A Better Job vs. Another Job
Slate's Jack Shafer correctly points out that Nicholas Kristof is wrong to urge Bill O'Reilly to come with him on a trip to Darfur.
Every journalist who chooses to report on Subject A receives critical mail and phone calls from folks who insist that the journalist should be reporting on Subject B if he thinks A is a problem. Kristof must think it's clever to stoop to a gambit that's beneath any self-respecting blogger.
Shafer might add that this is a common tactic that demagogues like O'Reilly use to smother their guests in interviews. For example, I once heard Sean Hannity berate an ACLU spokesman because the ACLU had never publicly criticized Saddam Hussein's regime. I can't even remember what the ACLU guy said as he spluttered and begged for understanding, but he missed the point, which is that Iraq is simply outside the scope of what the ACLU does. A political organization, like a journalist, has to have a well-defined set of goals and a well-defined area of expertise, and the ACLU's just doesn't happen to include protecting civil liberties in other countries. Now, if Amnesty International or, say, Reporters Without Borders had ignored Iraq, it would be appropriate to call them out on that. But in this case, Hannity was just trying to knock his guest down and use his back as a soapbox.
It's one thing to ask someone to do better at his job, and another thing entirely to ask him to do change the central nature of that job.
That's what Kristof is doing here. If he wants to tell O'Reilly what to do, his orders should be within the scope of O'Reilly's show. Africa just isn't O'Reilly's beat. If Kristof wants to draw more attention to Darfur, he should appeal to someone who might actually be willing to help him. If he believes the issue is this urgent, why should he indulge himself in useless sarcasm?
Every journalist who chooses to report on Subject A receives critical mail and phone calls from folks who insist that the journalist should be reporting on Subject B if he thinks A is a problem. Kristof must think it's clever to stoop to a gambit that's beneath any self-respecting blogger.
Shafer might add that this is a common tactic that demagogues like O'Reilly use to smother their guests in interviews. For example, I once heard Sean Hannity berate an ACLU spokesman because the ACLU had never publicly criticized Saddam Hussein's regime. I can't even remember what the ACLU guy said as he spluttered and begged for understanding, but he missed the point, which is that Iraq is simply outside the scope of what the ACLU does. A political organization, like a journalist, has to have a well-defined set of goals and a well-defined area of expertise, and the ACLU's just doesn't happen to include protecting civil liberties in other countries. Now, if Amnesty International or, say, Reporters Without Borders had ignored Iraq, it would be appropriate to call them out on that. But in this case, Hannity was just trying to knock his guest down and use his back as a soapbox.
It's one thing to ask someone to do better at his job, and another thing entirely to ask him to do change the central nature of that job.
That's what Kristof is doing here. If he wants to tell O'Reilly what to do, his orders should be within the scope of O'Reilly's show. Africa just isn't O'Reilly's beat. If Kristof wants to draw more attention to Darfur, he should appeal to someone who might actually be willing to help him. If he believes the issue is this urgent, why should he indulge himself in useless sarcasm?
posted by Scott at 4:50 PM
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