Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> >Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> >
>
> >So journalists are supposed to do agit-prop, not report and analyze
> >independently? You don't think this would create a little
> >credibility problem?
> >
> >Doug
>
> You and Liza _already_ have a giant credibility problem as far as the
> mainstream corporate media are concerned -- you'll never get to write
> for the New York Times and the like. What is there to lose?
>
> _The Nation_ already does advocacy journalism (not always the right
> kind, as its editors seem wedded to "Progressive Democrats") -- you
I agree with both sides here. _In the context of journalism_, I can agree with Doug. I mentioned in an earlier post that journalists and academics are necessary, and by that I meant they are necessary _as journalists and academics_, _thinking like_ journalists and academics. What I argue against is bringing that academic and/or journalistic mindset _to the planning of tactics and strategy_ in the movement.
The journalists writing for the _New Republic_ nack in the early and mid-60s (if I recall correctly) would have easily fit in with Doug's position on what a journalist should be/do. And yet they (not marxists themselves except, prrhaps, Edgar Snow) were crucial in bringing me to marxism. I don't doubt that Lisa's journalism will be bringing some new people to marxism -- some perhaps even to WWP -- )-: .
But I presume that on this list neither Lisa nor Doug is appearing as a journalist? Am I correct? Here they are writing from _inside_ the movement. They are writing about what we, as movement organizers and activists, should do and think. And that calls for a different mindset. And when they write here as journalists they continually appear to me as fitting the pattern of that article from the _Onion_ I posted the other day -- they are exhibiting that "detached air of superiority" which I find intolerable within the internal debate of the movement.
No, journalists are not "supposed to do agit-prop, [rather than] report and analyze independently." We need independent reporting an analysis. But independent reporting and analysis has no more (though no less) relationship to building a movement than a munitions factory has to waging warfare. And Doug can't quite see that distinction, it seems, in his posts on maillists.
Carrol