Since I live so close to the echochamber that is Washington DC, I had myself sorta convinced that the Washington Post "Journolist" scandal was something only folks in these parts were following. My recent web-meanderings leave me convinced otherwise.
To review: last year, the Post hired a young man named "Dave Weigel" as a blogger/reporter to "cover" the conservative movement in the United States. Many conservatives treated this development with concern, as there is an almost reflexive tendency among the right today to believe in mainstream bias against the them. Note please--Weigel was not hired to provide "commentary"--he was hired as a reporter.
Last week, it seems a bunch of emails Weigel wrote on a 400 person list-server called "Journolist" run by WaPost "Commentator" Ezra Klein were leaked--in them, Weigel displayed open animosity to the right, the Tea Party movement, basically anything having to do with the things he was supposed to be neutrally covering. This situation led to Weigel being fired by the Post on Friday.
Conservatives are up in arms all over the interwebs, and with justification. The sense that the MSM is biased against the right is pervasive, and it seems that sometimes even the paranoid have something to be worried about. That there would be this shadow network of reporters sharing their thoughts and biases with each other--and in Weigel's case---openly trying to impact the coverage of stories by other reporters, strikes many as simply emblematic of the problem with the MSM. So far, the reactions I've seen from the left, Klein and others consist mainly of bemoaning the leaking of private emails. No insightful look into the dark heart of journalism, no real sense that what they were doing--or at least what Weigel was doing--was wrong.
Ann Althouse's blog is covering this things pretty well in and among a lot of other pretty funny and interesting things.
Showing posts with label MSM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MSM. Show all posts
Monday, June 28, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
You Want To See Media Bias? Lookie Here!
Fred Hiatt runs the editorial page of the Washington Post, and he's a relatively moderate guy. Much of the time, I find myself head-nodding to his columns. Not today.
His subject is a lack of interest in the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Pointing to last week's primary elections, Hiatt calls the candidates on a lack of debate/interest in the wars. Hiatt actually takes a pretty good stab at generalizing the dangers of a lack of sincere policy debate about the direction these wars are taking, citing among other things, a continuing distance between the military and the society it observes.
In an effort to suggest why this state of events may be, Hiatt offers two unsatisfying options. From the left, the reason for a lack of debate is (of course) the masterful hand of The One in quieting both the left and right with his nuanced policy choices. From the right, it's because the President has simply chosen not to be a "war President" and doesn't spend his time talking about the war.
So you ask, where is the bias here? Perhaps it is in the simple fact that Hiatt does not even for a second consider the startling change in the tone of press coverage of the wars since the Obama Administration came to power. It's no secret that the workaday press was in the tank for Obama, and the notion that they would hammer their man with the intensity that they took on George W. Bush is laughable. It is simply inconvenient to do so, and it doesn't fit the narrative--nor does (in fact) Obama's continuing and in some cases extending--the Bush approach to the War on Terror in much of its reach.
So--the editorial page editor of one of the nation's leading newspapers looks around for reasons the war is not in the headlines and cannot for the life of him come to ask whether or not it has anything to do with the actions of the folks who buy ink by the barrel. He looks to what?--a Congress controlled by the President's party? Nope. Not gonna happen there. But as long as the Press is also controlled by the President's party, it won't happen there either.
His subject is a lack of interest in the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Pointing to last week's primary elections, Hiatt calls the candidates on a lack of debate/interest in the wars. Hiatt actually takes a pretty good stab at generalizing the dangers of a lack of sincere policy debate about the direction these wars are taking, citing among other things, a continuing distance between the military and the society it observes.
In an effort to suggest why this state of events may be, Hiatt offers two unsatisfying options. From the left, the reason for a lack of debate is (of course) the masterful hand of The One in quieting both the left and right with his nuanced policy choices. From the right, it's because the President has simply chosen not to be a "war President" and doesn't spend his time talking about the war.
So you ask, where is the bias here? Perhaps it is in the simple fact that Hiatt does not even for a second consider the startling change in the tone of press coverage of the wars since the Obama Administration came to power. It's no secret that the workaday press was in the tank for Obama, and the notion that they would hammer their man with the intensity that they took on George W. Bush is laughable. It is simply inconvenient to do so, and it doesn't fit the narrative--nor does (in fact) Obama's continuing and in some cases extending--the Bush approach to the War on Terror in much of its reach.
So--the editorial page editor of one of the nation's leading newspapers looks around for reasons the war is not in the headlines and cannot for the life of him come to ask whether or not it has anything to do with the actions of the folks who buy ink by the barrel. He looks to what?--a Congress controlled by the President's party? Nope. Not gonna happen there. But as long as the Press is also controlled by the President's party, it won't happen there either.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Stay Classy, CNN...
I saw this clip of CNN's Rick Sanchez channeling his inner Ron Burgundy on Friday over at the Weekly Standard's blog, and it still makes me laugh.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Moment of Zen - Rick Sanchez Ad-Libs a Tease | ||||
| ||||
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Racial Bean-Counting At Its Best
Just feast your eyes on this little ditty from the Post this morning, in which its "Ombudsman" explains the problems the WaPost newsroom faces in terms of "diversity".
Obama Makes 15 Recess Appointments
President Obama took advantage of the Senate's Easter Break (and the US Constitution) and made 15 recess appointments yesterday, including one highly controversial appointment to the National Labor Relations Board. A few thoughts.
1. President Obama is fully within his rights to do this. It is a Constitutionally sanctioned act, and as such, I support it completely.
2. Elections have consequences--and when a President is elected, he gets to nominate people to serve in his administration. It is the Senate's job to treat with them. Senatorial "holds" are ridiculous; BUT, they are ALSO Constitutional, as the Constitution leaves it to the legislative bodies to regulate themselves.
3. Therefore, both the President and the Senate (at least those making the "holds") are acting Constitutionally AND predictably.
4. It will be interesting to see how the Bought and Paid For Media reacts to these appointments (recess appointments allow the person to serve through the end of the Congressional term--which for these appointments, is the first week in January of 2011). Here is a blog post that reminds us (H/T Instapundit) of how President' Bush's recess appointments were treated by the New York Times in 2006. I'm sure we can all look forward to similar criticism of President Obama from the Times in the days ahead. Go ahead, start holding your breath.....
5. Look for the BAPF media to mimic White House communication points on this matter--here is a taste of what we can expect from the horses mouths (The WH)--obviously, the White House and the WaPost would like us to FORGET about the remaining six years of the Bush Presidency where the well was further poisoned:
1. President Obama is fully within his rights to do this. It is a Constitutionally sanctioned act, and as such, I support it completely.
2. Elections have consequences--and when a President is elected, he gets to nominate people to serve in his administration. It is the Senate's job to treat with them. Senatorial "holds" are ridiculous; BUT, they are ALSO Constitutional, as the Constitution leaves it to the legislative bodies to regulate themselves.
3. Therefore, both the President and the Senate (at least those making the "holds") are acting Constitutionally AND predictably.
4. It will be interesting to see how the Bought and Paid For Media reacts to these appointments (recess appointments allow the person to serve through the end of the Congressional term--which for these appointments, is the first week in January of 2011). Here is a blog post that reminds us (H/T Instapundit) of how President' Bush's recess appointments were treated by the New York Times in 2006. I'm sure we can all look forward to similar criticism of President Obama from the Times in the days ahead. Go ahead, start holding your breath.....
5. Look for the BAPF media to mimic White House communication points on this matter--here is a taste of what we can expect from the horses mouths (The WH)--obviously, the White House and the WaPost would like us to FORGET about the remaining six years of the Bush Presidency where the well was further poisoned:
"The White House said the 15 appointees have waited an average of 214 days for a Senate confirmation vote. In all, the White House said, Obama has 217 nominees pending before the Senate, including 77 who are only awaiting a final floor vote.By comparison, the White House said, President George W. Bush had five nominees waiting for final Senate approval at this point in his presidency. Bush had used recess appointments to fill 15 posts by this time in 2002, the White House said."
Sunday, November 15, 2009
If You Aren't Outraged, Then Someone Other Than Bush Must Have Done It
A few days late but thought it worth discussing. The Obama Administration Justice Department seized assets from several Islamic mosques inside the United States last week. It received what I would call "responsible reporting" (log it!) from the MSM. Read this article from the Baltimore Sun and see if you agree. Balanced reporting, explains the degree to which the government excluded the activities of the attendees of these mosques so as not to impede their First Amendment rights and to only seize the assets associated with those mosques (and other income earning real estate) where they had evidence (via phone taps, and other "Constitution-trampling activities" of the Bush Administration's Patriot Act) that it was supporting the Iranian government's ties to terrorist activities. FBI agents had even been videotaped going through dumpsters outside of various mosques, yet there was no public outrage, fueled by righteous indignation reporting and claims of trampling the Constitution (except in Democracy Today--but even there, they were uncharacteristically reserved in their "outrage"). Perhaps it's because, like so much else where the MSM has gone milquetoast on us, The One declared that he would NEVER do such "expedient" acts in the name of national security. Therefore, this is clearly beyond critical review:
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