A Nanosecond of Agreement with Karl Rove?

Karl Rove went to speak at a liberal arts college in a blue state, and when I read about his talk, I was flabbergasted that there was actually a smidgen of overlap between something he said and something that I believe. It's blowing my mind. Here's what he said:

Reporters now see their role less as discovering facts and fair-mindedly reporting the truth and more as being put on the earth to afflict the comfortable, to be a constant thorn of those in power, whether they are Republican or Democrat

If only it were true. Alas, where Rove despairs that the press has become oppositional, I can only hope that someday it will be so.

Certainly the press should try to be as objective as possible, but that's how they should report what they find. However, in the seeking of news and information they should be relentless in challenging power.

Quoting the journalist Joe Klein, Rove said reporters should understand "how easy it is to make mistakes" in government. But the president has been famously unwilling to acknowledge mistakes.

Bingo! That's why the press should operate without sympathy for those who seek power. Those "mistakes" are matters of life and death, comfort and suffering, and to give a pass on those decisions to people who scrounge and scramble and whore their way into the privilege of public office is a complete betrayal of what the press's role in a free republic should be.

Here we have a presidential administration that is without peer in secrecy, obfuscation, and intimidation in my lifetime. If the press doesn't uncover what politicians don't want us to know, how can we even begin to act as informed citizens? We don't need reporters who are collaborative with power; shit, the government press offices produce plenty of propaganda, and that applies to either party when it holds power.

Here's what I think should be the first lesson in journalism school for any reporter who wants to cover the public sector, as stated by the late, great I.F. Stone: "Governments lie." Democrat or Republican, it makes no difference. That's the starting point.