From WNYC in New York, this is on the media.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield.

The saga of Mexican drug lord El Chapo took a new turn today.

Hollywood actor Sean Penn secretly met with the drug lord in the Mexican jungle.

El Chapo and Sean Penn, their shocking meeting.

The world's most wanted drug lord and an Oscar winner deep in a secret mountain hideaway.

What an uproar over Sean Penn's blockbuster article for Rolling Stone on his clandestine interview with the drug lord Joaquin Guzman, the murderous El Chapo.

For instance, here's Mexican-American journalist Alfredo Corchado on the BBC.

I'm saying it's not journalism, and to call it journalism is an epic insult to journalists in Mexico and beyond who have paid the ultimate price in seeking the truth.

Maybe Corchado didn't realize he's talking about an Oscar winner and globetriding

anti-imperialist at large, fighter of paparazzi and injustice.

But the criticism of Penn has been merciless for merely giving a sympathetic hearing to a man

who they say has the blood of 100,000 victims on his hands.

Here's retired war on drugs general Barry McCaffrey on CNN this week.

It's sort of a goofy 10,000-word article, you know, where he asks this notorious criminal what he's dreaming about, how would he want to change a world.

Now, hold on. Sean Penn did not spend 10,000 words glorifying a pitiless sociopath.

About 8,000 of the words, including 26 of the first 33 paragraphs, were Penn talking about himself.

Shame on you. You call yourself a reporter.

Shame on you.

You're nothing but a self-promoting hack.

That's Sean in the 2010 movie Fair Game.

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