It was nice of Carlson, on his way out, for being so (unintentionally) candid about the lowly, subservient role of the American press with regard to "the relationship between the press and the powerful." over the controversy over Obama advisor Samantha Power's referring to Hillary Clinton as a "monster".
Tucker Carlson had Peev(The reporter from the Scotsman who printed the quote) on his show and angrily criticized her publication of Power's remarks. Carlson upbraided Peev for her lack of deference to someone as important as Power, and Peev retorted by pointing out exactly what that attitude reflects about Carlson and the American press.
CARLSON: What -- she wanted it off the record. Typically, the arrangement is if someone you're interviewing wants a quote off the record, you give it to them off the record. Why didn't you do that?
PEEV: Are you really that acquiescent in the United States? In the United Kingdom, journalists believe that on or off the record is a principle that's decided ahead of the interview. If a figure in public life.
CARLSON: Right.
PEEV: Someone who's ostensibly going to be an advisor to the man who could be the most powerful politician in the world, if she makes a comment and decides it's a bit too controversial and wants to withdraw it immediately after, unfortunately if the interview is on the record, it has to go ahead.
CARLSON: Right. Well, it's a little.
PEEV: I didn't set out in any way, shape.
CARLSON: Right. But I mean, since journalistic standards in Great Britain are so much dramatically lower than they are here, it's a little much being lectured on journalistic ethics by a reporter from the "Scotsman," but I wonder if you could just explain what you think the effect is on the relationship between the press and the powerful. People don't talk to you when you go out of your way to hurt them as you did in this piece.
PEEV: If this is the first time that candid remarks have been published about what one campaign team thinks of the other candidate, then I would argue that your journalists aren't doing a very good job of getting to the truth. Now I did not go out of my way in any way, shape or form to hurt Miss Power. I believe she's an intelligent and perfectly affable woman. In fact, she's -- she is incredibly intelligent so she -- who knows she may have known what she was doing.
She regretted it. She probably acted with integrity. It's not for me to decide one way or the other whether she did the right thing. But I did not go out and try to end her career.
A journalist should never do anything that "hurts" the powerful, otherwise the powerful won't give access to the press any longer. Presumably, the press should only do things that please the powerful so that the powerful keep talking to the press, so that the press in turn can keep pleasing the powerful, in an endless, symbiotic, mutually beneficial cycle. Rarely does someone who plays the role of a "journalist" on TV so candidly describe their real function.
Truth is a rather maleable thing. Here in the USA, apparently truth is what is arrived at after everyone has had a chance to collaberate and get their story straight. The "free" press in this country is as entrenched an institution as any other. They're insiders and courtiers, committed to their privileges and perks granted them as insiders, which reduces them to the role of propagandists, able to quickly get information out from the top downward.
So, basically... this is Carlson's circular argument:
Let's withhold the truth from the public when a "powerful person"tells us to do so.
In withholding the truth, we will gain trust from "powerful people", who will then continue to tell us the truth.
And the objective of getting "powerful people"to tell us the truth is so that we can withhold it from the public to gain even more trust.
Laughable...
The press "are servants" of the powerful, only because they put themselves in that role. An independent press truly is equal to the powerful, as they stand up and reveal the hypocrisy and lies and criminal actions of those who claim to serve us. But, by their passivity, laziness, flattery, and collusion, the press surrender their independence and accept their servility with happiness.
When the media acquiesce to those in power, allow them to spread their lies without challenge, and flatter them with obsequeous, substance-free coverage, the powerful, our purported "public servants", will treat the press as they deserve to be treated: as lapdogs, to be petted or swatted, as circumstances or caprice compel. Because they live in the houses of the powerful, the press believe they are of equal standing with them, are peers, when in fact they are servants. Of course, as sometimes happens, as servants to the powerful, they imagine themselves superior to we the people.
Good riddance to a complete phoney twit of a journalist, like Tucker Carlson.
Hopefully.....Tim Russert is next.