'nother letter in the Wall Street Journal

My most recent letter in the Wall Street Journal was posted 3-17-08. (I've copied it below) It was in response to an excellent opinion piece in the WSJ that berated the media over not being objective in its reporting of the devious swine known as Ellott Spitzer, the former governor of New York, who was notorious for using immoral means to blackmail corporations and other officials whose only "crime" was to make a lot of money and do it well.

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Dear editor,

Ms. Strassel’s piece on Spitzer was a breath of fresh air. I worked as a reporter and editor at 5 newspapers in 3 states during my 13-year journalism career and witnessed first-hand the media enabling of not only the local and state government peacocks, but also of leftist ideologues such as Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, Jesse Jackson, environmentalists, “animal rights” activists, welfare-statists, et al.

I could count on one hand the number of conservatives and independents ensconced in those newsrooms during that time. I could count on one hand the number of times that exoneration of bad conduct by a wealthy person or big business was given the same front-page play as that of an accusation of bad conduct. (Note the initial Front Page frenzy on the Duke Lacrosse players and the subsequent middle-page yawn after the racial element was shown to be a shameless red herring.) Objectivity in print journalism (with a very few exceptions) is a farce.

I’d like to think that Ms. Strassel’s exquisite scolding on the Spitzer story will shame modern media handlers into objectivity, but ideologues are expert rationalists. In the coming days and weeks, we’ll hear them say that the medium (Spitzer) was wrong but that his anti-capitalistic message was right on the money.

Bank on it.

David Elmore