Hang Right Politics

Posted by Big Mo on November 9th, 2007 in Random, Tony Snow, The Fourth Estate

One. Tom Brokaw made some interesting thoughts in a Q&A on Time.com this week. I found this one the most interesting:

Do you think it’s a problem that fewer Americans now get their news from traditional sources? —Max Jacobson, New Haven, Conn.

We’re better off. We have so many more choices. What happens is, of course, that the squeaky wheel continues to get attention. I have a little tool at my house—you should get one—it’s called the remote control. You can go from those channels that are showing too much of Anna Nicole Smith to, say, BBC News.

“We’re better off.” Fascinating. Perhaps I was mentally stereotyping Brokaw as just another Big Media clone, which is, of course, bad on me. So, it is refreshing for someone of his admitted stature to say that. Usually, Big Media types sneer at the other “non-traditional” choices.

He’s right, of course, about the remote control—although you’d never find me switching over to the BBC. The Beeb leans so far to the left their shoulders touch their knees.

Two. The Media Institute is a nonprofit research foundation specializing in communications policy issues founded in 1979. At its annual banquet last month, the Institute awarded Tony Snow its prestigious Freedom of Speech award. Some excerpts via Ace of Spades via Newsbusters:

The First Amendment, as others have noted, serves as the foundation for the enterprise, and supports reporters in their quest for truth—or at least for serviceable facts that in time might lead them toward some reasonable facsimile of truth.

We also hear that the First Amendment is under siege. I think that’s true. I don’t believe anyone here would disagree with the proposition that the quality of public discourse isn’t what it once was or that it presently achieves levels of excellence and depth that it desperately needs to reach.

Yet, while it may be tempting to blame the usual suspects—the government, interest groups, angry factionalists—those forces frequently have always tried to restrict the free flow of ideas, and they always have failed.

They’re not the culprits here. Instead, there’s a new and unexpected menace on the block: The media.

Political rhetoric has turned nasty, childish, and very personal, especially on Capitol Hill, and Americans are sick of it. Hotheads seem to be enjoying a false spring of fame. And members of the mainstream press are scratching their heads and asking, “What’s going on here?” Why are the nation’s newspapers hemorrhaging readers? Why are the television networks losing viewers? Why has cable news suddenly hit still water? What is going on? Don’t Americans care about the news?

Well, of course they do: The problem is, they don’t think they’re getting news—and they’re right.

[…]

And what about conventional wisdom? For months, the media avoided asking about progress in Iraq. Despite repeated reports from the field that Iraqis had turned against al Qaeda, the news seldom made it into newspapers, and almost never on front pages. Last week, the military reported that civilian deaths in Iraq had hit their lowest point since 2003. U.S. and Iraqi deaths and casualties similarly had declined. So what led the paper the next morning? Stories about Blackwater. The statistics that put the war in perspective were relegated to the back pages of the Washington Post and in some publications, to oblivion.

A vigorous press must be one in which reporters challenge their own sympathies and assumptions as aggressively as they challenge the sympathies and assumptions of others. Unfortunately, that too seldom happens, with the consequence that opinion-mongering has driven out straight news.

He’s absolutely right throughout this entire speech. When conservatives and Republicans—and even some sober lefties—complain about the media, it’s not mere belly-aching. Big Media has become wholly disfunctional, one-sided and largely useless as it is presented.

Read the entire speech here. (The speech is a PDF, so it may take some time to load.)

Three. At first, these seemed like very welcome words from the CEO of AP, telling other news execs to “stop pining” for the old days:

“The first thing that has to go is the attitude,” [CEO Tom] Curley said. “Our institutional arrogance has done more to harm us than any portal.”

But then, as Jules Crittenden explains, he wasn’t talking about news coverage, but online vs. print, etc.

You know, you’re only half right, sir. You do need to let go of the past because many of you made a critical mistake when you believed you were newsPAPERmen and not journalists. But your arrogance concerning coverage and your institutional bias (see above) is also destroying you as an industry.

The “alternative” new media of talk radio and the Internet arose for two reasons: first, Big Media was—and still is—stuck in the past; and two, Big Media has lost much, if not most, of its credibility. (There’s still some left, just very little in terms of war and politics.)

Four. A bit of praise, though, for the press. This comes via Howard Kurtz, who wrote a wonderful turn of phrase concerning the fallout of St. Hillary’s recent debate performance.

I always wondered what it would look like when a woman was a serious White House candidate, and now we’re finding out.

There are advantages, of course, to being a female politician. Male candidates say it is difficult to attack a woman without arousing sympathy for her. And Hillary is drawing considerable support from the sisterhood.

But it can be harder for a woman — especially a potential commander in chief — to project toughness without being seen as harsh and shrill.

And at the moment the press seems to have put the New York senator in something of a box: If she complains about rough treatment, she’s acting like a whiny daughter who’s had her Barbie taken away. (emphasis added)

Beautiful.

Five. So, Rosie O’Donnell won’t be getting a show on MSNBC after all. Maybe there is some sanity left at that network. Maybe they decided that having two raving lunatics was enough. Maybe they realized that … well, I won’t say any more. There’s no need. If I never hear from her again or see her face or hear incredibly, mind-numbingly stupid nonsense such as fire doesn’t melt steel, I’ll be content.

Bonus. Some funnies:

This last one is so frightening, it’s below the fold. For the sake of the children, you see.