Direct Your Tweet Outrage To Katie Couric
By K. Daniel Glover | April 17, 2009
Two days ago, journalist John Ziegler was arrested for trying to ask questions at an event where Katie Couric of CBS News received an award for her interview with Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin last fall. The Couric/Palin interview is a central subject in Ziegler's "Media Malpractice" documentary about the slanted coverage of the 2008 presidential race. He wanted to ask people why Couric won an award for a biased interview.
The journalism school at the University of Southern California would have none of that. They refused to let Ziegler practice journalism on their journalism campus. They handcuffed and manhandled him and forced him off the campus.
Ed Morrissey put the story in context yesterday at Hot Air: "Would Walter Cronkite have approved of police locking up reporters for merely covering an event and walking on property that is very obviously open to the public in doing so?" Quin Hillyer at AmSpecBlog said the incident "is quite literally the sort of thing that calls for a public rebuke from the highest levels of both journalism AND government." He also wondered aloud what Couric thinks.
That's a good question, and you can put it to her yourself on Twitter. Couric uses the mini-blog service and "tweeted" about her award Wednesday. Everyone who uses Twitter should let Couric know that Ziegler was unfairly prevented from doing the kind of work she does every day. Ziegler had a right to ask questions, and if Couric and the people trying to educate the next generation of journalists can't appreciate that, none of them should be giving or getting awards.
Everyone needs to voice their outrage, and @katiecouric is a great place to do it. Even if she never reports the news of Ziegler's mistreatment, searches of @katiecouric on Twitter will let everyone know that she chose to hide and stay silent about a breach of journalism ethics on the campus of one of the nation's most prestigious journalism schools.
Some folks already have contacted Couric. Here are their tweets:
- Will you be covering John Ziegler's scuffle outside your awards ceremony? He had a right to be there.
- Who is John Zeigler and why was he arrested?
- Katie, any comment on the John Ziegler handcuffing on the USC campus while you were getting a journalism award? Press freedom?
Others who are part of this tweet campaign include @godandculture, @CO2HOG, @djdunn and @rockinrandall. Join them. Go tweet Couric. And if you're not already using Twitter, this is a good reason to start.
K. Daniel Glover is the online communications strategist for AIM for Accuracy In Media. He has worked as an editor, writer and new media specialist in the Washington area since 1991, spending most of that time at National Journal and Congressional Quarterly.
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And why is Walter Cronkite such an icon, anyway? He had a good speaking voice. So did Lorne Greene. He looked good on camera. So did ...
The funniest part of all this is the notion that (a) Someone thinks Katy Couric is a journalist and (b) that they would give her an award. Could this whole be any more ludicrous ?
“...journalist John Ziegler”...
“Journalist?” You’re kidding, right? Stupid, lying a-hole with a camera is more like it.
The irony of this is unimaginable. A light weight, fluff face whose main contribution to newscasting has been fill a slot she is no where near capable of filling, gets an award for doing a ‘serious’ piece on a vice presidential candidate she clearly and openly disdained, is being asked to step up to openly criticize harassment of a journalist covering her gratuitous award ceremony.
George Orwell and Orson Wells should collaborate on the story, Hunter Thompson should do background. We all will suffer the long term damage for the descent of news into entertainment and distraction.
Hmmm…so an organization with no business giving awards gives an award to someone who has no business receiving an award. I like the symmetry.
So they gave her an award for a single, rather uninformative interview? Talk about defining excellence down. What self-congratulatory non-sense.
Looks more like an award for political advocacy masquerading as journalism. By this standard, most of the blow-dries and bubble-heads populating what is oxymoronically called broadcast news are eligible for similar accolades.
“Journalist?” You’re kidding, right? Stupid, lying a-hole with a camera is more like it.”
And that’s different from a journalist how? Oh, I see, most journalists don’t have a camera. Other than that . . .
Always keep in mind that The European Fecal Standards & Measurements Board defines a Couric as 2.5lbs of human feces.
When did Katie Couric become a journalist? The last I heard of her she was getting big ratings by putting her colonoscopy on live TV. You know, just like Walter Cronkite.
It appears that Katie, or one of her minions, deletes these inconvenient tweets from her page almost as soon as they are posted.
re: Dean:”“...journalist John Ziegler”...“Journalist?” You’re kidding, right? Stupid, lying a-hole with a camera is more like it.”
Please elaborate. What are some of Ziegler’s alleged lies?
So let me see if I’ve got this straight: at the Repeublican National Convention, the St. Paul Sherriff’s Department assaulted and actually arrested several journalists, to your utter silence or contempt; these journalists were arrested in pulic areas like sidewalks. Ziegler was on private property (that’s what USC is, after all) and had been asked to leave several times, and was escorted away, not arrested—and you’re losing bowel control. I’d hate to think of it as hypocrisy, so maybe you can let me know what it is…
One thing I know. Katie can read a teleprompter right up there with the best of them!
adagioforstrings: The tweets don’t don’t on Katie Couric’s profile, but they will appear in the @katiecouric string that she sees when she logs in; they also appear when you search @katiecouric on Twitter.
She can’t delete the tweets because they are authored by others. So she will see them, and so will everyone who searches her username on Twitter.
This reminds me of how outraged you guys were about the “don’t taze me, bro!” incident.
Did I say outraged? I mean amused.
And that took place at a PUBLIC university.
Call back when Ziegler **successfully** practices journalism.
And, the Couric interview was biased how? Examples, please?
And, nice to see the wingnuts out in force. Since the likes of Bill Buckley died, it’s clear that, claims to the otherwise, there’s no genteelness or manners in “conservativism.”
I guess y’all learned that language at the church you attend every Sunday, right?
Journalist? After getting fired from KFI Radio? KFI Radio’s prestigious 8PM weeknight slot? Failing on AM radio weeknights, when a couple of thousand listeners is considered a gonzo boffo audience, is an impressively difficult achievement.
“walking on property that is very obviously open to the public”
There’s a concept for the law books. I honestly couldn’t find the “very obviously open” exception to property rights in my Law Library, so I’ll look forward to a little insight on that one.
Think about it this way: How is the campus of a private university any different from your front porch? And here I thought Conservatives were all over that “Private Property” thing.
USC is private property, and USC has the right to deny entry to anyone they choose. Helps in keeping the sexual predators away from the coeds.
Not that I think John Ziegler is a sexual predator.
A self important lunatic, yes, but not a sexual predator.
In the end, I’m afraid our intrepid journalist’s problem was not so much his courageous stance on em-ess-em bias, but rather the reaction most folks are likely to have when they hear of this episode:
John who?
Steve Snyder: “I guess y’all learned that language at the church you attend every Sunday, right?”
You liberals are soooooo clever. Conservatism is not glued to religion… but apparently hate and intolerance IS inseparable from modern liberalism. The nice disdain you throw in with the “y’all”... yep, to liberals Southerners are equated to ignorance.
You read most of the comments from liberals and they all have an unearned air of superiority… they’re somehow better than conservatives because they believe things that only a fool could believe. Liberalism is just the religion of the godless in the same sense that superstition is the religion of the ignorant.
I think the mainstream media has been derelict in its duties. We are too great of a country to have a biased, non-objective, sycophant media. It has gotten to the point where we need Tea Parties against all the bias in media as well.
Like all Republican blogs/web sites, you keep the comments that agree with your own and delete all the rest.
Palin is an uneducated corrupt hick from nowheresville who embarrasses herself every time she opens her mouth, but who do you blame for that? An interviewer.
Like I said, before you deleted my comment - as I know you will again - keep up the blind stupidity. It guaranteed you losing the last election, and Americans overwhelmingly don’t support your kind.
MacKenna, when you read mistercalm’s comment above did your ears burn. They should have.
You’re idiot.
Those were not journalists. They were Obama protesters who HURT DELEGATES and attendees.
Ziegler’s situation is totally 180.
YOU ARE HYPOCRITE AND IRONIC.
Your business should be watching Obama’s moves and check he is really the President you elected him for.
Goodluck!
Why do we continue to stoop down to the morons’ levels? Can we start our own awards at PJtv? Think how much more a) relevant and b) funny we’d be than the lame schticks that we are allow to dominate (day in and day out)! I thought we had awakened! Time to end their run…
http://www.aim.org/aim-report/how-obama-revolution-came-to-america/
The fact of the matter is Sarah Palin is a complete and utter moron. How was her inability to answer simple questions posed by Katie Couric is not a reflection on Katie but rather Sarah. The only candidacy she (Sarah) is qualified for is to be on the Jerry Springer show. You betcha!
Here is John Ziegler’s record of what happened at the Couric ruse: http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jziegler/2009/04/20/the-truth-about-my-arrest-at-usc/
BS and ouspensky,
You may want to take advantage of the low airfare rates out there currently (one-way) for a country already entrenched in communist quick-sand, and leave our America asap! and take your fellow drones and/or ingrates with you. I know I speak for many others that we’d just as soon not have to cover for your sorry asses while we fight to return our country! No way I’m for protecting your free speech as you support the utter disgracing of our great country by this despicable charlatan usurper. (yeah, right, tell me you’re proud of what he’s doing.) No doubt, our Founders would look favorably on you and your ilk hightailing it out of here! We’re sick and tired and have had it with your degradation of our great country!
Well, hello, Geithner’s father and obama’s mother worked together in Indonesia (on a shared vision?). It is clear from yesterday why the usurper was so gungho on getting Geithner into the Treasury’s top post: who else “so qualified” would have concurred with yesterday’s announcement to bypass Congress regarding the bank bailouts; yup, now they’ll just keep it between the WH and the Treasury. And today’s news from the tax cheat is more bad news for anyone still thinking critically: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124031918187138983.html#articleTabs=article
. Fortunately, there are many more courageous patriots willing and ready to pick up where our tea parties left off; no, drones, your media was incorrect in their portrayal to you of the tea parties as being “Astroturf,” in spite of what Stretch hopes. Rather, we’re real live grassroots, and we ain’t happy with the course that Barry and his czars are taking. So, go on, get outta the way, we’ve got work to do, rather than deal with your trivial drivel. And btw, since you both consider yourselves so astute, you might want to ask obama WHY he needs to lie and mislead his followers, i.e., 90% of guns in Mexico come from US, if he’s so honorable. WHY? Wake-up or get out!
Um Sarah? As in Palin?
You are obviously mentally unstable by making eye spiningly assumptions about me compounded with your inability to stay on topic. And what’s up with the use of the word “your”? Am I an object or a subject?
The disjointed free form association of your rant belies the depth of your unsubstantiated paranoia and you fail to take into account that the topic of the thread was Ziegler’s protesting of the award that Couric received for granting the interview with Palin. An interview in which Palin projected her uninformed and shocking ingnorance. I guess the exorcism she received didn’t work to well and being able to recite the books, magazines and newspapers that one reads is for those educated elitist liberals. The problem that you have; along with a minority of Americans, is that you are hysterical that a fanatical theocratic right wing extremist idealog wasn’t elected. So have a cup of tea. And remember the next time you protest taxation without representation not to use it as an excuse to undermine the perceived failings of a president who has been in office for less than 4 months, who has an approval rating of close to 70% and who won with the greatest majority of votes not seen in over 45 years. That and don’t protest in a public (social) park. Use your bedroom. Better yet, move to Texas with all of the rest of the deluded super-patriots. Have a nice day….......
ouspensky,
You missed my first line; I certainly grasp the topic of this thread. What you seem to miss is that it is a question of the sanctity of our 1st amendment right to free speech.
It is FRIGHTENING how you drones are so lockstep (or goosestep) to carry the hype of Palin’s lack of qualifications, overlooking the messiah’s (57 states), of course, or willing to carry any other looney chant, and then totally abandon the honor of upholding our basic right(s)... (not to be confused with your entitlements, which you drones hold so dearly). Frightening, which no cup of tea can calm.
Moving on, I suggest you view Ziegler’s documentary of how obama got elected. If you’ve already seen it, I’m surprised that you throw about obama’s high approval rating. His high rating (not 70%) serves to illustrate just how dumbed down the liberals have gotten our schools/population. Oh, oops, please let me spell it out for you: people voting ignorantly translate to (still) ignorant approval ratings. At the start at least.
Honestly, if that means anything to you, I’m mad not because I’m a poor loser, but rather because this empty suit has less right to be in our country, much less our WH, than those poor immigrant souls massacred, while studying to become citizens in NY! God rest their souls. I venture to say, that what little we know about them, in less than 1 day of reporting, is that their allegiance to our great country is MORE than what we’ve seen of this usurper’s, whether looking at his 4 months or 4 years! It is clear from his lies and his actions that he/and his puppeteers intend the destruction of our country. http://www.aim.org/aim-report/how-obama-revolution-came-to-america/
Keep on with the smug attempts to dismiss our calls to restore our country; it’s the same denial you drones use with “evil.” Your lack of acknowledgment doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
In the meantime, you may want to study up on how Hitler was able to seize power to become dictator once he was elected to become chancellor.
Object or subject? I suppose you sound like an object willing to become a subject…
Again you are unable to stay on topic Sarah. Sarah Palin is an uneducated, unqualified religious reactionary who panders to the Jerry Springer crowd and who has no chance of surviving the primary (if she decides to run) let alone becoming the Republican candidate.And she exposed herself (and has done so repeatedly ever since) as an intellectual disaster during the Couric interview. Ziegler is an extremely biased self proclaimed polster who scratches his eyes out when the opinion of the world runs contrary to what he wants to report. If what you say has any validity then why did Obama win by such a large margin? And for you to compare him (the president)to Hitler just goes to show how paranoid, uneducated and divisive you and the rest of your right wing pitch fork townsfolks truly are. Quit listening to Faux News. Furthermore, you know nothing about the circumstances that led to the rise of Hitler and from what you say I gather that you would condone genocide if it entailed people whose outlook and convictions run contrary to yours because you are scared of them.
As far as your insane rant about the murders in Binghamton NY AGAIN you display your ignorance and abject stupidity. My home town is Binghamton.I grew up there. I know all about the town. The person who committed the shootings was mentally ill. He was frustrated that he couldn’t speak English and he lashed out. He was of Vietnamise descent.So what does his disease that resulted in the deaths of 13 people have to do with Sarah Palin or the President??? Rave on sister but spare the rest of us your craziness because you are incapable of having a cogent discussion. Maybe walking around with a signboard that says “The end is near” and a cup of tea in your hand might be the path towards getting a grip. You need it.
I found Dean’s comment to be height of hypocrisy… what do you think the lowbrow MSM does every single day, buddy?
Couric, a journalist. Two lies for the price of one; Presumed humanity AND that she actually does something for a living.
Rusty f ing Shackleford is here! Right on Bro!
i dont know to
“Please elaborate. What are some of Ziegler’s alleged lies?” please explanation it.
Couldn’t katie have at least given the guy an apology? Aaah, oh well.
white nightstands;
Couric, means never having to say you’re sorry
April 17 at 1:47 pm | #1 | Link
Prestigious? How did it get that way? Who says? Is it still? And if so, why?