This interview San Francisco CBS 5 did with Gavin Newsom is a classic example of how different local media is with local elected officials than national media is with federal officials. The reporter tears Newsom a new one (in a completely fair, calm way), Newsom throws a temper tantrum, and it’s pretty clear that the reporter is happy with the outcome (as he should be). Things would never happen this way at the national level.
It’s tempting to say that this only works because Newsom is a Democrat and punching hippies is always a best practice. But I’ve seen this kind of thing with local Republicans too.
In local politics, at least in the place I’ve lived, giving elected officials a hard time is seen a good thing. Presumably (I don’t know this for sure), there are professional incentives involved: higher ratings, the attention of outlets in bigger markets, etc.
Nationally, there is some incentive to harass Democrats about bullshit (how many women play basketball with Obama, etc.) and not much to harass about important things (the deal the Obama White House made with Big Pharma, Senators’ ties to the insurance industry, etc.). And there’s no incentive to harass national Republicans about anything besides trying to hook up in a men’s room.
The abuse Dan Rather took for trying to make Bush I answer basic questions in 1988 is a perfect example of the strong disincentive that exists for asking federal Republicans tough questions.
Face
Apparently Gavin Newsom is Matthew MaConaghey’s (sp?) stunt double.
Lisa K.
In fact, you get called traitorous and unpatriotic if you dare question them.
numbskull
Geeze, I dunno Dougie. This seems pretty weak tea to me. It’s not like the mayor went “hiking on the AT” and ended up in South America.
Looks to me like the mayor wanted to talk about the city’s deficit and the political editor of the local CBS affiliate wanted to talk about where the mayor has been for the last two weeks. A big yawn fest and not particularly interesting that both left the interview not real happy. Neither one of them impressed me.
So, overall, while I agree with your point about local versus national reporting, I don’t think this is example supports the argument in a very compelling manner. In fact, it more or less borders on actual “gotcha” journalism that Sarah(!) is always complaining about (but, sadly, rarely experiences).
Erik Vanderhoff
Man, Gavin Newsom is headed straight for some kind of spectacularly public implosion. Which is a shame, because he’s really quite good from a public policy standpoint. He coulda been a contender!
liberal
I would assume the main reason reporters don’t take on republicans at the national level is that the people who ultimately own their organizations don’t want them to, not because of any nasty public backlash.
chiggins
The reporter tears Newsom a new one (in a completely fair, calm way), Newsom throws a temper tantrum, and it’s pretty clear that the reporter is happy with the outcome (as he should be).
It’s funny you put it this way. I just watched it, and I saw the interviewer being an asshole and smiling about it, and watched Newsom do what elected officials are expected to do: smile and take it. He was even smiling and pleasant when he expressed his displeasure with the interview, which then got cast as a tantrum (by you too!).
It must just be me. When I watch broadcast journalists act like this and then watch their targets laugh and smile and treat them as if they were still buddies, I marvel at the patience it must take not to react naturally. I mean, if I had a neighbor that acted like that reporter whenever we met face to face, my end of our dialogs would pretty quickly narrow down into, “Go fuck yourself, Bob.”
Mark
Doug,
As a San Franciscan, I can say that Newsom hasn’t taken much flak until now, and we’re in year 6 of his “stewardship.”
Basically, Newsom was seen as a real lightweight – initially appointed to the Board of Supervisors by the previous Mayor, Willie Brown. He he snuck in to the mayorship – he was trailing in the polls (and lost the voting) on election day to a poorly-organized Green Party candidate but won on the strength of mail-in ballot.
He hasn’t done a damned thing for San Francisco, but he pushed his approval ratings through the roof by “legalizing” gay marriage on Valentine’s Day 2004.
He has skated on everything – his drinking problem and his neglect of his job as a result. His drug problem is off-limits for some reason. His affair with a staff member (who was also the wife of a close associate) is getting the John Ensign treatment. He appoints hacks he went to high school with to important city positions (like fire chief). And he always caves to police and fire on wage increases no matter what the impact is on the city budget.
A particularly egregious failure on his part was doing nothing to stop Macy’s from closing their head office here and cutting 1800 jobs. I mean, if you’re going to elect the President of the Chamber of Commerce to be the Mayor, he should at least have the skills to suck up to big business.
What few successes he has had have generally been from legislation drafted by the Board of Supervisors that he initially opposed and threatened to veto. Once it was clear he couldn’t veto, he turned them into his ideas.
Newsom’s failure was predictable. Some people in the press are finally finding their courage after six years of mismanagement.
joes527
@numbskull: But when the interview got to the deficit … he had nothing to say. He just repeated “big problem … we’re working on it” a couple of times. It sounded like he didn’t want to talk about THAT either.
The Moar You Know
Newsom is a total tool. There are some things I don’t miss about living in SF, namely, the insane local politics and the unbelievable number of homeless people.
But you’re right on about local reporters with local figures – heard a KNX reporter ask Los Angeles’ new police chief a question I never thought I’d hear a law enforcement official get asked in a million years. I’ll try to quote:
“In times when crime goes up, we are told we need more cops to deal with it. When crime goes down, we’re told we need more cops to make sure it stays that way. Will there ever be a time in Los Angeles when we have enough cops?”
The new chief did a masterful job of ducking the question, but I was stunned it was even asked. Here in the United States in the year 2009, questioning the prerogatives of law enforcement is just not done.
Little glimmer of hope for the future. I hope a lot more cops, policymakers and politicians start getting asked the same question.
Brachiator
Uh, no. Newsom was once considered to have a clear chance at becoming governor. But he strangely, unexpectedly, couldn’t seem to really expand his appeal beyond the city of San Francisco. For a lot of people, his brand began to decline precipitously when he was involved in the ugly little scandal that erupted because he was banging a close friend’s wife, a guy who also happened to be his campaign manager.
He also had an unwitting role in stoking the opposition to gay marriage in California with an obnoxious and snotty retort that was quickly used in political commercials:
Newsom’s political fall is paralleled by that of Los Angeles mayer Antonio Villaraigosa, also at one time considered to be a strong Democratic challenger for the governorship, also tainted by a scandal involving an affair, this time with a local news anchor who was … covering him.
In politics, it is considered more than fair to kick a politician when he’s on the way down.
JD Rhoades
You call THAT a temper tantrum?
Zifnab
Or the abuse Katie Couric took for asking Palin to finish a sentence. Also.
Nice to know they’ve lowered the bar so much in the last 20 years.
JD Rhoades
@Face:
I was thinking more Carcetti from The Wire.
Senyordave
“In times when crime goes up, we are told we need more cops to deal with it. When crime goes down, we’re told we need more cops to make sure it stays that way. Will there ever be a time in Los Angeles when we have enough cops?”
The Moar You Know,
Just like the GOP about tazes. When the economy is humming along, and there’s even a deficit, well that’s a good time for a tax cut so we can give more of the people’s money back to them (see Palin, Sarah re: $1,200 bribe check, year one of two as governor).
When the economy is bad we have to have a tax cut to stimulate it (see Palin, Sarah when asked by Baba Wawa how she would create jobs, Palin replied, you guessed it, … with tax cuts, of course).
MikeJ
KOMO-TV had Dave Reichart on for ten minutes Saturday morning talking about the health care bill in the middle of a newscast. No dems. Nobody from the senate. Just ten minutes of republican talking points because in Seattle it was just too much trouble for them to find a Democrat.
So I’ll come down on the side of, “it’s always a good idea to punch a hippie.” Local media can very easily be every bit as bad as the national.
MBunge
Most local reporters don’t hobnob with the people they cover to the extent that the Beltway media and politicans do. It’s also the case with local reporters that there’s always another and bigger job to chase after in another market, but once you make it into the Beltway media club, there’s no where to go professionally but down.
Mike
cmorenc
Here’s all you need to know about the MSM:
WOLF BLITZER is the alpha-host on CNN
David Gregory gets the prized “Meet the Press” slot.
Chris Wallace passes for “fairest and most balanced” on Fox.
Katie Couric’s interview with Palin is seen as an example of tough, inquisitive journalism at all rather than a rather bland set of predictable questions any competent pol at the national level could have at least successfuly obfuscated, even if not truly answered.
About the only bright spot is that MSNBC saw fit to give Rachael Maddow her own program, but only because MSNBC sees progressives as a key niche part of its market.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
Okay, overlooking the fact that we are talking about something that happened 21 years ago ….
So, Republicans got themselves a free pass from journalists. How is that working out for them now?
Once there basically stopped being journalism, and tv news turned into infotainment, the influence of the medium went away with it. Let’s say that we re-elect Obama in 2012. If we do, which seems reasonably likely, then from 1992 until 2016 we will have had 16 out of 24 years with a Dem president. So what has the GOP gained for itself, other than a strong electoral disadvantage, shrinking demographics, and a chaotic coalition of crazy blocs who mostly can’t stand each other?
Ash Can
OT (but still under the general heading of national media fuck-ups), in a move that strikes me as essentially the same as trying to extinguish the Great Chicago Fire by whizzing on the Dearborn Street sidewalk, the management of Fox News has proclaimed a zero-tolerance policy for on-screen errors. (h/t GOS)
The punchlines just write themselves, I tell ya.
Joel
Gavin Newsom looks like the third edition of Rick Pitino (John Calipari being the second edition).
Jon O.
@ThymeZoneThePlumber: The media has a diminishing influence on the public at large, but tht’s not where they’re doing the most damage. If the attention spent on the teabaggers had instead been spent on, say, the (larger) gay marriage rallies in DC, I imagine Blanche Lincoln wouldn’t be inveighing against the public option she endorses on her own website. Maybe there’d be actual pressure on Congress re: gay marriage. Either way, the biggest damage the media does, from where I see it, is all to the Overton Window. I mean, that’s really where single payer health care got branded as a crazy idea, and where Sarah-Palin-as-President was first presented as a sane idea.
Booger
Is it just me, or does this guy seem like a more-two dimensional and less plausible version of Tommy Carcetti?
Just sayin, is all…
DougJ
As a San Franciscan, I can say that Newsom hasn’t taken much flak until now, and we’re in year 6 of his “stewardship.”
Yes, the San Francisco media is particularly soft as local media goes. Even so, I think this is a lot tougher than any questioning George W. Bush ever got.
Joshua Norton
That whole “tempest” about him going to Hawaii was a bunch of crap. Out of sheer desperation to sound clever the press makes references to “the Appalachian Trail”. The royal reporters have their knickers in a knot because Gavin has stopped bowing down to them and they are getting just plain shrill. I think he should kick them in the nuts a few more times.
I’ll take Gavin over ex-mayor Willie Brown any day of the week.
DougJ
So, Republicans got themselves a free pass from journalists. How is that working out for them now?
Not well, I agree.
But I think that it has been bad for the country too. The fact it has destroyed the Republican party (by making them too lazy and reliant on media control) is the one bright spot in the story.
Notorious P.A.T.
No, Doug, the media is liberal. Li-ber-al. Got that?
kindness
Newson isn’t a DFH….he’s a DiFi DINO all the way.
Having said that, I like him…but he isn’t a liberal.
Incertus
@kindness: I was going to make the same point. Newsom would be liberal in much of the US, but in San Francisco, he’s not a hippie. He was Willie Brown’s hand-picked successor, and when he ran for Mayor the first time, the Clintons came in to close the deal for him, and they’re definitely not DFH’s. It’s really a matter of perception.
El Cid
The modern conservative movement is opposed to journalism.
That is, the things we classically think of as journalism, they view as a hostile ideology.
For the modern conservative movement, propaganda is “journalism”, and anyone actually doing journalism is The Enemy.
Zifnab
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
Are you fucking kidding me? It’s been working out fan-freak’n-tastic. Check any set of pol numbers. Ask one of your Republican friends all about the issues of the day. Take a gander at the current crop of legislation floating through Congress. Everything tilts conservative.
You think those Tea Party rioters just whipped up themselves? Do you think there’s a reason Doug Hoffman was able to knee cap Scozzafava and turn it into a relatively close race when he should have been laughed off the local stage with single digit vote counts in any other election?
I mean, holy shit. George W. Bush. TWICE!
The policies of the Republican Party have been abysmal. So abysmal, in fact, that they have been impossible to ignore, no matter how many white wash jobs and Dems=Hitler comparisons and other con games being played. The Republican Big Lies and little lies and fibs and myths and obfuscations are a living, breathing force in American common wisdom. I can go home and talk to my dear, sweet, moderately liberal pro-choice feminist mother and hear about how the Stupak amendment was a perfectly reasonable trade for health care legislation that’s been nothing but one “perfectly reasonable” trade-away after another.
The ONLY thing that’s keeping the modern conservative movement from finally collapsing under the weight of history is the staunch and enthusiastic support of the 4th estate.
geg6
This is bullshit. The local media (especially television) sucks balls just as badly as the national media, with a few pitiful exceptions. The newspapers suck because the lack of revenue and falling circulation has turned both local dailies (not counting the Trib, owned by on R. M. Scaife, which I won’t even peruse, let alone buy) into nothing but advertising. Try finding any local news coverage, let alone any sort of investigative or analysis journalism. The Beaver County Times and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette are nothing but sports coverage, advertising, and wingnut letters to the editor. We have three fucking dailies in this market and not a serious journalist to be found in any of them.
As for local tv news, I submit an example from this morning’s newscast on WTAE. There is one morning anchor there who is a well-known fReichwinger. His usual partner has been on maternity leave for several months. This morning we found out why she has been out longer than is typical. No, there wasn’t just an announcement about it. There is an entire series, narrated by the fReichwinger, about her problematic pregnancy with a child that was expected to die due to some condition before birth. And the series will focus on their “miracle baby” and how grateful they are that their faith led them to go to full-term and god awarded them because the baby is fine. It’s a two parter over two days about the Miracle Baby.
Fuck me.
Tom Ames
I agree that Newsom is a tool, but no more so (less, probably) than were Willie Brown or Diane Feinstein.
jl
This TV thing is not the first interview Newsom has done since his mini-occultation after dropping out of the governor’s race. The local CBS radio station had a recent long interview that started the same way, with almost exactly the same questions and same tone. But Newsom gave much more substance about the budget problems on the radio interview and was semi-responsive to questions on economic conditions and his programs.
Looks like our widdle Gavin had a widdle low key tantrum this time out, and basically ended the interview by stonewalling substantive questions.
I agree with commenter above that Gavin hasn’t done much substantively. I give him a little more credit than that commenter. He did put a lot of effort into SF’s serious murder problem in minority communities, and into his scheme for fixing the homelessness and panhandler problem. The murder effort would have made more progress if Newsom had paid some attention to the police department’s problems in investigating cases effectively, and its mediocre community relations.
Not sure this is the best example of local press holding officials to account. Newsom has been ineffective in fulfilling some of his big promises and there has not been much reporting on the reasons why they have not gone well.
I do think DougJ has a point. The CA media has been better at reporting on Arnold’s BS than the national media have done for either for Bush or Obama or Congress. Not much better, but a little. The CA media is only slightly better than the national in giving historical background and analysis of intractable problems, such as chronic CA budget deficit, which in my opinion means they are slightly better than worthless.
Also agree with commenter that coverage of Brown’s mayorship was pretty bad. Brown could charm and wow them, and out think them on his feet, so Brown was not challenged much, even in the face of the frequent charges of corruption (which I doubt were true -Brown has had the feds up his ass for most of his career, and nothing ever came of it. I think Slick Willie knew exactly where the line was, and was very careful to keep his corruption legal.
El Cid
Teabaggers show up and heckle a family who says their daughter and granddaughter died because of a lack of insured health care.
Yeah, the 2nd American Revolution, these people are. They’re truly speaking truth to power. How dare these people try and make a public issue of their private tragedy?
The real question is, what kind of kitchen counters do these Obama-ACORN death panel operatives have, and did Bill Ayers murder both these people to give a convenient story so as to Stalinize health care?
J.D. Rhoades
@Booger:
Is it just me, or does this guy seem like a more-two dimensional and less plausible version of Tommy Carcetti?
geg6
@El Cid:
From what I read about this, some Teabagger buddy of BoB’s has been emailing, tweeting, and telling reporters that Obama hired this family to go around to town hall meetings and whine and cry. I can’t remember who, but some reporter checked out the story and the Houghs are legit.
Gotta love those Xtian values of those Teabaggers.
oh really
I see this kind of thing more and more often in lefty blogs and I don’t know quite what to make of it. First, I didn’t see anything in the clip that led me to believe I was watching any kind of journalistic triumph. Before the interview I didn’t know the facts and I still don’t after watching this clip.
I wouldn’t characterize Newsom’s behavior as “a temper tantrum.” At least, nothing I saw constituted the loss of control and excessive display of emotion and anger that I usually think of as a tantrum.
What seemed to be missing was a reporter asking questions that elicit responses that result in a better informed public.
I am only peripherally aware of Newsom and have neither a negative nor a positive opinion of him in general. On the other hand, local news ceased to be worth watching years ago. I saw nothing in this clip that made me think I’d watch that local news if I lived in the SF area.
I’m surprised that anyone would watch this and think it represented anything approaching an ideal worth emulating.
kay
@El Cid:
I love how they’ve turned these town halls into opportunities for promoting themselves. Christ. Don’t get between a tea bagger and a camera.
Everyone else has to shut up so we can hear the stars of the show.
Imagine a tea bagger meeting. Everyone’s the “leader” and no one listens to anyone else.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Nope. I think you are full of shit.
The flaccid media follows, it does not lead, the crazy out there.
Your use of the teabag example is telling. The teabaggers are not really having much of an effect on anything. They didn’t invent the tax allergy, any more than Fox News did. Californication, the end result of a populist tax revolt, happened without even the existence of cable tv, or blogs, or even the Internet.
The media don’t create these things, and you have never gotten that, and you are never going to get it. We’ve been down that road before. We disagree.
The media, including the blog you are reading now, want you to believe that they have all this influence and power to move the country. They want you to believe that because if you don’t, then you have no reason to keep your eyeballs focussed on them. To keep your attention, they have to make themselves seem really important.
Thirty years ago, polls showed that the news media had lower credibility than your average used car salesman … literally. Nothing has changed since then, except that the credibility has probably gone down. The news media beat on the Clintons with clubs for eight years, and Clinton left office with high approval ratings.
You are confusing noise with influence, as you always do.
Joshua Norton
Yeah. As always, the doctors had nothing to do with it.
Alien-Radio
@geg6:
I believe this is the original story.
http://www.southtownstar.com/news/mcqueary/1895502,112209mcqueary.article
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Nope, you are dead wrong about that. That movement rose totally without that support, and collapsed under Bush with that support. It will not rise again because of the support.
As a good example of how this works, look at the dynamics of the recent presidential campaign. The media had a contest between Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton all set to go, pimped it and documented it and treated it as fact. Knee jerk conservatism versus the Hated Bitch. Conventional Wisdom on a platter.
How did that turn out? Events move at their own pace and in their own direction. FOX News doesn’t run the country, despite the best efforts of DougJ to convince you otherwise.
Brachiator
@geg6:
Does the anchor belong to, and get health insurance through, a union?
geg6
@Brachiator:
Actually, it’s two anchors. The well-known fReichwinger and his morning show partner, who has now apparently become a full-blown Sarah Palin-level saint.
And, yes, of course they have union negotiated health care. But they deserve it. Because they have been blessed by Gawd and because they are the Pittsburgh equivalent of the Village.
El Cid
@geg6: They’ll show up and yell at someone who had a daughter and grand-daughter die, but, Oh My God, Sarah Palin has suffered more than any person on this planet EVAR because some people aksed her some kweschins about Saint Baby Trig.
kay
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
Well, I don’t know about “movements” but they have certainly promoted various right wing myths simply by accepting them and repeating them without question.
A majority of people in this country believe that family farmers are regularly foreclosed on due to estate tax liens.
That isn’t true. It was never true. The lie was promoted by a group of wealthy individuals deliberately and carefully, like an ad campaign.
And it was repeated verbatim by media. For years. It’s a lie that will never, ever die, and media did that.
Martin
Heh. Subtle touch by the GOP. Their purity test, which members need to meet at least 8 out of 10 of, have 3 items tied to the health care bill. Items 1,2,9 would block any RNC dollars to candidates that voted for HCR.
Martin
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
Actually, you’re both right and wrong. Yes, the teabaggers would be fat and happy even without the media, but they wouldn’t have been in NY-23 without the media.
The media don’t make the teabaggers, but they make the teabaggers portable – and people are pushing back against the local incursion of attitudes that don’t exist locally.
Right, wrong? Doesn’t matter – it is what it is.
Will
I know Robert Stacy McCain is an ignoramus. I always suspected he was a willful ignoramus. But until today, I have never seen him admit that he is a willful ignoramus:
http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/2009/11/is-obamacare-done-deal.html
I have to give him props. That is a lot of stupidity to own up to.
Chuck Butcher
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
Oh Bullshit, the media didn’t invent tax aversion or small government fixation, but the teaparties couldn’t have happened without it, the widespread lies and distortion couldn’t have made it, and the war driven hole in the budget couldn’t have happened without their complicity.
No, the fucking media does not drive demographics nor does it stop failures from happening. It does enable rage and hate enhancement by uncritical repetition of flat untruths.
Political advertising is supposed to cost actual money. You don’t think advertising is purchased out of a desire to support your local media – do you?
Mako
You people watch far too much television.
There are other drugs that are better for you.
I, for instance, am just taking a couple of bonghits and trying to figure out who exactly is the “Lou Dobbs” everyone is so excited about. Seems he’s a wannabee elder newscaster in the Huntley/Brinkley mode but without the gravitas.
The whole blaming the media because stupid people get biased information is silly. It has always been thus.
Snail Darter
The Conservative Movement was largely created in RW think tanks during a long period of being out of power, at least in the Peoples House of Reps/ About 40 years or so. Some plausible ideas mixed in with mythology about the left, some tangy Orwellian doublespeak, and a whole lot of flim flam salemanship.
It reached paydirt in 1994, though thwarted somewhat by a dem president, but not all that much. Then went full throttle in 2002, and was plugged into the governing apparatus and given steroids by OBL. The rest is history, And the flimsy reed of conservative ideology as a governing ideology went belly up and almost took the country with it, economically and morally. largely by being inflexible to dealing with real life problems of the governed, but mostly by the hucksters, mostly southern ideologues, who implemented it and were only really interested in seizing power and keeping it no matter what.
But this is not why it’s dead in present form, as even a fallen grifter can make a comeback, if they are persistent enough. It is dead because of the devil deal with the gawdbotherers and southern rabble rousers, not at all interested in finery of well scrubbed intellectual conservative principles. One wants baby jeevus to run the courts and the other just wants to scream and kick ass. Not a recipe for winning national elections, at least if and until the social fabric of America comes a lot more undone.
Or until another Reagan walks the earth.
jeffreyw
Starting to get hungry. Anyone else thinkin a snack would be nice right about now?
Mako
@jeffreyw:
Cold left over spaghetti for me. mmm, homemade meatballs…
Whoa, is that a half tub of old ben and jerry’s I spy?
jeffreyw
@Mako: Mmmm…leftover spaghetti is a fave of mine.
geg6
@jeffreyw:
Popping into Panera on my way home. I’m dying for some broccoli cheese soup and crusty bread.
Fern
I do not believe that the quality of reporting outside of DC is so much better.
I live in a not-so-big prairie city (700,000 ish) and can tell you that in this town everyone knows everyone and we do not get much in the way of solid journalism.
gwangung
@Fern: Because good journalism is hard. Because breaking one good story often means losing access. Because loosing access means filler stories in between good stories (i.e., journalism by press release) becomes harder, if not difficult. And the model means filling the news hole on a regular basis….
There are problems with journalism that go beyond laziness (being able to finesse angry subjects while doing good journalism is not a common skill).
john b
well to answer part of your question:
local television stations are typically funded primarily by ads from local companies like car dealerships.
national news is primarily funded by ads from pharmaceutical companies and other large multi-nationals.
Sentient Puddle
OT, but here’s something that might give you guys a chuckle: The RNC is considering implementation of a purity test. Ten principles, and if you disagree with three or more, you lose your funding.
And then there’s the name of it: Resolution on Reagan’s Unity Principle for Support of Candidates.
Curiously, Reagan arguably would fail the litmus test.
freelancer
Tabbi summed this up perfectly earlier:
jeffreyw
@geg6: Mmmm…broccoli cheese soup sounds delish. Waiting for Mrs J to get back from a meeting before I start on the Chicken Marsala, ready to go with it, I have some wild/long grain rice done, and the broccoli and carrots are waiting for the steam.
Lunch was good, but I’m ready for dinner now…tap tap..waiting for the missus.
kay
What individual reporters do or don’t do isn’t they right question.
It’s what editors and management decide to focus on.
Can anyone here really dispute that the tea parties got far more press (especially in terms of relative number of participants) than the protests prior to the invasion of Iraq did?
Why is that? That was a deliberate decision, and someone made it.
This isn’t arbitrary or accidental.
2 solid weeks of tea party town hall coverage, like 2 solid weeks of Palin coverage, are the result of a decision.
Sean
@Erik Vanderhoff:
I liked him better when he was drinking. As a silly, drunk playboy he can be quite charming. He’d make a good supporting character in an American remake of a British screwball comedy film.
-S
Brachiator
@Sentient Puddle:
Will they sacrifice non-virgins who fail the purity test?
WereBear
@El Cid: Well, this double tragedy has to be an Obama/Acorn/leftie plot, because if it were true, that would be horrible, and Obamacare would be a good thing.
And that’s unpossible.
freelancer
@Sentient Puddle:
Wow, I’m kind of wonky on energy policy, and I have no clue what “Market-based energy reforms” even look like.
That is meaningless, and the 4th principle is just nonsense. EFCA gives labor the Option of card check as opposed to just secret ballot. Somebody needs to email wingers a dictionary definition of the word “option”.
smiley
Damn, Tweety just did a number of the Bishop who is denying Patrick Kennedy communion. Brought up the render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s line and questioned him relentlessly a about whether it’s appropriate for a Catholic Bishop to try to manipulate politicians in a secular society. Good for him.
Violet
@Sentient Puddle:
That’s awesome! Pretty soon they’ll be wearing heavy coats and hats and standing in the cold to review soldiers and tanks on parade. Just one step away from the Soviets.
MikeJ
@freelancer: Not to mention the “Obama style government run health care”.
Nothing in this is meant to be any sort of statement of principles. It’s just more lies and smears form the right.
smiley
@smiley:
Since it’s part of the lexicon now: MORE EDIT PLEEZE.
(My dissertation adviser and I both proofread all 268 pages of my dissertation [a lot were graphs and facing pages – don’t ask, John, unless you already know] 5 or 6 times. The dissertation committee still found several, maybe many, errors. Proofreading is hard.
freelancer
@smiley:
This sounds like a job for Caribou Barbie!
“What’s a disserkashun?”
Comrade Puppet
Agree with all the above that Newsom is a tool, but so were Jordan and Willie Brown and Feinstein. It almost looks like you have to go back to Moscone to find a decent mayor.
However, there are some non-crap local politicians. Saw Tom Ammaniano, now in the State Assembly, in Mission Safeway yesterday. He’s not Mayor material, but he is someone I trust.
MNPundit
Newsom is a grade-A asshole.
So let’s just call it fair and move on.
jl
@freelancer: thanks for Taibbi post. The haiku at the end about sums it up. Which brings us back to the Newsom interview in the post.
The CBS TV news dude was at least the the third local media outlet to try to do an almost identical interview.
Like I said, the questions and tone were same as in previous interviews, so others had paved the way for taking on a local pol, one who is on the way out, not all that popular, and given CA’s term limits, one who will be scrambling for a position in state government, or soon will be out of politics.
It was not pathbreaking journalism, but it being TV, they tried to make a big splash as being incisive and brave, even though it was a ‘been there done that’ approach for this particular local situation.
Newsom didn’t handle it will. Brown, or a few other CA politicians, would have eaten the guy’s lunch in an entertaining way, one way or the other. I guess that is the difference between people with and without real talent at politics.
lol
@61: I agree with all that, but he misses one crucial point: Kucinich and Paul didn’t have much in the way of supporters either. The Media has the negative effect denoted but campaigns typically bear much much more of the blame in the end.
Because while the Media didn’t hesitate to bury Dean, he did dig the grave himself beforehand (3rd place in Iowa) and jump down into it. His campaign was a total clusterfuck from start to finish and no one in the press had anything to do with that.
Gore is a much better example of the media kneecapping a candidate.
geg6
I kinda like Gavin Newsome, by the by. But I don’t live in CA, let alone SF. But I kinda like his attitude and bad boy image. At least he’s not some fake ass pervert crook like so many other pols. But that’s more personal than political. What others find assholish, I sometimes find charming. Not always but sometimes.
cmorenc
Counterintuitively, the type of person who has the stones to form objective judgments about things and stand firm against groupthink pressure – is – someone who regularly also referees some sort of vigorously contested sport. Soccer and basketball would be the best examples, cause there’s only a tiny handful (three to be exact) refs working the game amid a much larger crowd of players and passionate fans.
Of course, on top of that firm judgmental foundation, they’d need some of the other requisites of good journalism, such as investigative curiosity and a hard-work ethic. But as someone who regularly referees soccer at competitive levels of play, I understand how to maintain my objective judgment of situations and insistently stand up against crowd pressure, coach pressure, or anyone who disapproves of my line of thinking about events during the game. However, I have no desire to be a journalist myself, but it’s likely folks similar to myself could be found who do.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@Chuck Butcher:
Sorry, no sale, Chuck. Political advertising is not the media, or vice versa. You are talking apples and oranges, in a discussion of melons and kiwi.
The MSM does not drive political energy in this country. It follows, and has done so since the advent of cable tv and the invention of infortainment. It goes where the ratings are, and preaches to its choir to get ratings and ad dollars. It does not win hearts and minds or convince people to change their views.
The conservative movement didn’t come out of the MSM. It was born when MSM was largely liberal in slant, that’s where the chant of “liberal media” came from. It was born out of a revulsion to MSM, not a following of it. If you weren’t as old as me I’d accuse you of being too young to remember that, but you are as old as me, so I don’t have an explanation why you don’t remember it. But that’s the way it was.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@Snail Darter:
No, that’s not where the movement came from. That’s just where the conservative elites fashioned their own look and feel.
The actual energy came from the anti-communist energy of the late 40’s and early 50’s, then stirred in the anti-civil rights sentiments of the 60’s, followed by the faux-patriot sentiments of the later sixties and early 70’s. It came from political strategizing done by Barry Goldwater and his handlers, from the faux intellectual energy of Buckley, and then the political acting of Ronald Reagan. At no point in this process was the media with them or shilling for them. The media crapped on the right wing right up until the day when it became profitable to start catering to the right wing. But it wasn’t about growing the wing. How do you grow a base that thinks the earth is 6000 years old, or that the Rapture is the next big news event waiting in the wings? That base can’t grow, it depends on willful ignorance and superstition.
The shill media came along much later, when media types figured out that there was an audience out there that wanted rightwing media, and gave it to them. They have been preaching to a ready-made choir since day one. It’s that durable righty base, that 25-28% or whatever slice you think it is, that has always been there and will always be there.
Snail Darter
You are talking about the seeds of the movement coming from people like Goldwater and Buckley and other conservative writers and thinkers of the fifties and sixties. The actual movement, or institutions to organize and mobilize and create it’s language began with the thinktanks with other orgs joining in along the way, ie “Moral Majority” etc…And Reagan did take it to the next level with his personality and acting skills, meager as they were.
I wasn’t talking about media influence and agree that it didn’t become partisan cheerleaders and enablers until the nineties really, and with the advent of Fox News and talk radio/ I never have thought the media, and still don’t, changes many minds on how to vote or align. Fox and talkers preach to the choir, and others just keep the horses from both sides well fed for their own reasons promoting drama and viewers to watch the race.
comet mercury
“So what has the GOP gained for itself, other than a strong electoral disadvantage, shrinking demographics, and a chaotic coalition of crazy blocs who mostly can’t stand each other?”
They’ve also, thanks to our media establishment, created a citizenry that can’t tell the difference between Sarah Palin and what’s good for this country. The GOP has worked the “liberal media” and the “government can’t work” scams for so long and so successfully that otherwise reasonable people (1) know less about politics and government than they do about Brad Pitt’s children or how to run a professional baseball team and (2) have come to celebrate stupidity as a high political virtue (and the two groups are not identical). This is the win-win for the Republicans, even as they lose-lose on the issues you note above. In order for those issues to mean what you and I want them to mean, and to have the appropriate impact, we would have to be dealing with a “rational” polity, as the Founders considered it, and I think it’s obvious we are not.
Which is partly why we’ve always hated Nixon.
Brian J
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
Even after everything you describe happening, the debate is still largely being fought on their terms. That’s not always a bad thing, but you’d think that after some fairly strong electoral successes, the Democrats would get some traction. Not so much, apparently.
Hob
@geg6: Cool. So, could you take Newsom to wherever you are, and have him be mayor there instead of here?
If I had a dollar for every non-San Franciscan telling us we should appreciate Gavin more, because of his personality or what they vaguely imagine his policies are, I would have a lot of really annoying dollars. It’s not about lefties having unreasonable standards, it’s about wanting to have a fucking competent mayor. The guy is not stupid, but for whatever reason — probably a combination of being a rich pretty boy who had lots of people telling him how awesome he was until he actually got into office, and being a serious alcoholic — he’s shown almost no interest in governing, certainly not if it involves having to negotiate anything with anyone or follow through on anything difficult. He got elected thanks to a truly disgusting PR campaign by business associations, basically promising to get rid of all those unsightly poor & crazy people one way or another. In his first term, he was misguided and a terrible manager, but energetic; since his re-election he’s pretty much totally checked out of the job, except when there was an opportunity to promote his hopeless gubernatorial campaign or to throw spitballs at the Supervisors. And the amount of corruption and cronyism may not be up to Willie Brown’s level (although I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot more dirt comes to light later, since Newsom’s been pretty good at making his administration as non-transparent as possible), but it makes a sad joke of his promises of reform, and it’s inexcusable when times are so hard for so many.
I may be a little extra bitter because I worked in the Health Department, where Newsom’s combination of benign neglect, reckless mismanagement, and Gingrichesque “new ideas” (e.g. throw people off welfare and offer them vouchers for things that aren’t fucking available, while shutting down shelters and rehab programs and AIDS services), directly contributed to a lot of people living much more unpleasant and shorter lives than they could have. This city has serious problems and although Newsom probably gives a shit on some level, he sure isn’t helping. He has nothing to offer California or the Democratic Party. He should quit right now this very minute, go get his life together and let the grownups take charge, if there are some.
What I mean to say is, don’t get me started…
licensed to kill time
need my reply arrow every day, hey hey hey
ah ev-er-y day
john bobson
That bit in the last 30 seconds about their disregard for “on the record” is like some kind of alternate-universe media wetdream. If Glenn Greenwald writes fanfiction I bet this is how he has all his reporters acting.