Discussion for article #233242
While I am sadden at the lost David Carr as memeber of the family of humanity, I do find some of the accolades re him a good example of what’s wrong with today’s journalism. Mr. Carr is mostly remembered as being the NY Times media columnist. Correct me if I’m wrong, but he was not known for covering war, government, medicine, business, politics,etc. Not known for covering any of the major institutions that profoundly effect on ordinary citizens’ lives. He basically covered media–journalism. And this is a good examplre of what is wrong with today’s journalism; it spends inordinate amount of time covering journalism, especially American journalism, which has failed spectacularly in the lead up the Iraq war and the 2008 implostion.
Not, I read Mr. Carr’s column occassionally, but can’t say I was duly impressed. As a matter of fact, I gathered that he was quite proudly smug of being a member of the club: the New York Times.
It is interesting to note that comedy shows such as the Daily Show and the Colbert Report have done better work at “media criticism” that perhaps the likes of Mr. Carr. To be blunt, most of today’s journalism is a very bad joke foisted on the American public., and the fact that most of media, once again, did a bad job on the Iraq war, the 2008 financial implosion, and sat on news aboout Bill Cosby for years says alot.
That Mr. Carr has been cited in numerous newspapers or websites–the Times itself ran a front page, above the fold, obit on him “media champion”–also says a great deal about the insularity of today’s media. It increasingly only cares about reporting on itself.
Mr. Carr being considered a tribune of media is exactly the same sort of media branding that NBC did with Brian Williams. It’ll only be a matter of time that an award for media criticism or some other form of journalism will be given in his name. At the end of the day, both the Times and NBC are concerned with pushing personalities.
A real journalist isn’t one who doing an easy beat of reporting on journalism. A real journalist is 60 Minutes’ Bob Simon, who covererd war and the other activities. He spent his time covering real issues. Mr. Carr, on the other hand, spent a good anount of his time engaging in clubhouse reporting. If Mr. Carr was the media “compass” then that means media is truly lost. More real journalism and less clubhouse reporting.