The further idiocy of Tom Brokaw

Those of you who caught part of the not-too-distant debate of Democratic presidential hopefuls in South Carolina may or may not remember a particular exchange between candidate the Rev. Al Sharpton and moderator Tom Brokaw that went something like this:

Brokaw: Mr. Sharpton, what do you think of the war the West is waging on the Nation of Islam?

Sharpton: Do you mean on "Islamic nations"?

Brokaw: I mean the Nation of Islam.

Granted, that's far from a verbatim transcript. But it makes the gist of it painfully obvious: longtime, well-respected NBC newsman Tom Brokaw doesn't know that the "Nation of Islam" is not Iraq (or Iran, or Syria, or any other Muslim-majority nation in the Middle East), but instead a Chicago-based organization of black Muslims, one with which Malcolm X was associated in the years before his death.

So, it's been established that Brokaw is not the brightest apple in the bushel. Or at least that he doesn't take that bedrock journalistic principle of reporting facts accurately terribly seriously.

But now he's taken another of the Fourth Estate's sacred principles and desecrated.

I'm referring, of course, to the guest editorial Brokaw penned for today's New York Times about the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan, titled "How the Home Front Can Help."

Now, it's not an absolute taboo for journalists to write op-ed pieces. But, it's the sort of thing that should be done on a limited basis, particularly for someone like a major network anchor who, rightly or wrongly, has come to be popularly regarded as a paragon of objectivity. I mean, I would've commended Brokaw had he written in last week with a column not unlike William Safire's criticizing the FCC for potentially allowing Comcast to acquire Disney and further consolidate the media oligarchy. There's even a case to be made for chastizing people in positions like Brokaw's for not speaking out against corporate media synergy, though I'll refrain from taking him to task on that.

Still, it's hard to take anyone like Brokaw seriously as a journalist once they've authored such a puff piece for the U.S. military, lending his name and prestige to government propaganda. How likely am I to believe a word he says from here on regarding the situation in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or any other military imbroglio? Not bloody likely.

Granted, I personally lost most of my respect for broadcast journalists of Brokaw's ilk years ago. And obviously this sort of outburst shouldn't come as a great shock from a man who wrote a best seller, The Greatest Generation, that was 400-odd pages of hogwash contending that the folks who survived the Great Depression, fought in the Second World War and drove the postwar boom years are better than any other generation. Conveniently, Brokaw omitted mention of the myriad failures and debacles borne of these folks, i.e. racism, the Cold War, Korea, McCarthy, Vietnam, Watergate, Reaganomics, Iran-Contra, etc. So we know he's not a pillar of fairness and balance, but more a willing propagandist.

Nonetheless, it irks me to see someone abusing their position for such an unnecessary purpose. Instead of questioning power and acting as a check on those who have it, Brokaw is quite content to cozy up to power, to be an apologist for it and to defend it against all comers.