Bourgeois journalism bores itself with its own limitations

Bourgeois journalism is so boring that even its own professionals 
are tripping themselves up snoozing. Elite New York Times and 
Boston Globe imperialist mouthpieces are so used to repeating the 
same hackneyed phrases over and over again that they are catching 
each other plagiarizing.

The latest plagiarist is Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe. He was 
repeating Rush Limbaugh type material that is widely circulated on 
the Internet and he lost his job for four months as a result.

Even more amazing is what the Boston Phoenix reported on Jeff 
Jacoby, whose July 3rd column did him in. It turns out that Jacoby 
had applauded the resignation of a Boston University media 
department chair for doing something similar to what Jacoby then 
did.

This was after the famous case of Patricia Smith and Mike Barnicle 
also at the Boston Globe. Also, according to a Boston Phoenix 
investigation, Fox Butterfield of the New York Times--a major Mao-
basher with his own book on China--plagiarized a column on 
plagiarism (of all funny things) in 1991.

These reporters can spend whatever they want calling anyone they 
want to talk to or reading anything they want to read, but what 
they do is regurgitate the safe things everyone else is saying in 
the respectable media. A big mouth like Rush Limbaugh simply gets 
regurgitated over and over. All the major reporters know what is 
within bounds and what is not.

Another cute event that does not surprise MIM at all: The head of 
the Boston Globe city desk asked the mayor of Boston for a 
reference to obtain a scholarship to Harvard. Here the Boston 
Globe is one of those papers that pretends to be "objective" and 
its city desk asks for a recommendation from Mayor Menino. That's 
only the case of someone who got caught. The fact is that there is 
no way to separate these professional journalists from the 
government they cover, because these journalists do not work for 
independent institutions. They work for institutions that play 
musical chairs with the government they are covering.

And we haven't even mentioned the reporters married to state 
department officials or bourgeois-politicians-turned-
"journalists"...

Dan Kennedy ended up arguing affirmative action for reactionary 
morons like Jacoby, that they should be kept on staff despite 
their failings.(1) What disturbs MIM more than the failings of 
these journalists, who no one ever claimed to be original, is that 
they exist in such a small world and constantly copy each other's 
work, if not in the details, then in the major conclusions.

In response to the Jacoby mishap, a writer in the Wall Street 
Journal admitted as much as what MIM says: "My first journalistic 
experience was a 1986 summer internship at the Los Angeles bureau 
of United Press International. One of my duties was to walk down 
the street to the L.A. Times every night at 8:30 and pick up a few 
early copies of the next day's paper. I'd take the papers back to 
the bureau, where an editor would pick out an article or two for 
me to rewrite -- sometimes with attribution, sometimes 
without."(2)

After admitting he also plagiarized print journalism for radio, 
the Wall Street Journal editor said, "Journalists routinely 
recycle enough to make any environmentalist proud. So why is the 
Globe charging Mr. Jacoby with the journalistic equivalent of a 
felony?"(2) For MIM, it is disgusting that a few mainstream 
columns get repeated over and over again, just like the Big Lie 
that Orwell wrote about. In Communist China under Mao, certain 
columns got reprinted over and over again, but they were written 
verbatim and no one claimed to be writing anything original when 
doing so. Here in the U$A, the myth of media independence and 
variety say one thing while the practice is something else: 
Columns get paraphrased and reprinted with nothing added.

The Detroit newspapers strike also demonstrated why Marx called 
these journalists of his day "bourgeois" and considered them part 
of the ruling class. Even on strike, the journalists continued to 
sing the praises of cops, dead governors, and Arab-bashing in 
their own "independent" newspaper as an effort to get back into 
the good graces of their particular monopoly capitalist 
corporations.(3)

MIM does not claim to be "neutral." We are objective about the 
science necessary to pursue certain goals, the way a doctor is 
objective about how to treat a disease. For a doctor, the goal is 
eradicating a disease. For us Maoist scientists, there is also a 
goal that we pursue with scientific means. The disease is war, 
homelessness, starvation, pollution and inadequate medical care. 
We have diagnosed the cause of class society and we seek its 
solution. We never pretend to be without an agenda the way 
mainstream journalists sometimes do. We do not fancy ourselves to 
be journalistic artists for art's sake but more like doctors, 
people with goals and a science of achieving them.

MIM's principal task is to "create independent institutions of the 
oppressed and public opinion to seize power." Once again, the 
plagiarism cases of the bourgeois media demonstrate why that 
principal task is important.

Notes:

1. Boston Phoenix 14-20July2000, pp. 14-16.

2. James Taranto, "Recycling Shouldn't Be a Crime," Wall Street 
Journal 11July2000.

3. http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/5973/marxsp.html