Last month I recommended this New Yorker article on WikiLeaks. If you didn’t read it and you’re interested in this sort of thing, now’s a good time to go back and check it out, since this article in today’s New York Times is likely to push WikiLeaks to the front burner of the national political conversation — especially since a screaming red headline atop Drudge all but guarantees non-stop coverage on talk radio for the next day or three.
Civility is necessary for society’s survival, according to P.M. Forni, who has skin in this particular game: He’s the founder of the Civility Initiative at Johns Hopkins University and the author of “The Civility Solution.”
That’s a question a lot of people, including CNN anchors, are asking in the wake of the Breitbart-Fox-Sherrod incident.
It’s a question CNN itself has been asking for years.
In the Newsbusters.org link above, CNN anchor John Roberts wonders, “Imagine what would have happened if we hadn’t taken a look at what happened with Shirley Sherrod and plumbed the depths further and found out that what had been posted on the internet was not in fact reflective of what she said.”
CNN anchor Kyra Phillips opined in response to Phillips that the mainstream media “can’t always do that.”
Hey Kyra: Why not? It’s that sort of Journalism 101 thing that’s supposed to separate an organization like CNN from the punk extremist blogging away in his mom’s basement.
Sheesh.
“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”
—Thomas Jefferson
