Media convict media on kowtow to power pow-wow

 Conflab flap blows up over lip service to big knobs. 

No notes, CBS Evening News anchor John Dickerson used last week’s broadcast to directly confront the controversy: “Can you hold power to account after paying it millions?” he asked. “Can an audience trust you when it thinks you’ve traded away that trust? The audience will decide that. Our job is to show up, to honor what we witness on behalf of the people we witness it for.”

“Lately it has been popular in the media to try and convict the media for exaggerating the importance and influence of the media on issues such as the economy and the Internet,” said the report’s co-author, recently retired CNN anchor Bernard Shaw. “We in the media felt it was time to take a look at the way the media has been looking at the media looking at the media’s coverage, and we were appalled at what we found ourselves finding ourselves finding out about ourselves.”The report, however, drew immediate criticism from Shaw, who blasted himself in a two-hour televised panel discussion.

“This report gives me pause to wonder if, by giving so much weight to how we cover ourselves, we in the media aren’t giving ourselves too much credit for having an influence,” he said. “I just hope we in the media have the guts to look into this.”

Another panel member, ABC Nightline anchor Ted Koppel, went a step further. “I think the big story here is not that we are unfairly convicting ourselves of convicting ourselves. People simply don’t care about that,” said Koppel. “The big story is ‘How are we in the media going to react to the accusation that we are unfairly convicting ourselves of convicting ourselves, and how is that going to influence our coverage of how we influence events with our coverage?’ 

“The media has to step back and ask itself whether there even needs to be coverage of its coverage,” said TV journalist Geraldo Rivera. “It’s a point I make in my upcoming CNBC special, The Influence of Geraldo Rivera’s Coverage on Geraldo Rivera’s Coverage. Tune in tonight for more on this hot button topic "