Retaliation

RUDENESS, PART TWO -- A  radio talk show host in Ireland decided she would take up the cause for individuals who had issues with government officials, and call the officials, live and on the air, every week until the problem was resolved. However, in due time the officials stopped taking her calls, and eventually she lost her job, even as she insisted that as a journalist she had a right to ask whatever she wanted. Other government officials backed their colleague, resulting in a boycott of the station by government spokesmen.

Management claimed that programming changes happen regularly, and the shifting of the talk show host had nothing to do with the controversy.

Yeah, right, said our correspondence Dinty Ramble.

A consequence of rude behavior, such as the talk show host who became a pest, is that people stopped taking her calls. She was correct that she had the right to ask anything at any time. But the subject has the right not to answer. Both have consequences. For the politician, the consequence is to be thought evasive. For the talk show host, the consequence is to lose her job.

 

Other point: A talk show host is just that, an opinionator. To wrap herself in the cloak of "journalism" is not appropriate. At the same time, expose journalism (it was called muckraking in the 19th Century) can bring about change. The book "The Jungle," about unsanitary conditions and abuses in the meatpacking industry, brought about the Pure Food and Drug Act. The New York Times last month had a series about half-way houses in New Jersey where convicts regularly escaped and committed further crimes while out, and even documented cases where the inmate gangs were running the show. The owners of the numerous institutions had close ties to Gov. Christie. The series prompted a state investigation.

 

I once wrote a series about abusive practices in the mortgage lending industry, which resulted in stiffer regulations by the NJ State Banking Commission.

 

Bottom line: The talk show host had a good idea, trying to embarrass the government into fixing a problem, but she went too far. Or it could be that the government leaned on radion station managment. That's been done, also. Example: The Nixon Administration threatened to lift the TV broadcast license of the Washington Post, and also put the FBI on Woodward and Bernstein's activities to dig up stuff to be used against them.

 

Worldwide, governments often lean on the media to get favorable coverage and/or to prevent disclosure of information the pols deem harmful.

 

But as Thomas Jefferson said, given the choice of newspapers without government or government without newspapers, he would take the former. He was not, however, in office at the time. Later, when he was in office, there was the Sedition Act, which made it a criminal offense to criticize the government.

 

Embarrassment is a powerful weapon, and to a large extent is the only weapon journalism has.

 

The more things change ....