Thursday, September 17, 2009

No Double-Standard Here

"I have to laugh though, at one line in the above editorial: 'O’Keefe’s hidden-camera methods are distasteful, and the extent to which his videos were edited is unknown.'

"As opposed to every episode of 60 Minutes that have aired on CBS since the show debuted in 1968? As Jonah Goldberg wrote in early 2001, before 9/11 and the birth of the Blogosphere:

"'60 Minutes has used secret cameras for decades and earned awards and ratings for it. But when 60 Minutes used a hidden camera to snoop on another journalist a few years ago, heads exploded in the hallowed halls of elite journalism. Why? Because we don’t do that sort of thing to our own. We only screw outsiders. Why do you think the media despised Linda Tripp so? It wasn’t just that she made life for Bill Clinton so uncomfortable; she was a scab, using the very techniques that thousands of journalists use each and every day. And she did it to protect herself! Nevertheless, when a private citizen employs such tactics she’s seen as an immoral betrayer of a friend. When a journalist does it, she’s a 'news hound' — and an ethical one at that.'"