A story published in the Worcester Telegram this week encapsulated a disturbing trend - one that Dan touched on in his commentary on the right wing driving the agenda of conventional media. In...
Bad advice from bad "journalists"
posted by Jon Keller on July 20, 2010
The Daily Caller has a post today exposing how writers for publications including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, and the Baltimore Sun "took radical steps" in 2008 to protect then-candidate Barack Obama from the growing scandal over statements by his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Watching the whistle get blown on a bunch of lefty partisans masquerading as "journalists," one wonders the following about any group of media types - editorialists or not, of the left or the right - who would engage in a group effort to inoculate a political candidate from legitimate scrutiny and plot to defame fellow "journalists" along the way.
Are they insane? How do they manage to have so much time on their hands? And do they realize how foolish they look in light of the fact that Obama's effective handling of those oh-so-reprehensible questions about the Jeremiah Wright affair may have been his single most important instance of vetting with voters en route to the presidency?
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Re last Friday's beat the press: Some of us who watch you religiiously are
independants. Your scrutiny of FOX news was so biased and uninformed, that no one on the show had the right to be commenting at all. You took a snippit of Meagan Kelly and blew it up into the total picture of a very informed and capable lawyer/commentator. In fact her coverage is much more balanced than the show I watched on Friday [btp]. In addition, had anyone done their research, you would have known that the Washington Post, among other liberal leading newspapers, had apologised to their readership for over looking the New Black Panther story, a story that emerged because of the resignation of a career DOJ lawyer over Holders stated policy of not persuing this case and others because of the color of the investigatees' skin. Fox presented the story but did not make it up. Dan's "it's insignificant anyway" comment was the height of elitist narrowness. Noone mentioned Greta Van Susterin, but she may in fact be the best news anchor, reporter, journalist on the networks. My husband and I were insulted by your patronizing views re another network. You are serving "Greater Boston"........inclusive of liberals, conservatives and independants. We help support you and keep you on the air, please be more connsiderate and PLEASE try to find someone to balance out the present group's mob mentality, maybe they could replace Dan. Thanks for your ear and know this is meant as constructive criticism.
Jonathan Chait comments in the New Republic:
"The story revolves around two email threads. I've reviewed them both, and it utterly belies the wild account in the Daily Caller [...]
"A couple points pertain. First, the Daily Caller notes, "Journolist members signed the statement and released it April 18." This is literally true but probably gives readers the impression that all of Journolist signed the letter. In fact, 41 people signed the letter, out of 400 people on Journolist. [...]
"Second, the letter was hardly an example of secret message coordination. It resulted in an open letter. Everybody who agreed with the sentiment signed their name to it and published it. It was a completely transparent action."
Read his whole reaction here.
@Christine: Maybe you misplaced your comment. Why not join the discussions about the NBPP issue already in progress on other comment threads? Over here, for instance.
Hopefully, Jon has been following what Klein, Weigel, and others are saying about what the execrable Tucker Carlson left out, while cherry picking only those pieces that make them look bad.
And after the last 24 hours, when we've seen just what effect cherry picking only those portions of things that make people look bad can have, hopefully Jon will wait until ALL the facts are in before passing judgment in the future.
Agree with the larger point that "the list" was a very, very bad idea in retrospect.
Relax. I didn't think Jon Keller could top himself with the breaking news that Deval Patrick isn't as nice in private as he is in public (apparently he only won because he smiles a lot), but he did.
Jeremiah Wright was nevevr a big issue for voters. Poll after poll showed this. Rush Limbaugh was more unpopular with the public then Jeremiah Wright or William Ayres. People who cared about it weren't going to vote for Barack Obama. John McCain lost because he didn't have a clue what to do about the economy and his running mate undercut his whole case of "experience versus celebrity" that he had been making up to that point.
As to "The Daily Carlson" story, it's bunk. A secret plot to write an open letter? Especially since it was the idea of professor who sometimes writes op-eds for the Baltimore Sun, it must be a vast left wing plot? Plus it names a bunch of media outlets, but doesn't actually show the emails from those journalists. Politico toke "The Daily Carlson" to task for it. Plus if you read either Spencer Ackerman or Chris Hayes, they were making the same points in public.
And even if you grant Jon Keller's point that Jeremiah Wright helped Barack Obama's campaign, is it really a crime to think in March 2008 that it wouldn't? It's an opinion. Crime of crimes that they have them.
"The Daily Carlson" is wasting our time. Why wait on these emails or just print parts that fit into a narrative or perhaps,
Heck, cover news that people who doesn't care about the right-wing's view on journalism ethics (right is good) would care about? "The Daily Carlson" wants to be the right's Huffingtonpost.com, but this ignores that unlike the world cable news bookers (expect FOX News which either only books right-wingers or a lefty with a ring-winger), the people who use the Internet aka the young folks are not a 50%-50% split idealogically. They approve the Obama administration, the vote Democratic and have much more liberal politics then the general public. Yes, yes, we all know that right-wing undergrad, but he/she isn't the norm. Yes, yes, young people are always more liberal while they're young, but even by that vague standard, the young people today are more left leaning then young people of 3 decades ago (the Yuppies who all wanted the Wall Street dream and voted for Reagan).
Sorry, I'm just ranting now.
There's a *very* interesting contrast between the two comment threads, here and over at Keller's place.