanted to double-major, you had to choose one ‘home’ department, and then you made arrangements to take upper-level classes in another department.”
“Harvard doesn’t have ‘majors’. They only have concentrations. And they don’t have ‘minors’ –so to gain other credentialed experience, someone gathers coursework in joint, or dual concentrations. However only one department can appear on any transcript. Period. Even if you had major coursework across three departments (say your joint major area was ‘Molecular Biochemistry’, you would take Biology, Chemistry and Molecular Biology courses) you would have to designate only one of those as the primary department and thus folks might think you had only biology OR chemistry OR molecular biology work.
Ms. Burner’s description is accurate if you understand the Harvard system …. You just need to understand the Harvard system and its terminology which is quite different from most University systems.”
Roger Rabbit Poll
Who do you believe, the dean of Burner’s academic department at Harvard, or a lying partisan wingnut troll?
[ ] 1. Harvard dean Harry Lewis
[ ] 2. Troll
Well, the results are in, and the vote is: Dean Lewis, 1,079,008 votes, Troll 1 vote. Looks like Troll voted for himself, but because you have to be over age 12 to vote in this poll, he’s not an eligible voter so the certified result is Dean Lewis, 1,079,008 votes, Troll 0 votes.
@5 (continued) See #6.
Come back to bed, dear, I need a tongue lashing.
Let’s review since Rodent’s senility is showing:
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnhybrxEEVw
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9Be11uRoQM
Even Schramm, a liberal– called this for what it was. Kudos to him, at least he’s not as stupid & ignorant as some of the tens of posters here, including the King of O.C.D. and Alzheimer’s, our very own retired courthouse janitor, Roger Rodent.
Spin it all you want, she lied/exaggerated/embelished/fibbed and got caught. End of discussion. But Ditzy, I mean Darcy, I would like my coffee now, black. Thanks. Poor lil Burnout. :)