PressEthic

Journalists have already been fighting the “liberal bias” reputation for years, at least as many years as Bush has been in office. The truth of it depends on who you ask, it seems, but it certainly doesn’t help matters that Mary Mapes is crying, “Vast right wing conspiracy!” to cover her Rathergate tracks.

And where is she unleashing these hyperbolic rants? In her new book, of course. “Truth and Duty: The Press, the President and the Privilege of Power” will be released Nov. 8, though the first chapter of what is obviously a very humble look at the press’s role in politics is already on amazon.com.

Yes, it’s a little annoying that any hack can get a book deal - and money - for being bad at her job. It’s more annoying that she’s continuing the tradition of making journalists look like political puppets, too liberal and too lazy to care about what they write.

Mapes writes that bloggers were questioning the memo’s authenticity as soon as the 60 Minutes 2 piece aired. It doesn’t matter whether they were conservative or liberal; they were doing what she should have done already.

As our own Kristen Vala notes, we’re already facing a profession in a transitional period that doesn’t make us job-seekers very optimistic. Here’s another reason why.