Feral Beast: Chelsea Clinton to report for NBC Network News

Monday, November 14, 2011

Chelsea Clinton to report for NBC Network News

As first families get accustomed to the spotlight, the offspring of presidents and candidates become attractive hires for television, with instant name recognition. The latest to join Jenna Bush as a tv reporter at NBC is Chelsea Clinton, 31, a composed campaign trail speaker who presumably has discovered that professional life at McKinsey, a financial management firm, is rather cut throat and alientating from the other 99 per cent of the population. Today, the New York Times reports that the only child of Bill and Hillary will henceforth be a full-fledged, full-time correspondent for NBC News. (Shades of Maria Shriver, erstwhile First Lady of California?)

Chelsea's new beat will be the "Making a Difference" profiles of community volunteer workers. Well, the Clinton contact book of family friends is unmatched. Hmmm. The jury is out until we see how the public handles her first "hot mike" incident. Few former hedge fund employees move on to the media.

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Feral Beast? Try Lemming

If the press were an animal, what kind of animal would it be? I’ve got my answer. A legion of lemmings, furry and well-intentioned, but ultimately condemned by their nature to follow each other mindlessly off a tall cliff, over the Paris Hilton peak or into the Invade Iraq crevasse. The words “feral beast” certainly wouldn’t come to mind. It’s not particularly accurate or particularly evocative. But that is how the departing British prime minister, Tony Blair, sees journalists: as malicious tormentors who have tried to tear him limb from limb.

--Gal Beckerman of the Columbia Journalism Review

“Journalism is a form of cartography,” write Tom Rosenstiel and Bill Kovach of Pew. “It creates a map for citizens to navigate society. Inflating events for sensation, neglecting others, stereotyping or being disproportionately negative all make a less reliable map.”

"Journalism is good at solving small problems or taking small bites of a big problem. It’s not good at solving big problems." Adapted from David Simon, creator of The Wire.

Retrospective : five decades of journalism as reported by CJR

Fake AP Stylebook reminds us: Unless you're doing a story on the Muppets, you are not a gonzo journalist.

"The once idealized information superhighway has become a parking lot of error, misinformation, rumor and junk." Poynter Institute, advocating a broader definition of who is a journalist.