Race-baiting their way to defeat

If you too have become weary of the tactic of race-baiting in this election, you will find some edification in this piece by W. James Antle III of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Among other gems, you will find:

"Certainly, many political issues have genuine racial implications and it would be naive to assert that racism plays no role in American politics. But by stubbornly insisting that any discussion of taxes, welfare, crime or illegal immigration was based on bigotry, liberals blinded themselves to the fact that millions of voters were actually tired of high taxes, welfare dependency, violent crime and porous borders."

On a side note, it is interesting to see the lack of outrage among the media against Yahoo Washington Bureau Chief David Chalian.

See the L.A. Times' James Rainey describe it:

"Chalian made the mistake Wednesday of making fun of Mitt and Ann Romney — with a hot mic picking up the conversation — for carrying on with their convention while Hurricane Isaac rumbled ashore in Louisiana. The veteran newsman quipped: 'They’re happy to have a party with black people drowning.'

"Yahoo! News fired Chalian not long after the conservative Media Research Center posted a snippet of the audio, part of an online chat that Chalian obviously thought was no longer filtering out to the world."

Rainey goes on to lament the death penalty imposed on Chalian, concluding: "Skittish indeed. No one doubts that journalists will continue to have imperfect thoughts. Inartful jokes have been their birthright. But the professional death penalty now comes to some of those who make really lame jokes. If they are unfortunate enough to do it in front of a live microphone — an increasing possibility in this ultra-wired world."

There are parts of Rainey's piece that a good many journalists would agree with. Dark humor has always inhabited reporter conversations, both in the newsroom and the bars they frequent after work. Management most of the time turns a deaf ear to it. Sometimes management even participates. And that fault now comes back to haunt journalism.

Reporters have opinions and world views. But good reporters are taught the craft in a way to avoid allowing those views to seep into their work. In the end, we're out to convey the facts and tell the "truth" as best we know it.

When reporters "joke" (if that is what it was) like Chalian did, whether the world hears it or not, it hurts the cause of journalism. In Chalian's case, he's the bureau chief for Yahoo. What kind of effect does his behavior have on the journalists who work for him, or other journalists in the room?

I remember a a reporter by the name of Steve Friess who left my newspaper to start his own Vegas website. He also did some freelance work for national news outlets. On assignment to cover a Tea Party rally in Searchlight (Harry Reid's hometown), Friess transmitted a number of inappropriate Tweets about his biases against the Tea Party members on the bus he took to the rally.

They were fat, he said. They were eating donuts. HA! And, he fantasized, he expected the crowd would begin singing "Throw the Jew Down The Well."

He went on to write a fair story, I thought. But his behavior was horrible and, I think, fireable.

He since left his website in Vegas, went back to school and now works for Politico. And guess what he's covering today? The GOP convention.

My point here is that journalists want to lament the Chalian incident as an unfortunate joke.

But I think there are a lot of journalists out there who itch to get their Chalian on. I hope they do not do it in subtle ways in their coverage. But, I wonder.