James O’Keefe and his surreptitious videos have helped bring down the ACORN community organization and the top executives at NPR, and he’s caused immense grief for the New Jersey teachers union and Planned Parenthood.
“There’s a debate about what to call me,” O’Keefe told a meeting of the Harbor League at a Timonium hotel Wednesday night. Sean Casey of WCBM suggested he was one of the “citizen journalists.” Jeff Ferguson, vice president of Harbor League, a conservative free-market organization, said he’s “an entrepreneur” and “investigative journalist.”
“I like to call myself a community organizer,” O’Keefe said to laughter, somewhat half jokingly referring to one of Barack Obama’s previous jobs. It also refers to the techniques he’s borrowed from Saul Alinsky, the late radical community organizer: “Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.”
But as O’Keefe described his tactics and strategy – leaving out a few crucial details such as what kind of hidden cameras he uses – it became clear that what he really is is an “anti-journalist,” not just a conservative activist trying to deflate the liberal establishment.
“There’s no such thing as journalism anymore,” O’Keefe, 26, said. “There’s no such thing as investigative journalism.” Journalists in general are “biased and corrupt,” and are not journalists at all. “They’re political operatives.”
He made his point strongly with a video PowerPoint that showed how the “mainstream media” mishandled the release of his clandestine videos.
No comments:
Post a Comment