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For reporting that is an embarrassment to the profession of journalism, and for being beholden to corporate paymasters rather than the citizens of America.
The real test of a Media Putz is kind of like the difference between sex for
love and sex for money.
If you look closely at a true Media Putz -- their mannerisms and gestures
-- you can discern that they are performing for the money, not because being
a pundit gives them an outlet for their true beliefs.
Like a hooker, they give their owners, advertisers, and viewers what they
want, outrageous statements and attitude in return for high ratings and a fat
paycheck.
To be honest, we don't believe most Media Putzes necessarily have any core
ideology except for getting rich by being controversial.
Which brings us back to hookers and Tucker Carlson.
According to a slew of BuzzFlash readers, Carlson came
to the defense of Senator Hooker -- uh, we mean Vitter -- by claiming a
public official can champion the sanctity of marriage and monogamy, while paying
prostitutes
for sex, and still not be a hypocrite.
Now that is the kind of ludicrous, jaw-dropping statement that so defies common
sense, you just can't understand how anyone could be paid to utter it on television.
As nominator Romona Saunders of Phoenix, Arizona notes: "On MSNBC, Tucker
Carlson showed that he deserves the BuzzFlash Media Putz award for his defense
of Sen. Vitter's right to indulge in prostitution. He even had the nerve to
say that what happened is just a matter between Vitter and his wife and should
not be a public issue (unlike Clinton/Lewinsky episode)."
Glenn Greenwald does an excellent
dissection of not only Carlson's tortured defense of Vitter, but
also the bow tie man's gross hypocrisy to boot: "But in light of Carlson's
rather strident comments, I want to focus on his own behavior, by comparing
his outrage over the Vitter story to Carlson's participation in the media feeding
frenzy over Bill Clinton's sex scandal, when Carlson's fervent belief in the
imperatives of sexual privacy was nowhere to be found. Quite the opposite."
Carlson knows the coin of the realm in upping the paycheck of a Media Putz
is being as controversial as possible, not representing one's convictions
-- if someone such as Carlson has any.
By characterizing the Vitters as "victims" of alleged leftist slander,
Carlson reminds us how easy it is to separate faux punditry from the truth.
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