As his magazine goes on the block, editor Jon Meacham calls Newsweek one of the few Catchers in the Rye between democracy and ignorance at the edge of a media cliff, a last bastion of reporting in what Jon Stewart describes as a field of "aggregating, commenting, analyzing."
As at a wake, when the deceased's glory days get more attention than those of terminal illness, Meacham's appearance on the Daily Show last night is in itself evidence of eulogy hyperbole.
His interview was scheduled not to talk about Newsweek but his role as co-anchor of a program that will replace Bill Moyers' Journal on PBS, but happened to coincide with the announcement that the Washington Post Company is putting the magazine up for sale.
In the days when Newsweek really counted, its editors, such as Osborn Elliott and Ed Kosner, did not find the time to double as TV hosts, let alone write Pulitzer-Prize winning biographies as the gifted Meacham has.
In the late 1950s and early 60s, Kosner points out, "It was really important what was on the cover of Newsweek and what was on the cover of Time because it was what passed for the national press." The civil rights movement, for one example, stirred Americans with TV images but had its meaning defined by weekly and monthly magazines.
Those days are long gone and not likely to be lamented by new generations who get their news instantly and make up their own minds about what it means, abetted by a flood of unbridled online and cable TV opinion.
As an editor back then, I saw the essence of that job as not only finding out and telling readers what they wanted to know but what they didn't know they wanted to know until they saw it in a magazine. That work has largely migrated from the printed page, but as Meacham argues, it is still vital to democracy.
Journalistic Catchers in the Rye may be badly outnumbered now by talking heads and tweeters, but we still need them badly to see, tell us and help sort out what is going on in the dangerous world around us if we are not to go over those cliffs.
Showing posts with label journalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label journalism. Show all posts
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Monday, December 08, 2008
No Thomas Jefferson Bailout
With Congress preparing a $15 billion Christmas tip for Detroit, a more basic American industry is slowly going under.
"If I had to choose," Thomas Jefferson famously said, "between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter."
The "latter" is in the grip of the financial squeeze and advertising losses in a failing economy as the company that owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Baltimore Sun files for bankruptcy protection today, and the New York Times is reportedly planning to borrow up to $225 million against its mid-Manhattan headquarters building to ease its cash crunch.
Some bloggers who hate the MSM will no doubt show little more sympathy for newspaper makers than the most of the public does for the car industry. Yet their downfall threatens us all in an age when we are awash in tip-of-the-iceberg news, while fewer and fewer journalists are helping us see what's going on under the surface.
As we are threatened with drowning in repetitious cable TV and online headline-chasing and opinionizing, we learn less and less about hard news that might help us with the informed consent that Jefferson wanted us to have and depend more and more on the government he did not trust in its absence,
As far back as 1922, in "Public Opinion," Walter Lippmann pointed out that "the citizen will pay for his telephone, his railroad rides, his motor car, his entertainment. But he does not pay openly for his news,"
There won't be a Washington bailout for newspapers, so they will have to figure out new answers to who is going to pay for what we urgently need but expect to get free.
"If I had to choose," Thomas Jefferson famously said, "between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter."
The "latter" is in the grip of the financial squeeze and advertising losses in a failing economy as the company that owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Baltimore Sun files for bankruptcy protection today, and the New York Times is reportedly planning to borrow up to $225 million against its mid-Manhattan headquarters building to ease its cash crunch.
Some bloggers who hate the MSM will no doubt show little more sympathy for newspaper makers than the most of the public does for the car industry. Yet their downfall threatens us all in an age when we are awash in tip-of-the-iceberg news, while fewer and fewer journalists are helping us see what's going on under the surface.
As we are threatened with drowning in repetitious cable TV and online headline-chasing and opinionizing, we learn less and less about hard news that might help us with the informed consent that Jefferson wanted us to have and depend more and more on the government he did not trust in its absence,
As far back as 1922, in "Public Opinion," Walter Lippmann pointed out that "the citizen will pay for his telephone, his railroad rides, his motor car, his entertainment. But he does not pay openly for his news,"
There won't be a Washington bailout for newspapers, so they will have to figure out new answers to who is going to pay for what we urgently need but expect to get free.
Monday, July 07, 2008
Naming Names: Echoes of Valerie Plame
In a piece by its Public Editor, the New York Times acquits itself of endangering the interrogator of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, by naming him while describing how he successfully extracted information through psychological means rather than "rough stuff."
The Times defense (the public's right to know, the impaired credibility of a story without the name of a key character, the decision that he would not be in any greater danger than "scores of others who have been identified in the news media for their roles in the war against Al Qaeda") bookends all the outrage over the outing of Valerie Plame as a covert operative by a vengeful Bush Administration.
Granted the huge gap in motives, what the incidents have in common is the question of protecting people who do dangerous work for all of us. Would readers have been deprived of crucial information by withholding the name of the interrogator any more than they were by being unaware of Valerie Plame's identity?
Doesn't identifying him undermine the point of the story by making it unlikely that he could continue to do what the Times obviously judged to be important work for national security?
What gives the Times the right to override the subject's fears by making its own judgment about "the potential harm in naming an honorable public servant?" (Part of the lame defense is using his nickname rather his actual given name.)
"I understand," the Public Editor concludes, "how readers can think that if there is any risk at all, a person...should never be identified. But going in that direction, especially in this age of increasing government secrecy, would leave news organizations hobbled when trying to tell the public about some of the government’s most important and controversial actions."
Incidents like this may encourage readers to wonder how serious the MSM are in their dedication to "the public's right to know" rather than their own aggrandizement and self-importance.
The Times defense (the public's right to know, the impaired credibility of a story without the name of a key character, the decision that he would not be in any greater danger than "scores of others who have been identified in the news media for their roles in the war against Al Qaeda") bookends all the outrage over the outing of Valerie Plame as a covert operative by a vengeful Bush Administration.
Granted the huge gap in motives, what the incidents have in common is the question of protecting people who do dangerous work for all of us. Would readers have been deprived of crucial information by withholding the name of the interrogator any more than they were by being unaware of Valerie Plame's identity?
Doesn't identifying him undermine the point of the story by making it unlikely that he could continue to do what the Times obviously judged to be important work for national security?
What gives the Times the right to override the subject's fears by making its own judgment about "the potential harm in naming an honorable public servant?" (Part of the lame defense is using his nickname rather his actual given name.)
"I understand," the Public Editor concludes, "how readers can think that if there is any risk at all, a person...should never be identified. But going in that direction, especially in this age of increasing government secrecy, would leave news organizations hobbled when trying to tell the public about some of the government’s most important and controversial actions."
Incidents like this may encourage readers to wonder how serious the MSM are in their dedication to "the public's right to know" rather than their own aggrandizement and self-importance.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Tipping Point: Journalist-Free Journalism
As newspapers cut 1,000 jobs last week, Americans are getting their sense of the world less and less through human eyes and ears than from TV cameras abetted by well-groomed mannequins gushing over an endless flow of images.
Talking heads on cable and bloggers online parse and pick away at what the cameras see but there are fewer and fewer reporters to find out what's hidden by using such old-fashioned skills as observation, questioning and legwork.
Where is the tipping point at which "news" becomes all opinion all the time about "facts" supplied by self-interested sources?
Newspapers are drowning in red ink even as Americans depend more heavily on what they do but don't pay for the information they get from them digitally and advertisers don't cover the costs of allowing them to continue providing it.
The challenge, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, is to "reinvent their profession and their business model at the same time they are cutting back on their reporting and resources." A top news executive is quoted as saying, "It’s like changing the oil in your car while you’re driving down the freeway."
Meanwhile, Timothy Egan argues on his New York Times blog, "there’s plenty of gossip, political spin and original insight on sites like the Drudge Report or The Huffington Post--even though they are built on the backs of the wire services and other factories of honest fact-gathering. One day soon these Web info-slingers will find that you can’t produce journalism without journalists, and a search engine is no replacement for a curious reporter."
Meanwhile Rush Limbaugh gets a new $400 million contract for spouting off on one medium, while Lou Dobbs, Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann (bless his splenetic soul) dominate another with their points of view.
The pay and job security are nowhere near as good in the mills that provide their raw material.
Talking heads on cable and bloggers online parse and pick away at what the cameras see but there are fewer and fewer reporters to find out what's hidden by using such old-fashioned skills as observation, questioning and legwork.
Where is the tipping point at which "news" becomes all opinion all the time about "facts" supplied by self-interested sources?
Newspapers are drowning in red ink even as Americans depend more heavily on what they do but don't pay for the information they get from them digitally and advertisers don't cover the costs of allowing them to continue providing it.
The challenge, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, is to "reinvent their profession and their business model at the same time they are cutting back on their reporting and resources." A top news executive is quoted as saying, "It’s like changing the oil in your car while you’re driving down the freeway."
Meanwhile, Timothy Egan argues on his New York Times blog, "there’s plenty of gossip, political spin and original insight on sites like the Drudge Report or The Huffington Post--even though they are built on the backs of the wire services and other factories of honest fact-gathering. One day soon these Web info-slingers will find that you can’t produce journalism without journalists, and a search engine is no replacement for a curious reporter."
Meanwhile Rush Limbaugh gets a new $400 million contract for spouting off on one medium, while Lou Dobbs, Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann (bless his splenetic soul) dominate another with their points of view.
The pay and job security are nowhere near as good in the mills that provide their raw material.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
The Truth as Private Property
Hostilities between the Associated Press and bloggers are escalating to the point that some are now vowing to stop linking to the wire service. Regardless of the merits, such conflict is unhealthy for the free flow of information in a society that depends on it.
As a part of traditional media, AP regards its output as property without distinguishing between form and substance. The arrangement of words and sentences in its reports belongs to the agency, but the news conveyed does not. The facts and public statements therein, once published, belong to everyone. "Published" literally means "making public"
Bloggers, regardless of where their information comes from, have the right to analyze and comment on news without restriction. What they may not have the right to do is cut and paste large chunks of AP stories, as some do, and add their reactions which, in some cases, amount to no more than "Oh, wow!" in either a positive or negative sense.
Even before the Internet, on-the-spot reporting was only a fraction of what MSM did. TV news often piggybacked on newspaper reporting, and magazines got most of their ideas and leads from daily news. In the future, with news bureaus being cut back for economic reasons, that will be truer than ever.
Those of us who spent a working lifetime dealing with copyrighted material have no formula for where "fair use" ends and theft begins. But context is important. If a blog post is using AP material as a taking-off point for commentary or to illustrate a point, that's "fair use," and a word count formula can't be the only criterion.
For example, if this post were legally copyrighted, fair use would be characterizing it, quoting from it and expressing views but not just lifting most of it without creating some new piece of writing. But the exhilarating thing about blogging is that such property considerations are beside the point.
Beyond that, the real puzzlement in this debate is defining what damage AP believes results from having bloggers quote from its output by linking to the media that are legally using it. In what way does it devalue the product or damage those legal users? In fact, don’t they benefit from getting more traffic to their web sites?
But, all that aside, the larger issue is that, in a free society, it's not a good idea to start treating the truth as private property.
As a part of traditional media, AP regards its output as property without distinguishing between form and substance. The arrangement of words and sentences in its reports belongs to the agency, but the news conveyed does not. The facts and public statements therein, once published, belong to everyone. "Published" literally means "making public"
Bloggers, regardless of where their information comes from, have the right to analyze and comment on news without restriction. What they may not have the right to do is cut and paste large chunks of AP stories, as some do, and add their reactions which, in some cases, amount to no more than "Oh, wow!" in either a positive or negative sense.
Even before the Internet, on-the-spot reporting was only a fraction of what MSM did. TV news often piggybacked on newspaper reporting, and magazines got most of their ideas and leads from daily news. In the future, with news bureaus being cut back for economic reasons, that will be truer than ever.
Those of us who spent a working lifetime dealing with copyrighted material have no formula for where "fair use" ends and theft begins. But context is important. If a blog post is using AP material as a taking-off point for commentary or to illustrate a point, that's "fair use," and a word count formula can't be the only criterion.
For example, if this post were legally copyrighted, fair use would be characterizing it, quoting from it and expressing views but not just lifting most of it without creating some new piece of writing. But the exhilarating thing about blogging is that such property considerations are beside the point.
Beyond that, the real puzzlement in this debate is defining what damage AP believes results from having bloggers quote from its output by linking to the media that are legally using it. In what way does it devalue the product or damage those legal users? In fact, don’t they benefit from getting more traffic to their web sites?
But, all that aside, the larger issue is that, in a free society, it's not a good idea to start treating the truth as private property.
Monday, June 16, 2008
AP: Accusatory and Patronizing
As an editor and publisher, I spent part of my working life dealing with copyright infringement and fair use, so it's fascinating to find the Associated Press today in a fumbling effort to limit use of its content by bloggers.
To start, no one's work should be redistributed at random, but that's hardly what bloggers do in reproducing, almost always with attribution, portions of the news that AP publishes and commenting on it, almost always with links to the source of the material.
In the case chosen to set an example, the AP leaned on the satirical Drudge Retort over seven items containing quotations ranging from 39 to 79 words, hardly a wholesale lifting, leading to the suspicion that the news syndicate was more upset by the appropriator's tone than the "theft."
That's less a defense of copyrighted material than the act of a would-be censor.
“We are not trying to sue bloggers,” its "strategy director" says. “That would be the rough equivalent of suing grandma and the kids for stealing music. That is not what we are trying to do.”
That's adding insult to insult. Bloggers may want avoid using AP stuff--there are so many other news sources from which to steal our pathetic little music.
To start, no one's work should be redistributed at random, but that's hardly what bloggers do in reproducing, almost always with attribution, portions of the news that AP publishes and commenting on it, almost always with links to the source of the material.
In the case chosen to set an example, the AP leaned on the satirical Drudge Retort over seven items containing quotations ranging from 39 to 79 words, hardly a wholesale lifting, leading to the suspicion that the news syndicate was more upset by the appropriator's tone than the "theft."
That's less a defense of copyrighted material than the act of a would-be censor.
“We are not trying to sue bloggers,” its "strategy director" says. “That would be the rough equivalent of suing grandma and the kids for stealing music. That is not what we are trying to do.”
That's adding insult to insult. Bloggers may want avoid using AP stuff--there are so many other news sources from which to steal our pathetic little music.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Studying Jon Stewart
"The Daily Show performs a function that is close to journalistic in nature, getting people to think critically about the public square. In that sense, it is a variation of the tradition of Russell Baker, Art Hoppe, Art Buchwald, H.L. Mencken and other satirists who once graced the pages of American newspapers."
That's the conclusion of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism after studying Jon Stewart and his merry crew for an entire year, buttressed by the fact that the Daily Show "not only assumes, but even requires, previous and significant knowledge of the news on the part of viewers if they want to get the joke."
The study picks up on the fact that the show is as much about media criticism as political satire by noting, "The press itself is another significant focus on The Daily Show. In all, 8% of the time was made up of segments about the press and news media. That is more than double the amount of coverage of media in the mainstream press overall during the same period."
In a time when MSM are featuring jokers like Robert Novak, William Kristol and Karl Rove, it's comforting to see some academic recognition of commentators who are being intentionally funny.
That's the conclusion of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism after studying Jon Stewart and his merry crew for an entire year, buttressed by the fact that the Daily Show "not only assumes, but even requires, previous and significant knowledge of the news on the part of viewers if they want to get the joke."
The study picks up on the fact that the show is as much about media criticism as political satire by noting, "The press itself is another significant focus on The Daily Show. In all, 8% of the time was made up of segments about the press and news media. That is more than double the amount of coverage of media in the mainstream press overall during the same period."
In a time when MSM are featuring jokers like Robert Novak, William Kristol and Karl Rove, it's comforting to see some academic recognition of commentators who are being intentionally funny.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Elizabeth Edwards, Media Critic
The most cogent and heartfelt critique of the coverage of this Presidential campaign comes today from the wife of a candidate who was at the heart of the media melodrama.
"Watching the campaign unfold," Elizabeth Edwards writes in the New York Times, "I saw how the press gravitated toward a narrative template for the campaign, searching out characters as if for a novel: on one side, a self-described 9/11 hero with a colorful personal life, a former senator who had played a president in the movies, a genuine war hero with a stunning wife and an intriguing temperament, and a handsome governor with a beautiful family and a high school sweetheart as his bride.
"And on the other side, a senator who had been first lady, a young African-American senator with an Ivy League diploma, a Hispanic governor with a self-deprecating sense of humor and even a former senator from the South standing loyally beside his ill wife. Issues that could make a difference in the lives of Americans didn’t fit into the narrative template and, therefore, took a back seat to these superficialities."
She cites an independent study showing that during the early months of 2008, 63 percent of campaign stories focused on political strategy while only 15 percent discussed the candidates’ ideas and proposals.
But the media circus is a tacit collaboration between politicians and reporters, who assume (with considerable justification) that voters will be more interested in the cost of John Edwards' haircuts than his poverty proposals. If the media are shallow, the public and politicians have been their willing partners in what Mrs. Edwards calls "the Cliff Notes of the news" and "strobe-light journalism."
Only now, in desperation, after months of picayune personal attacks, does Hillary Clinton propose Lincoln-Douglas style debating on the issues without a moderator, as Barack Obama seems headed for the nomination despite the networks' best efforts to make mud fights out of their previous encounters.
"As we move the contest to my home state, North Carolina," Mrs. Edwards writes, "I want my neighbors to know as much as they possibly can about what these men and this woman would do as president.
"If voters want a vibrant, vigorous press, apparently we will have to demand it. Not by screaming out our windows as in the movie 'Network' but by talking calmly, repeatedly, constantly in the ears of those in whom we have entrusted this enormous responsibility. Do your job, so we can--as voters--do ours."
Well said, but don't hold your breath until that happens.
"Watching the campaign unfold," Elizabeth Edwards writes in the New York Times, "I saw how the press gravitated toward a narrative template for the campaign, searching out characters as if for a novel: on one side, a self-described 9/11 hero with a colorful personal life, a former senator who had played a president in the movies, a genuine war hero with a stunning wife and an intriguing temperament, and a handsome governor with a beautiful family and a high school sweetheart as his bride.
"And on the other side, a senator who had been first lady, a young African-American senator with an Ivy League diploma, a Hispanic governor with a self-deprecating sense of humor and even a former senator from the South standing loyally beside his ill wife. Issues that could make a difference in the lives of Americans didn’t fit into the narrative template and, therefore, took a back seat to these superficialities."
She cites an independent study showing that during the early months of 2008, 63 percent of campaign stories focused on political strategy while only 15 percent discussed the candidates’ ideas and proposals.
But the media circus is a tacit collaboration between politicians and reporters, who assume (with considerable justification) that voters will be more interested in the cost of John Edwards' haircuts than his poverty proposals. If the media are shallow, the public and politicians have been their willing partners in what Mrs. Edwards calls "the Cliff Notes of the news" and "strobe-light journalism."
Only now, in desperation, after months of picayune personal attacks, does Hillary Clinton propose Lincoln-Douglas style debating on the issues without a moderator, as Barack Obama seems headed for the nomination despite the networks' best efforts to make mud fights out of their previous encounters.
"As we move the contest to my home state, North Carolina," Mrs. Edwards writes, "I want my neighbors to know as much as they possibly can about what these men and this woman would do as president.
"If voters want a vibrant, vigorous press, apparently we will have to demand it. Not by screaming out our windows as in the movie 'Network' but by talking calmly, repeatedly, constantly in the ears of those in whom we have entrusted this enormous responsibility. Do your job, so we can--as voters--do ours."
Well said, but don't hold your breath until that happens.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Media Meltdown
Below the radar of the subprime crisis and credit crunch are signs of distress in American media. ABC and CBS are cutting jobs, and Newsweek is shrinking its staff with over 100 buyouts.
According to the Newspaper Association of America, total print advertising revenue in 2007 fell 9.4 percent to $42 billion compared to 2006, the most severe decline since the association started measuring in 1950.
Not only are some journalists losing their jobs but those who remain are working harder than ever. In a survey, the majority of more than 1200 media people said they are being asked to do more today that in past years, among other duties, contributing to online versions of their publications.
Little wonder, then, that in the recent Pew survey, journalists expressed more concern about "the financial crisis facing news organizations" than traditional worries about the credibility and the quality of news coverage.
As media shrink, how much more will our picture of the world be distorted? As it is, in the first three months of this year, only 4 percent of the news was devoted to Iraq, compared to 23 percent in the same period of the year before. It's so much easier and cheaper to cover every minute of the presidential candidates' days than a war that one of them will have to resolve.
News is news, isn't it?
According to the Newspaper Association of America, total print advertising revenue in 2007 fell 9.4 percent to $42 billion compared to 2006, the most severe decline since the association started measuring in 1950.
Not only are some journalists losing their jobs but those who remain are working harder than ever. In a survey, the majority of more than 1200 media people said they are being asked to do more today that in past years, among other duties, contributing to online versions of their publications.
Little wonder, then, that in the recent Pew survey, journalists expressed more concern about "the financial crisis facing news organizations" than traditional worries about the credibility and the quality of news coverage.
As media shrink, how much more will our picture of the world be distorted? As it is, in the first three months of this year, only 4 percent of the news was devoted to Iraq, compared to 23 percent in the same period of the year before. It's so much easier and cheaper to cover every minute of the presidential candidates' days than a war that one of them will have to resolve.
News is news, isn't it?
Sunday, March 30, 2008
A. J. Liebling's War
As a charter member of what has been called the Church of Liebling, I have good news for fellow worshippers.
Liebling's coverage of World War II for the New Yorker has now been gathered into a volume of 1089 pages by the Library of America. Like everything else he wrote, by reporting what he saw and heard, Liebling conveyed more about his subject than all the TV cameras and embedded journalists have told us about Iraq.
I have had the temerity to borrow his name for the URL here, but it's likely Liebling would have been ambivalent about blogs. As a press critic, he was a premature blogger himself, looking behind the news and picking apart the work of those who delivered it, making connections between the motives and methods of the messengers and the frequent unreliability of the message.
But a reporter at heart, Liebling hated experts. He mistrusted anyone who claimed "to have access to some occult source or science not available to reporter or reader...the big picture."
He didn't like editors much, either. "They come to newspapers," he wrote, "like monks to cloisters or worms to apples. They are the dedicated. All of them are fated to be editors except the ones that get killed off by the lunches they eat at their desks...The survivors of gastric disorders rise to minor executive jobs and then major ones, and the reign of these non-writers makes our newspapers read like the food in the New York Times cafeteria tastes."
Above all, he hated publishers. "The function of the press in society," he wrote, "is to inform, but its role is to make money. The monopoly publisher's reaction, on being told that he ought to spend money on reporting distant events, is therefore exactly that of the proprietor of a large, fat cow, who is told that he ought to enter her in a horse race."
And that was before Rupert Murdoch.
Liebling's coverage of World War II for the New Yorker has now been gathered into a volume of 1089 pages by the Library of America. Like everything else he wrote, by reporting what he saw and heard, Liebling conveyed more about his subject than all the TV cameras and embedded journalists have told us about Iraq.
I have had the temerity to borrow his name for the URL here, but it's likely Liebling would have been ambivalent about blogs. As a press critic, he was a premature blogger himself, looking behind the news and picking apart the work of those who delivered it, making connections between the motives and methods of the messengers and the frequent unreliability of the message.
But a reporter at heart, Liebling hated experts. He mistrusted anyone who claimed "to have access to some occult source or science not available to reporter or reader...the big picture."
He didn't like editors much, either. "They come to newspapers," he wrote, "like monks to cloisters or worms to apples. They are the dedicated. All of them are fated to be editors except the ones that get killed off by the lunches they eat at their desks...The survivors of gastric disorders rise to minor executive jobs and then major ones, and the reign of these non-writers makes our newspapers read like the food in the New York Times cafeteria tastes."
Above all, he hated publishers. "The function of the press in society," he wrote, "is to inform, but its role is to make money. The monopoly publisher's reaction, on being told that he ought to spend money on reporting distant events, is therefore exactly that of the proprietor of a large, fat cow, who is told that he ought to enter her in a horse race."
And that was before Rupert Murdoch.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Great Moments in American Journalism
Reserve a Pulitzer Prize now for another reporting coup by Associated Press. After scouring thousands of pages of newly released White House records, an investigative journalist today reveals the shocking news that "Hillary Rodham Clinton was in the White House on at least seven days when her husband had sexual encounters with Monica Lewinsky."
If this doesn't damage the former First Lady's claim that she was involved in the crucial affairs of the Clinton Administration, what will?
If this doesn't damage the former First Lady's claim that she was involved in the crucial affairs of the Clinton Administration, what will?
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Troubling Questions About Spitzer Scandal
The New York Times, which failed to make a sex-scandal charge against John McCain stick, has settled for the scalp of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, exposing his involvement with high-priced prostitutes that will likely lead to his resignation.
Spitzer, whose career was built on bull-in-the-china-shop pursuit of corporate malfeasance as Attorney General of New York and whose term in Albany has made him less than lovable, will get little sympathy from politicians, the press and most of the public, but journalistically, there are some troubling questions.
"Mr. Spitzer’s involvement with the prostitution operation came to light in court papers filed last week," the Times reports today, citing unnamed "federal authorities" and "officials," although Spitzer was not named in the affidavit by Assistant US Attorneys.
The case started with IRS investigation of "suspicious transactions" about possible bribery, but it soon became clear from wiretaps authorized by the US Attorney General (Alberto Gonzales?) that Spitzer's financial gyrations involved sex rather than official corruption.
The prostitution ring is now being prosecuted, but Spitzer's legal exposure seems limited to possible charges of "a crime called structuring" that involves concealing of payments and sources.
What, then, justifies the outing of Spitzer at this point by anonymous federal officials and the Times of activity that so far has not been deemed illegal and does not involve his duties as Governor?
Spitzer's leaving office in this situation would be in sharp contrast to two Senators who remain in their positions, Louisiana's David Vitter, who admitted patronizing prostitutes last year, and Larry Craig, who pled guilty to soliciting men's room sex but was defended by the ACLU on the basis that it was private behavior.
John McCain is likable and Eliot Spitzer is far from lovable, but does that difference justify his destruction by front-page exposure of personal misbehavior?
Spitzer, whose career was built on bull-in-the-china-shop pursuit of corporate malfeasance as Attorney General of New York and whose term in Albany has made him less than lovable, will get little sympathy from politicians, the press and most of the public, but journalistically, there are some troubling questions.
"Mr. Spitzer’s involvement with the prostitution operation came to light in court papers filed last week," the Times reports today, citing unnamed "federal authorities" and "officials," although Spitzer was not named in the affidavit by Assistant US Attorneys.
The case started with IRS investigation of "suspicious transactions" about possible bribery, but it soon became clear from wiretaps authorized by the US Attorney General (Alberto Gonzales?) that Spitzer's financial gyrations involved sex rather than official corruption.
The prostitution ring is now being prosecuted, but Spitzer's legal exposure seems limited to possible charges of "a crime called structuring" that involves concealing of payments and sources.
What, then, justifies the outing of Spitzer at this point by anonymous federal officials and the Times of activity that so far has not been deemed illegal and does not involve his duties as Governor?
Spitzer's leaving office in this situation would be in sharp contrast to two Senators who remain in their positions, Louisiana's David Vitter, who admitted patronizing prostitutes last year, and Larry Craig, who pled guilty to soliciting men's room sex but was defended by the ACLU on the basis that it was private behavior.
John McCain is likable and Eliot Spitzer is far from lovable, but does that difference justify his destruction by front-page exposure of personal misbehavior?
Thursday, March 06, 2008
The Drudges' Generation Gap
They are digital gatekeepers, but the father runs an online library and the son is the proprietor of a news whorehouse.
Outing Prince Harry in Afghanistan and showing Barack Obama in Muslim garb are the latest triumphs of "the world's most powerful journalist," as the UK Telegraph now dubs Matt Drudge, stretching the definition of all three words.
In an era when clicks are currency, Robert Drudge's refdesk.com, "Fact Checker for the Internet," is clearly outvalued by his son's millions of links to facts, factoids and junk news from everywhere.
The story is familiar by now--Young Drudge's Dickensian youth of abject intellectual and psychological poverty and his Horatio Alger ascent after a despairing father gave him a cheap computer--the 7-Eleven years, the psychiatric treatment with Jewish Social Services, the climb back to become manager of a CBS gift shop, the rummaging for scoops in the Hollywood City trash cans before cleaners fed them to the shredders...
A 21st century success story best summarized by the Great Summarizer himself: "24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a 12-month year, 10 years a decade, 10 decades a century, and 10 centuries a millennium, as far as a chip can see, wire services from all over the world move raw data ... all over the world!
"I can access, edit, headline and ... link to it all!
"Throw it up on a website and wait for you to come.
"For seven pre-millennial years, I've covered the world from my Hollywood apartment, dressed in my drawers.
"I've reported when, how, and what I've wanted...
"There's been no editor, no lawyer, no judge, no president to tell me I can't...
"Technology has finally caught up with individual liberty."
As Mel Brooks' Max Bialystock would say, "When you've got it, baby, flaunt it!" But Drudge might want to take a look back at his 20th century counterpart, Walter Winchell, who owned the world of gossip with his punchy phrasing and unfettered "reporting" back then.
Another of today's icons, Larry King, who succeeded the gossip master at his newspaper job, recalls: "He was so sad. You know what Winchell was doing at the end? Typing out mimeographed sheets with his column, handing them out on the corner. That's how sad he got. When he died, only one person came to his funeral."
Sic transit... Wait, I have to check the exact quote on Robert Drudge's web site.
Outing Prince Harry in Afghanistan and showing Barack Obama in Muslim garb are the latest triumphs of "the world's most powerful journalist," as the UK Telegraph now dubs Matt Drudge, stretching the definition of all three words.
In an era when clicks are currency, Robert Drudge's refdesk.com, "Fact Checker for the Internet," is clearly outvalued by his son's millions of links to facts, factoids and junk news from everywhere.
The story is familiar by now--Young Drudge's Dickensian youth of abject intellectual and psychological poverty and his Horatio Alger ascent after a despairing father gave him a cheap computer--the 7-Eleven years, the psychiatric treatment with Jewish Social Services, the climb back to become manager of a CBS gift shop, the rummaging for scoops in the Hollywood City trash cans before cleaners fed them to the shredders...
A 21st century success story best summarized by the Great Summarizer himself: "24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a 12-month year, 10 years a decade, 10 decades a century, and 10 centuries a millennium, as far as a chip can see, wire services from all over the world move raw data ... all over the world!
"I can access, edit, headline and ... link to it all!
"Throw it up on a website and wait for you to come.
"For seven pre-millennial years, I've covered the world from my Hollywood apartment, dressed in my drawers.
"I've reported when, how, and what I've wanted...
"There's been no editor, no lawyer, no judge, no president to tell me I can't...
"Technology has finally caught up with individual liberty."
As Mel Brooks' Max Bialystock would say, "When you've got it, baby, flaunt it!" But Drudge might want to take a look back at his 20th century counterpart, Walter Winchell, who owned the world of gossip with his punchy phrasing and unfettered "reporting" back then.
Another of today's icons, Larry King, who succeeded the gossip master at his newspaper job, recalls: "He was so sad. You know what Winchell was doing at the end? Typing out mimeographed sheets with his column, handing them out on the corner. That's how sad he got. When he died, only one person came to his funeral."
Sic transit... Wait, I have to check the exact quote on Robert Drudge's web site.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Liars and Fabulists
The continuing hoo-ha over the latest publishing fraud, the Valley girl who posed as a druggie gang member, brings up the question of where to draw the line between writers with vivid imaginations and out-and-out liars.
Truman Capote, who invented the non-fiction novel, was not always the most fact-checkable of journalists. As his editor and friend, I found he had a storyteller’s way with the truth. His writing and even his casual conversation abounded in astonishments, wondrous coincidences and weird juxtapositions.
He would tell colorful tales, unlikely but not necessarily untrue, often at the expense of macho figures: how Marlon Brando tried to get him into bed after an all-night interview in a Japanese hotel; how during the filming of "Beat the Devil," he bested Humphrey Bogart, who persisted in calling him Caposy, at arm-wrestling for $150 and sealed the humiliation of the actor, known for his nightclub brawls, by using judo to put him flat on his back.
But Capote was a novelist at heart, and his talent earned him some leeway as a fabulist in matters of little moment. In fact, the writing of "In Cold Blood" was, in part, a challenge he set himself to tell a journalistically pure story that would have the richness of his fiction. He knew the difference.
Today's fake memoirists either don't know or don't care, and their publishers are hard-pressed to verify their authenticity in an industry with a tradition of trusting writers to be truthful.
Under the headline, "Tracking the Fallout of (Another) Literary Fraud," the New York Times today reports the dismay of editors and agents who are embarrassed to find themselves vouching for lying writers.
Yet, a freelance reporter, who wrote a profile of the fake gang girl for the Times itself, did not question her story.
“The way I look at it," the reporter explained, "is that it’s just like when you get in a car and drive to the store—-you assume that the other drivers on the road aren’t psychopaths on a suicide mission.”
Sadly, the clubby world of book publishing is not in Kansas any more. It will have to do a lot more checking up on who is behind the curtain before putting into the book stores the story of the latest self-styled Wizard of Oz.
Truman Capote, who invented the non-fiction novel, was not always the most fact-checkable of journalists. As his editor and friend, I found he had a storyteller’s way with the truth. His writing and even his casual conversation abounded in astonishments, wondrous coincidences and weird juxtapositions.
He would tell colorful tales, unlikely but not necessarily untrue, often at the expense of macho figures: how Marlon Brando tried to get him into bed after an all-night interview in a Japanese hotel; how during the filming of "Beat the Devil," he bested Humphrey Bogart, who persisted in calling him Caposy, at arm-wrestling for $150 and sealed the humiliation of the actor, known for his nightclub brawls, by using judo to put him flat on his back.
But Capote was a novelist at heart, and his talent earned him some leeway as a fabulist in matters of little moment. In fact, the writing of "In Cold Blood" was, in part, a challenge he set himself to tell a journalistically pure story that would have the richness of his fiction. He knew the difference.
Today's fake memoirists either don't know or don't care, and their publishers are hard-pressed to verify their authenticity in an industry with a tradition of trusting writers to be truthful.
Under the headline, "Tracking the Fallout of (Another) Literary Fraud," the New York Times today reports the dismay of editors and agents who are embarrassed to find themselves vouching for lying writers.
Yet, a freelance reporter, who wrote a profile of the fake gang girl for the Times itself, did not question her story.
“The way I look at it," the reporter explained, "is that it’s just like when you get in a car and drive to the store—-you assume that the other drivers on the road aren’t psychopaths on a suicide mission.”
Sadly, the clubby world of book publishing is not in Kansas any more. It will have to do a lot more checking up on who is behind the curtain before putting into the book stores the story of the latest self-styled Wizard of Oz.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Barbarians at the Gray Lady's Gates
The year has not started well for the New York Times. While taking fire for the John McCain story, its family ownership is under siege from hedge funds that have now accumulated over 15 percent of the company's Class A shares.
Symbolically, the attackers are led by Scott Galloway, most often seen in a charity-ball photograph dressed as a blue-faced, sword-wielding Scottish rebel from the movie "Braveheart." But Galloway and his group are digital warriors who insist they don't want to overthrow the old order, just bring it into the 21st century.
In asking for four seats on Times Company board, they wrote that "we are not pursuing a change in the dual class shareholder structure. The New York Times is a great institution controlled by the Sulzberger family and we have no illusion about, or desire to change, that fact...
"We believe a renewed focus on the core assets and the redeployment of capital to expedite the acquisition of digital assets affords the greatest shareholder appreciation and creates the appropriate platform to compete in today’s media landscape."
For their $400 million investment so far, Galloway's invaders have received little encouragement. Their four nominees for the board have been rejected in favor of new Sulzberger choices including, significantly, a close associate of Warren Buffet's.
Nothing like a Rupert Murdoch takeover of the Wall Street Journal is on the horizon, but with 97 percent of its revenue coming from paper-based properties and stock prices falling, the Company is vulnerable to such criticism, as reported by the Washington Post, that "with a market capitalization of $2.8 billion, the single most valuable asset the Times Co. owns, some analysts say, is its new midtown Manhattan headquarters, which may be worth as much as $1 billion. Some have caustically remarked that the Times Co. is now a REIT--a real estate investment trust-- with a newspaper attached."
Amid denunciations of its McCain takeout from the Right and much of the Left, all this is a reminder that the New York Times is one of the few remaining media institutions still family-controlled and being nominally run as a public trust in a time when corporate ownership and "shareholder appreciation" are the rules of the game.
For those who have spent a lifetime in journalism, all this pressure on "the newspaper of record" is a sobering reminder that the old rules in most places are long gone.
Symbolically, the attackers are led by Scott Galloway, most often seen in a charity-ball photograph dressed as a blue-faced, sword-wielding Scottish rebel from the movie "Braveheart." But Galloway and his group are digital warriors who insist they don't want to overthrow the old order, just bring it into the 21st century.
In asking for four seats on Times Company board, they wrote that "we are not pursuing a change in the dual class shareholder structure. The New York Times is a great institution controlled by the Sulzberger family and we have no illusion about, or desire to change, that fact...
"We believe a renewed focus on the core assets and the redeployment of capital to expedite the acquisition of digital assets affords the greatest shareholder appreciation and creates the appropriate platform to compete in today’s media landscape."
For their $400 million investment so far, Galloway's invaders have received little encouragement. Their four nominees for the board have been rejected in favor of new Sulzberger choices including, significantly, a close associate of Warren Buffet's.
Nothing like a Rupert Murdoch takeover of the Wall Street Journal is on the horizon, but with 97 percent of its revenue coming from paper-based properties and stock prices falling, the Company is vulnerable to such criticism, as reported by the Washington Post, that "with a market capitalization of $2.8 billion, the single most valuable asset the Times Co. owns, some analysts say, is its new midtown Manhattan headquarters, which may be worth as much as $1 billion. Some have caustically remarked that the Times Co. is now a REIT--a real estate investment trust-- with a newspaper attached."
Amid denunciations of its McCain takeout from the Right and much of the Left, all this is a reminder that the New York Times is one of the few remaining media institutions still family-controlled and being nominally run as a public trust in a time when corporate ownership and "shareholder appreciation" are the rules of the game.
For those who have spent a lifetime in journalism, all this pressure on "the newspaper of record" is a sobering reminder that the old rules in most places are long gone.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
The NY Times Defines Deviancy Down
The Gray Lady won't win its 96th Pulitzer Prize with today's "expose" of John McCain's history of ethical struggles and leering innuendo about his relationship with a young woman lobbyist.
In fact, the Times' takeout is bigger news than its contents. The long leadup to publication has been a source of journalistic gossip for months, and the timing is attributed to worries about being beaten on the story by another media behemoth, the New Republic.
The days of the Pentagon papers, The New York Times vs Sullivan case that changed libel law and the universal respect for columnists like James Reston and Tom Wicker are long gone. Today we have William Kristol and this--a long rehash of McCain's political lapses, coupled with a low-fact personal smear.
In defining deviancy downward, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan might say, the Times has done more than open the door for its rabid right-wing haters. The newspaper of record has put pressure on itself to do a similar job on Barack Obama and his Antoin Rezko connections or face an election-year barrage of continuing criticism.
A long mea culpa from its Public Editor next weekend won't be enough to undo the damage.
In fact, the Times' takeout is bigger news than its contents. The long leadup to publication has been a source of journalistic gossip for months, and the timing is attributed to worries about being beaten on the story by another media behemoth, the New Republic.
The days of the Pentagon papers, The New York Times vs Sullivan case that changed libel law and the universal respect for columnists like James Reston and Tom Wicker are long gone. Today we have William Kristol and this--a long rehash of McCain's political lapses, coupled with a low-fact personal smear.
In defining deviancy downward, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan might say, the Times has done more than open the door for its rabid right-wing haters. The newspaper of record has put pressure on itself to do a similar job on Barack Obama and his Antoin Rezko connections or face an election-year barrage of continuing criticism.
A long mea culpa from its Public Editor next weekend won't be enough to undo the damage.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Pimping Out the News
Last week's Chelsea Clinton furor marks a low point in cable network competition for eyeballs and ears during the 24/7 news cycle and raises broader questions about their prime-time "journalism," which has degenerated into a babble of idiot ids vying for attention.
David Shuster's "pimped out" remark exemplifies a trend reported almost a year ago by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, that "cable news channels...are moving more toward personalities, often opinionated ones, to win audiences.
"The most strident voices, such as Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck, are among the biggest successes in winning viewers, as is CNN’s new crusader, Lou Dobbs. How much those individual shows affect a channel’s overall audience is harder to gauge. Their growth in 2006 was substantial, particularly among 25-to-54-year-olds, but those gains were not enough to stanch the overall declines.
"The shifts toward even edgier opinion are also probably a response to another change. Cable is beginning to lose its claim as the primary destination for what was once its main appeal: news on demand. That is something the Internet can now provide more efficiently."
Something even more basic is involved as well. Unlike newspapers, magazines and even blogs, TV news has always been a zero-sum game. If a viewer loses interest and switches channels, it's over, so the premium is on attention-getting and holding. Blowhards and gasbags are the means of choice.
So Olbermann, as much as he rants at Bill O'Reilly, is driven to his own extremes as are Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough and the trash-talking heads they assemble every night.
Only when there is immediate news to analyze, as on election nights, are the more rational voices heard--the Andrea Mitchells, Candy Crowleys, Jeffrey Toobins, Jeff Greenfields and even the Tom Brokaws of TV's greatest generation.
The rest of the time, it's hyperbole and hype, with the news, you might say, being pimped out.
David Shuster's "pimped out" remark exemplifies a trend reported almost a year ago by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, that "cable news channels...are moving more toward personalities, often opinionated ones, to win audiences.
"The most strident voices, such as Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck, are among the biggest successes in winning viewers, as is CNN’s new crusader, Lou Dobbs. How much those individual shows affect a channel’s overall audience is harder to gauge. Their growth in 2006 was substantial, particularly among 25-to-54-year-olds, but those gains were not enough to stanch the overall declines.
"The shifts toward even edgier opinion are also probably a response to another change. Cable is beginning to lose its claim as the primary destination for what was once its main appeal: news on demand. That is something the Internet can now provide more efficiently."
Something even more basic is involved as well. Unlike newspapers, magazines and even blogs, TV news has always been a zero-sum game. If a viewer loses interest and switches channels, it's over, so the premium is on attention-getting and holding. Blowhards and gasbags are the means of choice.
So Olbermann, as much as he rants at Bill O'Reilly, is driven to his own extremes as are Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough and the trash-talking heads they assemble every night.
Only when there is immediate news to analyze, as on election nights, are the more rational voices heard--the Andrea Mitchells, Candy Crowleys, Jeffrey Toobins, Jeff Greenfields and even the Tom Brokaws of TV's greatest generation.
The rest of the time, it's hyperbole and hype, with the news, you might say, being pimped out.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Fox News' Push Polling
Hillary Clinton is the candidate who would "do anything," including something unethical, to win the presidency and, if elected, the most likely to embarrass the country by her actions in the Oval Office.
You can take Fox News' word for it. Nobody asked them, but their pollsters have been questioning voters in what looks very much like a push poll, designed to score points against a candidate rather than elicit information.
"These results," says Ernest Paicopolos of Opinion Dynamics, "suggest that Clinton still faces the challenge of shedding the image of a politician who puts electoral victory ahead of everything else." His organization also solicited voter opinion about such core issues as the bickering between Bill Clinton and Obama and the injection of race into the South Carolina primary.
If Rupert Murdoch's minions are impartial in their studies of candidates' images, they might next ask which candidate is seen as most likely to blow his top in the White House and nuke everybody, which is most willing to falsify his previous stands on every issue, which would hold revival meetings in the Rose Garden and which might take drugs and give the State of the Union address in a ghetto stupor.
In its previous polling for Fox News, Opinion Dynamics unearthed such trends as the 2006 pre-Surge public perception of "victories in Iraq," leading to a sharp rise in the approval ratings of President Bush and Don Rumsfeld.
Fox News' social science is as fair and impartial as its news coverage, telling us everything the godfather of "American Idol" wants us to know.
You can take Fox News' word for it. Nobody asked them, but their pollsters have been questioning voters in what looks very much like a push poll, designed to score points against a candidate rather than elicit information.
"These results," says Ernest Paicopolos of Opinion Dynamics, "suggest that Clinton still faces the challenge of shedding the image of a politician who puts electoral victory ahead of everything else." His organization also solicited voter opinion about such core issues as the bickering between Bill Clinton and Obama and the injection of race into the South Carolina primary.
If Rupert Murdoch's minions are impartial in their studies of candidates' images, they might next ask which candidate is seen as most likely to blow his top in the White House and nuke everybody, which is most willing to falsify his previous stands on every issue, which would hold revival meetings in the Rose Garden and which might take drugs and give the State of the Union address in a ghetto stupor.
In its previous polling for Fox News, Opinion Dynamics unearthed such trends as the 2006 pre-Surge public perception of "victories in Iraq," leading to a sharp rise in the approval ratings of President Bush and Don Rumsfeld.
Fox News' social science is as fair and impartial as its news coverage, telling us everything the godfather of "American Idol" wants us to know.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
The Return of Rumsfeld
He's back, with all his contempt for the media intact. Now Donald Rumsfeld is proposing a “21st-century agency for global communications” that would use blogs, social networks and talk radio to visit verbal shock and awe on Muslim extremists.
Addressing an "information warfare conference" co-sponsored by such defenders of free speech as Boeing, Lockheed and Curtiss Wright, Rumsfeld said the US is “sitting on the sidelines” in a global battle of ideas and "barely competing.”
When Sharon Weinberger of Wired asked what his new agency would do, the former Secretary Defense referred nostalgically to the good old days when the Army paid locals to plant stories in the Iraq press until American media spoiled the fun by reporting about it.
Rumsfeld insisted that his new propaganda ministry would not interfere with traditional journalism.
“It doesn’t mean we have to infringe on the role of the free press, they can go do what they do, and that’s fine,” he said. “Well, it’s not fine, but it’s what it is, let’s put it that way.”
What the architect of the Iraq war wants to do now is “tell the story of a nation that was carved from the wilderness and conceived in freedom” to those benighted souls who live under regimes that don't respect our First Amendment, as he does.
Addressing an "information warfare conference" co-sponsored by such defenders of free speech as Boeing, Lockheed and Curtiss Wright, Rumsfeld said the US is “sitting on the sidelines” in a global battle of ideas and "barely competing.”
When Sharon Weinberger of Wired asked what his new agency would do, the former Secretary Defense referred nostalgically to the good old days when the Army paid locals to plant stories in the Iraq press until American media spoiled the fun by reporting about it.
Rumsfeld insisted that his new propaganda ministry would not interfere with traditional journalism.
“It doesn’t mean we have to infringe on the role of the free press, they can go do what they do, and that’s fine,” he said. “Well, it’s not fine, but it’s what it is, let’s put it that way.”
What the architect of the Iraq war wants to do now is “tell the story of a nation that was carved from the wilderness and conceived in freedom” to those benighted souls who live under regimes that don't respect our First Amendment, as he does.
Monday, January 21, 2008
McCain's Cockiness
Forget the poll numbers. The surest sign of a winner is making ballsy jokes, and John McCain is back doing that.
When Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post asks why, unlike most other candidates, he is so accessible to reporters, McCain responds, "I enjoy it a lot. It keeps me intellectually stimulated, it keeps me thinking about issues, and it keeps me associated with a lower level of human being than I otherwise would be."
Kurtz notes, "How candidates treat reporters shouldn't matter in the coverage, but it does. Journalists tend to reward those who engage them and get testy when they are stiffed, concluding that such candidates are overly calculating and wary of unscripted exchanges."
When McCain made an unusual trip without his press contingent, a reporter asked, "What did you do without us this morning? Were you hanging out with other reporters?"
McCain acted horrified. "I was not unfaithful," he insisted.
Lest all this seem lovable, it pays to remember that Nancy Pelosi's daughter, of all people, made a documentary in 2000 about how charming and lovable George Bush was on his campaign plane, and we know how that turned out.
When Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post asks why, unlike most other candidates, he is so accessible to reporters, McCain responds, "I enjoy it a lot. It keeps me intellectually stimulated, it keeps me thinking about issues, and it keeps me associated with a lower level of human being than I otherwise would be."
Kurtz notes, "How candidates treat reporters shouldn't matter in the coverage, but it does. Journalists tend to reward those who engage them and get testy when they are stiffed, concluding that such candidates are overly calculating and wary of unscripted exchanges."
When McCain made an unusual trip without his press contingent, a reporter asked, "What did you do without us this morning? Were you hanging out with other reporters?"
McCain acted horrified. "I was not unfaithful," he insisted.
Lest all this seem lovable, it pays to remember that Nancy Pelosi's daughter, of all people, made a documentary in 2000 about how charming and lovable George Bush was on his campaign plane, and we know how that turned out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)