Pro-Journalism Group Honors Anti-Journalism

It sure would be nice if the groups that claim to care about maintaining a strong, robust, and credible free press backed up their words with action.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in a world where many such groups exist. Instead, we live in a world where awards named after our most famous journalists are given to actual clowns. This is done not in the name of good journalism, but in the name of upholding ideological conformity.

Comedian Jon Stewart and MS Now host Rachel Maddow were among the honorees last week at USC Annenberg’s annual Walter Cronkite Awards for Excellence in Political Journalism.

“The message sent by honoring these winners is that the press isn’t ‘the enemy of the people,’” said Norman Lear Center founding director and USC Annenberg professor Martin Kaplan. “It’s the firewall between the public and disinformation, abuse of power, and corruption.”

Unfortunately, this isn’t the lesson most people will take away from this award—quite the contrary.