I was in complete agreement when, last month, the triumvirate of right-wing firebrands Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart all condemned me for being more than just a journalist. They are correct, and I agree with every pundit who argues that I have no place in the mainstream media. — Former New York Times freelance reporter Natasha Lennard
What Ms. Lennard is referencing in her must-read piece is this bust that came courtesy of Big Government’s Lee Stranahan, where the one-time New York Times freelance reporter was outed as a supporter and activist for a movement (Occupy Wall Street) she was supposed to be covering as an objective observer. In response to the Big Government article, the New York Times quickly assured its readers that they had “no plans” to have her do any more freelance coverage of the ongoing protests.
The result of this was an apparent epiphany on Ms. Lennard’s part and while she’s obviously on the other side of my political spectrum, I’d still say this is a healthy decision:
In my view, it now makes little sense to be objective about Occupy Wall Street and its various, amorphous iterations across the country. As Matt Taibbi wrote recently in Rolling Stone about learning to love OWS: “People don’t know exactly what they want, but as one friend of mine put it, they know one thing: FUCK THIS SHIT! We want something different: a different life, with different values, or at least a chance at different values.”If the diffuse and experimental disruptions, discussions, assemblies, occupations, strikes, marches, chants and more that constitute OWS are primarily coherent only in so far as they agree that the current status quo, rife with inequity and cruelty, is wrong — I cannot but consider myself in agreement. As such, it would be disingenuous to play the “objective reporter.”
By now, you would think Lennard’s choice amongst our journalist class would be the norm. That the dishonest shield of objectivity the mainstream media poses with would be something they would eagerly toss off as their biases are constantly held up for public ridicule and their brands slowly die away as a more openly activist (and therefore honest) media takes its place.
Why the rest of the MSM hasn’t followed suit is probably due to equal parts arrogance and insecurity. Arrogance in the sense that they’re sure their left-wing beliefs should qualify as objective truth. Insecurity in the sense that the left usually fails at the ballot box and is always repackaging failed ideas as something else. And so it’s safer to disguise all of this behind a deceptively amicable, friendly, and “objective” face that resembles NBC’s Brian Williams or Politico’s Ben Smith.
Judging from her piece, however, Ms. Lennard is neither arrogant nor insecure. She might be lacking in direction and clarity, but to her credit, she believes enough in her FUCK THIS SHIT! cause to want to stop having whatever point she’s hoping to make drowned out in never-ending charges of bias — which are especially distracting when they’re true (and they usually are). Freed from the phony pose of objectivity she can now fight her FUCK THIS SHIT! battle on its merits instead of wasting all that energy defending the indefensible.
The world would be a much better place if more leftist journalists followed suit.
Unfortunately, leftist journalists have no desire to make the world a better place.
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