October 27, 2013

CBS doesn't know the difference between J. Edgar Hoover and Herbert Hoover.

Today's "Face the Nation" had host Bob Shieffer interviewing Philip Shenon, author of "A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination." At one point, Shenon was talking about a memo FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wrote to the Warren Commission. Check out the ludicrous graphic at 0:21:



That's not J. Edgar Hoover! That's President Herbert Hoover!



Oh, journalism! What has become of you?

60 comments:

Left Bank of the Charles said...

It's a conspiracy!

Bob R said...

Those black and white people all look the same.

Ann Althouse said...

What difference at this point does it make?

Coupla white guys...

Birkel said...

Query this:
Has 'journalism' always been ridiculously awful?

Jayson Blair on Line 1 for Professor Althouse. Walter Duranty on Line 2.

chickelit said...

Herbert Hoover was a Republican, right?

Same difference.

Michael K said...

After all, that was almost 100 years ago and nobody remembers that stuff. And it's confusing.

Oh, sorry. That was the Constitution .

David said...

They do look a little bit alike. Any fool could make this mistake.

George M. Spencer said...

What has become of journalism?

What was it ever?

Investigative journalist Edward Jay Epstein (one of the few people who can seriously call himself that) interviewed leading figures of the Warren Commission when he was still a graduate student at Cornell! He's still baffled as to why none of the day's leading reporters did in-depth stories on their views of the Commission's report.

These days Epstein darkly observes that Oswald visited the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City weeks before he killed JFK. No one knows how much, if anything, he knew about the US government's then current attempts to kill Castro and/or if the Cubans inveigled him to return the favor.

Epstein does believe that RFK and other high US government officials got the Commission to suppress publication of information in the Report on the attempted hits on Castro.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Dam journalists.

MadisonMan said...

In their defense, the graphic was probably put together by an unpaid intern who is -- what -- 22?

You'd think Schieffer would know the difference though.

Rob said...

The glass is half full. They could have put up a picture of a vacuum cleaner.

SteveR said...

Some low information voters have jobs

rcocean said...

IN fairness, Herbert Hoover was alive in 1963 and still interested in politics. And he sorta looks like J. Edgar. Sorta.

But funny that Face the Nation would make that mistake. After all, its moderated by an old 75 y/o Dinosaur, has an audience of retirees, and was discussing a 50 year old assassination.

Crimso said...

IIRC, it was Schieffer who was a local reporter who was called by Oswald's mother hours after the assassination to try to get someone to give her a ride to Dallas (I think they were in Ft. Worth). One would expect Schieffer to know better based solely on his having been an adult while J. Edgar was running the FBI. The fact that he had a minor role in the assassination story makes it even worse.

Duranty and similar examples notwithstanding, I really suspect that the true legacy of Woodward and Bernstein isn't the downfall of Nixon. I think it either led to or increased the belief among journalism students that their purpose in life was to "make a difference." Rather than, you know, report to people on the events in their world. The two don't always have to be in tension, but they often are. This is how we end up with "truthiness" and "fake but accurate."

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Who has time to vacuum whenDick Cheney's defibrillator is off line.

Althouse Takes Her Eye Off The Ball.

Anonymous said...

Herbert was straight and didn't dress in women's clothing.

Peter

Anonymous said...

And you knew who you were then,
Men were girls and girls were men.
Mister, we could use a man like J. Edgar Hoover again.

pm317 said...

Journalism, what journalism?

jimbino said...

Herbert could communicate with his servants in bad Chinese. His wife was said to be fluent, as was Jackie Kennedy in French.

J Edgar, like all Presidents since Teddy Roosevelt, was inept at foreign languages. No surprise--at the top of gummint today, all but John Kerry seem inept at foreign languages, and some, like GW Bush, are inept at English.

The Godfather said...

You know what? I think somebody ought to be fired. Not the hypothetical 22-yr-old intern, but the editor who let this slip through. You are never going to get good quality work if people who do bad quality work are excused.

I also think Sebelius should be fired because of the cock-up of the Obamacare website roll out, along with whoever the hell it is who heads up CMS. The heads of the IRS and the branch in charge of 501(c)'s since 2010 should be fired, and if they are no longer in government, they should be put on a do-not-ever-hire list. Hillary Clinton should be put on the same list and shamed out of ever again seeking public office.

There HAVE to be consequences, or this crap will just keep on happening.

Sam L. said...

I'd never noticed! They could be TWINS!

Will said...

Mister, we could use a woman like J. Edgar Hoover again.

Will said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I'd never noticed! They could be TWINS!

The discovery of the fledgling new century and Althouse completely misses it.

Edmund said...

Rob, if they did put up a picture of a vacuum cleaner it would have been a Dyson. :-)

Fiftyville said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

at the top of gummint today, all but John Kerry seem inept at foreign languages, and some, like GW Bush, are inept at English.

I've heard George Bush speak in Spanish, and while he won't get mistaken for Cervantes any time soon, he's not that bad.

Unknown said...

The Godfather said, "You know what? I think somebody ought to be fired. Not the hypothetical 22-yr-old intern, but the editor who let this slip through. You are never going to get good quality work if people who do bad quality work are excused."

Hey, it was close enough for government sycophancy work.

PB said...

They write, they don't think or read history. It's not important when your mission is to change the world.

averagejoe said...

I thought it was a photo of W,C, Fields...

HMS Defiant said...

It took CBS over a year to work out that maybe the consulate in Libya was attacked by al quaeda. They must be journalists of the CNN variety.

caseym54 said...

To the intern who did it, it's like trying to tell Fillmore from Tyler.

rcommal said...

.

(dang, Google, you keep forcing me to do the whole placeholder thing if I dare post via, y'know, computer,

and I despise that,

and still I always will do this, that little ". ", in order to ensure that I can continue to follow a very long-standing policy of mine, which is

that I have comments I make be e-mailed to me.)

rcommal said...

The actual comment:

Oh, journalism! What has become of you?

No one wants reporters, that's what, and this has been the state of things for an extended--scratch that "extended" and insert "too long extended"--period of time.

Next question, please.

rcommal said...

The great dishonesty of this era (and I'm not saying that this is the only age in which the following holds true) is the conceit that people want reportage as opposed to advocacy for their own points of view, specifically and especially their stalwart, previously existing ones.

The heart wants what it wants, yes? And reportage/journalism be damned, no?

Rich Vail said...

Journalism has become a shill for the Democratic Party...and our country will pay the price for this for decades. The People's trust in Journalists has dropped to the same level as politicians...

FleetUSA said...

This is a reflection on our schools and the drift away from basing work in FACTS.

Some lazy researcher Googles "hoover" and uses the first decent picture to pop up.

Eric said...

Some intern or other minor staff person did a Google search of "Hoover". Showing his/her complete lack of historical knowledge that there was once a president named Hoover. Dolts.

Eric said...

Some intern or other minor staff person did a Google search of "Hoover". Showing his/her complete lack of historical knowledge that there was once a president named Hoover. Dolts.

edutcher said...

When reporters started calling themselves journalists, that's what happened to journalism.

Dale Weeks said...

Old white guys are old white guys, what's the difference? :D

John Dias said...

The "research" went something like this...

1. Google 'Hoover' and click "Images" link
2. Look for white dude from 50's or something
3. First white dude that comes up from 50's or something with name Hoover is our guy
4. Go back to reading TPM

comatus said...

Greatest pilot Chuck Yeager ever knew. Oh wait that's Bob.

Mrs. President Hoover was a real All-American Girl, and Stanford too. The two of them translated a metallurgy text from Latin that's still used. Coolidge was good at Latin, great at Italian. Pretty smart for dumb guys.

But for languages, Garfield was your man. When bored in congress, he'd simultaneously translate speeches into both Latin and Greek, writing down one with each hand. And he was bored a lot.

Tom said...

Damn Hoovers...

Glen Filthie said...

What has become of our journalism?

Same thing that happened to our judiciary...

comatus said...

Greatest pilot Chuck Yeager ever knew. Oh wait that's Bob.

Mrs. President Hoover was a real All-American Girl, and Stanford too. The two of them translated a metallurgy text from Latin that's still used. Coolidge was good at Latin, great at Italian. Pretty smart for dumb guys.

But for languages, Garfield was your man. When bored in congress, he'd simultaneously translate speeches into both Latin and Greek, writing down one with each hand. And he was bored a lot.

Rusty said...

Tom said...
Damn Hoovers...

It's why we have a Dyson.

George M. Spencer said...

If the NSA was tapping world leaders' phones, has it been tapping the phones of GOP leaders and the GOP itself and funneling that information to Obama or his people?

It would make Watergate look like a teenage prank.

That's a scandal most folks would understand.

J. Edgar would be proud.

RecChief said...

If this is what made you ask what happened to journalism, it seems to me that you missed alot of evidence that journalism is dead.

J school grads don't care about getting it right, just about setting the agenda.

SGT Ted said...

Oh, journalism! What has become of you?

Journalism degrees replaced the old method of working up from copy boy to good reporter, allowing Colleges to take over gatekeeping for the "profession" and corrupt it for use by the left to attack the rest of us.

So, all they get are rank amateur political advocates, more interested in networking and hobnobbing and promoting their "careers" by being good little PC drones, licking the boots of their political masters, rather than actually being reporters.

gadfly said...

@Lem must have been watching Limbaugh's interview with Cheney.

RUSH: . . . Mr. Vice President, I mentioned in the first hour of the program, the audience, one of the things I wanted to ask you about was that you feared, with your pacemaker, some kind of terrorist sabotage via the Internet because the pacemaker was vulnerable to that. I remember the TV show Homeland, that is how the vice president was actually killed in that way. Now, I'm sure your concern predated that episode, but who put that possibility into your mind?

CHENEY: Well, it was a pacemaker plus in the fact my doctors were afraid that I might go into sudden cardiac arrest, and the way you save that, come back from it is with the paddles. This is a built-in set of paddles, like a pacemaker wired into your heart, and after the one I'd worn for about five or six years needed to be replaced, the new one that came in was capable of being controlled remotely. That is, you could affect it and adjust the settings on it from a wireless capability, and they were worried that if I was on a rope line someplace, somebody could get close enough to be able to, in fact, set off a heart attack with the right pulse, if you will, at my implantable defibrillator. So we had them disconnect that feature while I was wearing it. Some years later we actually saw that scenario played out on Homeland in a fictional way.

RUSH: How realistic was that? Was that just a precaution or was it something they really thought somebody could do if they studied it?

CHENEY: Well, it was technically feasible. Somebody demonstrated that it could in fact be done, and so we had to guard against it.

Dave Dexter III said...

Prof. Althouse, you really need to learn how to post clips without filming them off your TV screen. That way results in poor sound and video.

Dave Dexter III said...

Prof. Althouse, you really need to learn how to post clips without filming them off your TV screen. That way results in poor sound and video.

Ann Althouse said...

"Prof. Althouse, you really need to learn how to post clips without filming them off your TV screen. That way results in poor sound and video."

I should turn up the sound, but other than that, I just don't know how. Can you tell me? I only use a Mac.

Other than that, I'm just catching it on the fly, as I watched it. I'm not a slick operation here. I'm just one little old lady at a remote outpost in the Midwest.

Seeing Red said...

"Hoobert Heever."

Harry von Zell. LOLOLOLOL He thought his career was over when he said it.

BobDD said...

The only other thing both Hoovers had in common than their name, was that they were both demonized by the media - Herbert because he was a popular republican who FDR wanted to replace; J. Edgar because he was as U.S. establishment as they come.

Nate Whilk said...

"Oh, journalism! What has become of you?"

It's been like that all along. We're just finding out now.

"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle." —Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Norvell (June 11, 1807)

Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy: Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true—except for the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge. —Erwin Knoll, editor, "The Progressive"

"The fat Russian agent was cornering all the foreign refugees in turn and explaining plausibly that this whole affair was an Anarchist plot. I watched him with some interest, for it was the first time that I had seen a person whose profession was telling lies—unless one counts journalists." —George Orwell, "Homage to Catalonia" (1938)

rcommal said...

.

rcommal said...

Orwell and Mencken, interesting references both.

rcommal said...

Well, I'll say this for all of that: It goes a good damn long way to explaining why folks don't truly get this satirical quote from Mr. Dooley: Th' newspaper does ivrything f'r us. It…comforts th' afflicted, afflicts th' comfortable, buries th' dead an' roasts thim aftherward.

Reference.