CNN’s Roland Martin is STILL reading The Black Snob and Sunday ol’ Rolly Roll’s pimped walked up in here to hip me to this whole crazy “journalism” jive game that I was obviously immature about being a professional journalist for … ahem … ten years.

But, whatever. Those were in “print” journalism and small print newspaper years at that … which strangely makes you older, so really that was 20 years and I’ve been cursed out enough to know what a newsroom is like.

But Rolly Rolls offered his lesson anyway.

(Get ready to rumble after the jump!)

FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT! (AND MINE) I present a continuation on a theme: The Black Snob getting comments from Roland Martin where Roland tries to “school” me on something and I laugh because I think the shit is HILARIOUS, especially that he actually comments on the blog. Like, I want to friend Rolly Rolls on Facebook just to see what would happen? Would Facebook explode?

And it’s been fun walking Rolly go from angry, to pissy to now talking to me like I’m mentally disabled. (Wait? What?) But seriously, Rolly Rolls, I wuvs you. Neva CHANGE!

From the blog “Roland Martin: CNN Superstar (Save One Pithy Hater)” — mind you, the hater was NOT ME!

Give it to me straight, Rolly! No Bias! No Bull!

Danielle,

In the movie, “Hoodlum,” Laurence Fishburne’s character told Andy Garcia’s, “When you don’t know, you don’t know.”

With that said, it’s clear that you and others just don’t know what a journalist is.

First, all journalists are not the same. There are folks who work in radio, newspaper, television, for magazines, and online publications.

Let’s use newspapers as an example.

We have journalists for the metro section, national and international desks, lifestyle, business, sports, etc. And within those sections you have different jobs. The folks who are “reporters” actually report. Are they journalists? Absolutely. Then you have the folks who are columnists. Are they journalists? Absolutely.

When you turn to the editorial page, there are members of the paper’s editorial team. Typically there is an editorial page editor to lead it. Their job is to take a position on a variety of topics. Is it opinionated? Yes. Do you see editorial pages endorse candidates? Yes. Are they journalists? Yes.

Then there are op-ed columnists. Clarence Page is a perfect example. He is an op-ed columnist for the Chicago Tribune and is nationally syndicated. Is Clarence a columnist? Yes. That is his specific job. Does he still fall under the umbrella of being a journalist? Absolutely.

A bunch of you seem intent in not understanding the different roles that people play.

When you watch television, Candi Crowley, John King, Jessica Yellin and our other “correspondents” are traditional reporters. They paint the picture, tell the story, and leave it at that. If this were a newspaper, they would be called “reporters.”

Then there are the folks like me who analyze or comment on the issues of the day. Do we take sides on all issues? Nope. Do we offer our perspective on these issues? Yes. Do we have the liberty – just like a newspaper columnist – to take strong view on one or the other? Absolutely.

Now, during the election, I offered analysis on all candidates, especially during the primaries. When we got to the general, we continued to do that. ONE of the big reasons folks often came to me for the “Obama perspective” is that I had covered him longer than ANYONE else on the CNN set and had major contacts within the Obama campaign. So, if someone asked, “Roland, Obama is trying to end this rift over Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Why leave the church?” Because of those contacts, I can offer the perspective of someone who has reached high up in the campaign.

Now, I decided to formally endorse Obama ONLY after I hosted three CNN election specials. In that first show, we talked about race, age and gender. I wanted to make the point in the opening of the show that some people vote for a variety of folks, and it’s not ideology. So, I made it clear that I’ve voted for Republicans, Democrats, white men (George H.W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, Kerry), white women (Ann Richards), Hispanics and Asians, and yes, African Americans. And I ended by saying, and in this election, I’m voting for Barack Obama, not because he’s black, because he’s the best person at this time for the United States.

It was then that I was tagged as the “Obama supporter.” Of course, Bill Bennett, Ed Rollins, Alex Castellanos, Leslie Sanchez and others were all tagged as “republican strategists” but they aren’t journalists. Yet we did have conservative/Republican writers, reporters and commentators (Steve Hayes) who made it clear who they were voting for. So are you saying it’s fine for other analysts/commentators to state their preference, but not me?

With that said, I hope all of you now understand that not everyone is required to be the fair and impartial journalist who relies on objectivity. The business has ALWAYS allowed for for folks to offer a point-of-view and opinion, and still be called a journalist. As long as an opinion is based on a set of facts, I’m fine with that. But when folks start lying, then that’s wrong.

April 11, 2009 | Roland S. Martin

*******

OH! SNAP! No he DIDN’T try to tell me about journalism! I graduated from Murrow School of Hard Knocks, son! (aka Southern Illinois University …. No, no. Not the one you’ve heard of.) Don’t hurt, em, Snob! Don’t hurt em!

*******

Roland!

You’ve returned! I was starting to think you didn’t like me anymore and that made me sad, but now I’m all kinds of happy. Yeah! Roland Martin reads The Black Snob!

Actually, I majored in journalism — (Editor of my newspaper! Scholarships! Making $15,000 a year!) and worked as both a reporter and columnist for 10 years before the great big bad newspaper holocaust so I actually know the difference between a commentator and someone who does basic beat reporting. My point was that once you give your opinion for a living as a pundit it’s harder to claim any impartiality with viewers because people can point to you and go “oh, but you had an opinion on this so you’re a hypocrite.”

You know as well as I that some journalists take a Jesus Christ level of purity when it comes to journalistic ethics, hence I couldn’t tell if you were ascribing to this hardcore morality pledge or not It isn’t journalistic cannon, as you point out. But many people believe it so, even those who don’t practice it. I couldn’t tell if you were a talker or a doer, hence all your responses to me seemed like contradictions and I was left going, “well, what is it my man!?”

But you know how the true journalism moralists are. No meals! No gifts more than $5! They won’t even do TV shows (Like Hardball or No Bias) where they give opinions. Some won’t don’t vote. But the average viewer can’t delineate this. They simply lump you all in a bucket and go, “Roland S. Martin is a hypocrite.” Especially since all reporter/writers, including me, DO have a degree of journalistic piety about them when it comes to reporting.

I know you’re moving from reporting to commentary to hosting and that you can do all three and be a journalist. But the average viewer is going to be perplexed by it and honestly, I only jumped on you oh-so-long-long because I felt it was pretty obvious that you was empathetic towards the Obama campaign. I didn’t know about the Bennett thing (not that it surprises me). And ACTUALLY, if you’d said that instead of being so prickly oh-so-long-ago, I would have been even more empathetic towards you because Bennett can be such a hack. A matter of fact, that makes a lot of sense. There are worse, but there have been plenty times he’s been wrong on you or Donna or gone beyond the pale on …. well, EVERYONE.

So you’re essentially saying because of Bennett and his ilke (and CNN’s use of you as their go to guy), a lot of people, including me, thought you’d already come out and hadn’t and I went off on some bad info. But you have to remember that back then you didn’t know me from Adam and this blog had three readers. And when my suspicions seemed to be later “proved” right when you came out for Obama it wasn’t like I got a note or a correction or a “Hey Snob, I told TJ you said hello and he was all, nice blog.”

Because I totally did that for you. I was snarky the whole time …. but I have a reputation to uphold. That and, I mean, I didn’t anything it either, (or to ever hear from you again) but you could have surprised a sister!

That said, I really hope they don’t put you in that closet with Soledad. (I love her dearly, but she is a WASTE on CNN). I hear it is dark in that closet and the only food is Top Ramen. Yeah, you’ll lose weight, but no one wants to do it that way.

Good luck with CNN. You already know the drill.

April 12, 2009 | Danielle Belton

*****

MAY THIS Feud LIVE FOREVER!!!!! I LOVE YOU, ROLAND! STOP BY AND COMPLAIN ANYTIME, YA HERE!

Also, this means Rolly Rolls reads your comments at The Black Snob. No one tell the folks at News Busters! I’ll never get rid of them!