Who's Afraid Of Joe The Journalist?
By Michelle Malkin
January 9, 2009
If a community organizer can be president and a Saturday Night Live comedian can be a U.S. Senator, why can't a plumber be a reporter?
Joe Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. Joe the Plumber, is headed to Israel to interview ordinary citizens about life in the crosshairs of jihad. He'll be filing dispatches for conservative Internet video broadcasting site PJTV.com (to which I also contribute). Predictably, the very idea of a non-credentialed public figure attempting to "do journalism" has catty elite journalists hacking up hairballs.
CNN television anchor Kyra Phillips sneered (in her most objective and professional manner, of course): "Oh, Lord, Joe the Plumber's got a new gig. It's got nothing to do with the pipes, it's got everything to do with Gaza." After catching her breath during a commercial break, she embellished her teleprompter lines with ad-libbed contempt (something only seasoned professional journalists have experience doing, you see): "Now Joe the Plumber wants to flush out the truth as a war correspondent. I know, there are just no words."
Still not done trashing the Toledo, Ohio, citizen who had the temerity to question Barack Obama's redistributionist policies, Phillips piled on more derisive words: "Hey, Joe, what do you know? No, seriously, what do you know? ... [H]e says he hopes to air Israelis' views on the Gaza offensive. Lord, help us. Just want to remind you that Joe the Plumber has no journalism experience. No war zone experience, either. But he thinks he's, quote, 'pretty well protected by God.' So, what's Joe been smoking, drinking?"
What's he smoking and drinking? Clearly not the same ideological Kool-Aid and liberal fumes that you and your snobbish colleagues imbibe and inhale, Ms. Phillips. The CNN anchor has some nerve questioning Joe the Plumber's journalistic credibility when her own cable news network once hired former "NYPD Blue" actress with zero journalism experience Andrea Thompson to sit in an anchor chair like the one Phillips occupies.
As to the media hounds now braying at the idea of hiring celebrities for the sake of publicity, which network was it that hired foul-mouthed entertainer with no anchoring experience Kathy Griffin to co-anchor its New Year's Eve coverage? Oh, yeah: CNN. Griffin teamed up with CNN star Anderson Cooper, whose resume includes stints as a child model, fill-in host for "Live with Regis and Kelly," and the reality show "The Mole."
Who's afraid of Joe the Journalist? Unlike Phillips, I do not begrudge anyone an unconventional path to journalism. On the Internet, conservative bloggers with full-time day jobs have done incredible investigative work without a journalism school credit to their names. So have independent war correspondents like Michael Totten (blogger) and Michael Yon (Special Forces veteran).
Groupthink, credential fetishism and the Sorbonne mentality have turned national newsrooms into stale echo chambers. For all its self-aggrandizing paeans to "diversity," mainstream American journalism remains one of the most intellectually and ideologically monochrome sectors of the public square.
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