Of all the repercussions from Kanye West's classlessness the other night at the VMA's, this is probably the best. Nothing like a smack down from the Leader of the Free World to put you in your place. Even when your ego is the size of Lake Tahoe and your talent is the size of the Central Park Reservoir. On his Twitter feed, ABC reporter Terry Moran quoted the President as calling Kanye a "jackass." Awesome. The problem? It was an off-the-cuff and off-the-record comment. There are rules in the press corps, one of the main ones is not printing something when the President isn't on the record. ABC has already yanked the tweet and released a statement saying:
In the process of reporting on remarks by President Obama that were made during a CNBC interview, ABC News employees prematurely tweeted a portion of those remarks that turned out to be from an off-the-record portion of the interview. This was done before our editorial process had been completed. That was wrong. We apologize to the White House and CNBC and are taking steps to ensure that it will not happen again.
Too late, chaps. It's already out there. Kanye, President Obama thinks what most of us think, you are a jackass. Put that in your pipe and take a puff.
The tweet has been pulled down, but I grabbed it before so...
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Reddit!
Get off the guys back. He is a mother fucken musical genius.
And a gay fish.
Finally! A policy I can agree with. Now, back to Michelle's arms plz, thx.
That's the kind of sarcasm I like to see...
You've got to hand it to MTV. They know how to stage a controversy and create a buzz.
Kanye the loose tongue egomaniac, his fans love it.
Beyonce the wholesome diva always caught in the middle, her fans love it.
Whats her name country girl, everyone feels sorry for her and pays closer attention to her career.
Everybody wins.
Finally! Something I agree with The Prez on! Common Ground! Holy Shit!
Kanye's a racist piece of shite.
So much for me congratulating YBNBY on not falling for MTV's latest publicity stunt.
(not my words, but seen in a comment section somewhere)
"This is an insult to a Jackass."
I think the bigger story here is that Johnny Wright "grabbed a tweet."
JW referencing and viewing Twitter. Could this be true? Have the gates of hell been unlocked?
Actually, the bigger story is this:
Terry Moran, a (ahem) journalist, reported a quote, editorialized on that quote, and then retracted the quote citing (at corporate behest) that it was "off the record."
If you can't name six things that are fundamentally, ethically wrong about that string of actions, you aren't even trying.
Mass market journalism is now officially the dead parrot we cannot return.
I'm just doing my job Baier. But it isn't a good sign.
For those of you playing at home:
1) The press corps' informal agreement with politicians regarding "off the record" comments is no guarantee of secrecy, and should never be offered as such. Contrary to it's own self-delusion, the Fourth Estate is not a branch of the government. The pretense of confidentiality is poison to journalism.
2) Moran violated an understood agreement not to report informal comments.
3) Moran violated the oft-promoted (and more-oft violated) myth of the rule of "objectivity in reportage" by actively (fawningly) supporting the quote.
4) The retraction by the media of a quote "unintended" for public consumption is laughably egregious. Unintended quotes are the very lifeblood of journalism. Retractions are for false/misattributed quotes and wrong facts only, not accidentally publicized truths.
5) The editorial process is for the clarification of truth, not its sanitization. There can be no such thing as "premature" reporting being retractable in a free society. One can say that facts were reported before the newsfilter intended, but there can be no such thing as a "premature" report of a fact. Prematurity is avoided for the sake of clarity, not censorship.
6) A corporation apologizing to the White House for accidentally reporting a truth is a low, disgusting, reprehensible and downright un-American act. It not only violates the very essence of independent journalism, it violates you and it violates me.
And finally, Kanye West IS a jackass.
So, apparently, is ABC.
Holy shit swayze! I thought you were dead!
I am. That's why I type so dog gone slow.
And one minor kick at Obama - "The most transparent administration in U.S. history" ought to know better than making "off-the-record" comments to even the "most lapdog journalism corps in U.S. history."
I mean, jeez. Tell anyone else in your circle that Kanye's a jackass. Those guys with the cameras, tape recorders and microphones? Yeah, leave those guys alone.
Whatever takes the press off the real news. Smart diversion Barry.
They'll be talking about this for at least 24 hours. Meanwhile the daring daylight raid and killing of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, will go unnoticed.
On top of being a douche, Kanye's unoriginal. Old Dirty Bastard did something like this at the Grammys back in the day. He did it better too.
I liked it better when the guy from Rage Against the Machine climbed the set and started shaking it.
Zac? When was it, Sheriff?
Hey Swayze, is Whoopi Goldberg typing your comments here?