Advance copy from Katie Couric’s soon-to-be-released memoir “Going There” reveals her to be an unethical human being: manipulative, vindictive, mean and disloyal. A section of the book, however, that she doubtless thinks will endear her to readers and her colleagues really shows how unethical the “profession’ of being a mainstream news media has become.
Couric writes that she edited out part of the 2016 interview with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in which the liberal icon said that football players who were kneeling during the National Anthem were showing “contempt for a government that has made it possible for their parents and grandparents to live a decent life … which they probably could not have lived in the places they came from….And that’s why education is important.” Couric says that she wanted to protect Ginsburg, then 83, who was “elderly and probably didn’t fully understand the question.”
In the portion of the interview that did air, Ginsburg said: “I think it is really dumb of them. Would I arrest them for doing it? No. I think it is dumb and disrespectful. I would have the same answer if you asked me about flag burning. I think it is a terrible thing to do. But I wouldn’t lock a person up for doing it. I would point out how ridiculous it seems to me to do such an act. But it is dangerous to arrest people for conduct that doesn’t jeopardize the health or well-being of other people. It is a symbol they are engaged in….If they want to be stupid, there is no law that should prevent that. If they want to be arrogant, there is no law that prevents them from that. What I would do is strongly take issue with the point of view that they are expressing when they do that.”
A day after the interview, the Supreme Court’s public affairs office said Ginsburg had “misspoken” and asked Couric to remove her comments on kneeling from the story. Ginsburg released a statement after the interview in which she said her comments were “inappropriately dismissive and harsh,” and she commented even though she was “barely aware of the incident or its purpose…I should have declined to respond,” Ginsburg said.
Let me get this straight, now, to be fair to Couric. Ginsburg saying that “taking a knee” was dumb—as it was and is—made it to the air. Her comments that suggested that she also disagreed with the sentiment and reasoning behind the protest, however. were removed by Couric to “protect” the Justice. From what? Why, from agreeing with, well, me for example. Lots of other thoughtful people who regarded kneeling during the anthem at football games to imply that complex fact patterns leading to black citizens being shot be police indicated national racism also was misguided and wrong…apparently Couric felt it would harm Ginsburg’s status with Woke Nation to hear such a view issuing from her. Worst of all, that analysis echoed—Donald Trump!
Can’t have THAT! The old girl must have been having a senior moment, so Katie had to step in for the rescue. Wait—if a SCOTUS justice is showing signs of diminished comprehension, shouldn’t journalists want to let the public know that? Don’t they have a right to know? Isn’t that the journalist’s duty?
Nah, a journalist’s duty, as the majority of mainstream reporters see it in 2021, is to protect their ideological allies, manipulate what the public gets to read and hear to ensure approval of progressive leaders, opinion-makers and policies, and to do everything possible to undermine public figures of whom the journalists disapprove!
Now here is where bias makes journalist like Couric stupid. The section she edited out “to protect” Ginsburg made more sense and reflected better on her acuity than the section Couric included. Who ever suggested that Colin Kaepernick and his fellow grandstanding fools should be arrested? Nobody. Who compared it to flag-burning, except for First Amendment dummies (“And that’s why education is important!”)?
As she said in the statement later, obviously Ginsburg didn’t understand the question, because she fell into the trap of the legally ignorant defenders of the NFL kneelers, who argued that they had a right to demonstrate during games, on the field, in their work place. They don’t. They never did. It’s not a free speech issue at all. Ginsberg compared the gesture to flag-burning, which proves she was confused. Couric, however, who also didn’t understand the issue (but isn’t a legal scholar who should have) didn’t “protect” Ginsburg at all. But since she agreed with the Justice’s misplaced defense of the protest, and because she assumed that other knee-jerk progressives would agree as well, that section made the cut. No wonder the PR office at the Court wanted it out.
To sum up:
- Couric redacted the interview to keep relevant information from the public eacause she wanted to “protect” a progressive icon.
- Would she have taken such measures to protest a conservative justice? Do I really have to ask?
- Couric, being an ignorant hack made stupid by bias, left in the comments that showed Ginsburg to be confused and out of touch with current controversies, a response that suggested that she was showing her age. She left out the comments that many Americans agree with because Couric didn’t agree with them, and because they would support criticism of the Kaepernickers.
- Couric tells this story to make her seem like a loyal woke journalist upholding the heroes of the left, and has no clue that it proves that she deliberately withheld information from her viewers in a manner that is antithetical to ethics journalism.
- And in telling the story, Couric manages to suggest that Ginsberg was suffering from diminished comprehension and judgment due to advanced age.
In fact she was, but you could dig up Ruth tomorrow and she’d still be sharper than Couric.
Ethics Alarms 
Okay, I need to finish reading the post but I need an immediate answer to this:
“Nah, a journalist’s duty, as the majhoity of mainstream reporters see it in 2021…,”
“The majhoity”? “Majhoity”?
Are we typing with a Boston accent now?
-Jut
Hahvahd’s fault. Fixed.
Apparently wordpress thinks that’s a word. I proofed the damn thing twice, and usually the clear typos are flagged with a red line. “Couric,” for example, was flagged every time. Not “majhoity,” though.
You know, we’ve been down this road maybe 100 or so times at least around here. Each time I’m left to wonder what these Leftist reporters have replaced their sense of professional ethics and integrity with. Can it really just be partisanship? If so, it’s more that that — more like a religion or a cult. It has eaten their souls.
The Fourth Estate has now become a fifth column, as I’ve said before, and this is just one more in a seemingly interminable line of direct, relevant examples. Fairness must always be seen bent through the prism of moral certitude. Right and wrong are as fungible as who makes the pronouncements. “Truth” isn’t a fact-supported notion anymore, but a jumble of emotional and political tropes tangled together into an inchoate mass used to obscure the facts and redefine the truth.
How can anyone take this woman seriously? She is reduced to no more than her celebrity, like Alyssa Milano or Cher. In fact, they have more integrity than she does — they don’t pretend to be journalists, the very definition of which is to report fairly and honestly, something Couric has proudly failed to do.
With apologies to The Bard, hers is another in a long line of unethical tales, told by idiots, full of deception and dishonesty, signifying the death of journalism as we once knew it. In fact, this particular example should be her career epitaph.
It’s nothing but naked partisanship now. It should be treated as such.
This episode is terrible because she was trying to downplay that Ginsburg’s opinion on kneeling was almost the same as Trump’s. If Trump’s opinion was radically racist, then Ginsburg’s would have to be as well, assuming logical consistency matters at all. Admitting Trump and Ginsburg shared roughly the same opinion on the suitability of kneeling means Trump is well within the mainstream on that debate, and you can’t have the audience seeing Trump as taking a reasonable position on anything. These double standards and nebulous definitions of racism are becoming so broad that the word is losing all meaning. A word needs definite boundaries in order to mean something.
If a word has a semantic range of 1,000 different options, the word is diluted. If pizza begins to mean pasta, milk, cheese, grass, and movies, the meaning of pizza has become too broad. If you dilute the meaning of racism, you make actual racism much harder to fight because people will just start tuning out, especially if the person is a progressive. There are some people I know on a personal level that I couldn’t believe if they claimed someone said something racist until I heard the actual specifics, and these people aren’t stupid either. Biased, to be sure, but not stupid. (Though bias does make you stupid, right?).
Your pizza example already happened with pudding: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-brits-talk-about-when-they-talk-about-pudding
That link is quite wrong about “Steak and kidney pudding, a meat pie consisting of the two meats in its name”.
It’s not a pie at all – indeed, there is a quite distinct steak and kidney pie that is a real pie with a pastry topping – but rather steak and kidney pudding is a boiled or steamed meat dish fully encased in suet pastry, made in much the same way as their (correct) “Plum pudding or Christmas pudding, a boiled or steamed fruitcake”.
Good catch. I want to try some “authentic” puddings someday.
Sadly, although you can get steak and kidney pies here in Australia, even tinned ones, I have never found any steak and kidney puddings, not even the tinned ones that you can get in Britain. When I mentioned that to a friend, she denied it – and promptly told me where I could get a steak and kidney pie! And, since the mad cow scare a generation ago, imports of British meat products like Baxter’s Royal Game Soup* have been halted, so I couldn’t even arrange to get a tinned steak and kidney pudding sent in a food parcel. Considering that making a steak and kidney pudding myself would take a four hour vigil over a stove, that isn’t really practical for me on my own (plus, I’m a boredom eater, so cooking ruins my appetite by keeping me busy).
* Largely venison based, and formerly available here; I miss that, too.
(T)he Kaepernickers miiiiight just benefit from an Urban Dictionary reference
This is in line with Katie’s previous attempt at being a big-girl “journalist” when she deceptively edited footage of knowledgeable gun owners to make them appear foolish, confounded, and unable to respond sensibly.. Ironically then, it was her and her own team who apparently didn’t know enough to avoid actually violating federal firearms laws. https://thefederalist.com/2016/06/03/katie-courics-anti-gun-producers-repeatedly-violated-federal-gun-laws/
Wait, so… did they face charges for that, or what? Because if not, they might be wrong about the gun laws, but they might be right about how well those laws are enforced.
It seems they were never prosecuted…Nor was Hunter Biden, who lied on the purchase background check form (an event which is reported to have had an illegal attempted intervention by the Sec. Service), or his wife who stole his pistol…or the David Gregory incident . Lack of enforcement of existing laws is one of the major complaints of lawful gun owners when faced with demands for more laws, and wondering why the rights of the law-abiding should be further infringed.
But, was it a crime for the seller to sell to an out of state buyer? Because criminals are usually already a bit loose with obeying the law, and it would seem a rather glaring loophole if the seller can sell to an out of state buyer no questions asked.
It’s a crime for a seller to knowingly sell to a person prohibited from buying or possessing a firearm, as Couric’s out-of-state people would have been. It’s definitely illegal for the attempted purchaser. Most lawful gun owners now don’t sell privately without seeing an ID (many demand a carry license), executing a double bill of sale, and keeping their copy. Of course, as you note, those with criminal intent aren’t concerned with compliance, any more than with whatever other laws they choose to ignore. If prosecution is rare, they’re not much worried about punishment, either.
It’s not, however, a “loophole”. insofar as meaning an unintended failure of the law to address a situation. The (legal) private sale exemption was deliberately included in the (Brady) law establishing the federal background check system for all new gun and dealer sales. If you think it through, you’ll realize that a private sale check requirement can’t be enforced against otherwise law-abiding citizens without a universal gun registry to track the ownership of all firearms, something that is still vehemently opposed by many. Again, such would also be of little to no use in deterring actual criminals.
Tells you what a UVA degree is worth, I guess. It has to be the most over rated university in the country. Just a bunch of swells.