Neither rain, nor wind, nor dental problems could keep Brit Hume from speaking to UVA’s powerhouse Larry Sabato’s Intro to American Politics class Wednesday afternoon. Hume, former anchor of "Fox’s Special Report with Brit Hume" and the final guest in Sabato’s annual speaker series, began in a rather unconventional way: by warning students of a potential mishap related to a temporary dental prosthetic.
“If you hear me start to whistle, it’s not because I’m giving you a musical interlude,” he joked. “It’s because I can’t help it.” Hume quickly got down to business discussing the changes in the media he has observed throughout his journalistic career.
A significant portion of the hour was spent addressing bias in the news and “the tradition of neutral news coverage.” Hume argued that news publications have begun to forget the importance of neutrality, citing the New York Times as a prime example.
“We are now again entering an era [in which] a lot of the news coverage will be animated by a political viewpoint,” he said, pointing out that technology and the increased reliance on blog-style news reporting are contributing to this phenomenon.
More after the photo.
Journalist Brit Hume discussed the bias and tradition in neutral news coverage in Larry Sabato’s class.
In response to a question about whether the press failed the American public following September 11 by not scrutinizing more closely the reasons we got into the Iraq War, Hume said, “Obviously there was a failure, but whether this was a failure of the American news media or [intelligence agencies] remains to be seen.”
He argued, however, that news organizations do not have the same investigative resources as intelligence agencies. “Though obviously it would have been nice if Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein could have parachuted into Iraq … and told us what was really there,” he joked.
Hume also spoke candidly about a story published early in his career which he now regrets. When he was working with investigative journalist Jack Anderson, they published a story about then Vice President Spiro Agnew’s son breaking up with his wife to move in with a man.
“No one should ever underestimate the ambition of journalists as a factor driving them to do things they might regret,” he said, adding that he actually felt uneasy about the story even before it was published.
“I never believed … in the concept of people becoming public figures by extension,” he explained. “We called him out. I think it was wrong then, and I think it is wrong today.”