James Fallows responds here to Chuck Todd’s claim that Fallows and other Asia-based journalists should stop whining about NBC’s shitty coverage of the president’s Asia trip. Fallows shows altogether too much tact and restraint for my tastes, but it’s worth reading.
When Glenn Beck complains that the press didn’t pay enough attention to a video of college students dressed up as pimps and hos, the Washington Post and New York Times performed acts of contrition and assigned reporter to keep track of whatever Beck was saying in the future. When an acclaimed journalist (and one even working for an Official Publication in this case) criticizes coverage of meetings between the United States and the most populous nation on earth, that is politically-motivated whining that should be mocked and ignored.
That’s where we’re at as a country right now.
Kryptik
But Glenn Beck speaks to real Americans! Who does Fallows speak to? Some hoity-toity JOURNALISTS?!
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Well, sure, if we label media outlets as “the country” then it makes sense to obsess over them and act as if they are somehow running the country.
On the other hand, if we just treat them as a sideshow, then the obsessing over them is just a sideshow over a sideshow.
Demonizing and fearmongering only work if you really pump up the demons. Put big shaggy animal head costumes on them and stuff like that.
It’s all in the presentation, as they say.
Napoleon
On the downside this will make it that much tougher to not renew the Atlantic next August, just like the last 2 Augusts where my love of Fallows caused me to renew.
Corner Stone
You fixed the s on “thats” but you still need a “we’re” in the last sentence.
Not to be nitpicky or anything.
Royce
“That’s where at as a country right now.”
We’ve been here for a while, DougJ. The only difference is more people noticing. Which is a good thing of course, if it makes a difference.
But it ain’t new.
DougJ
you still need a “we’re” in the last sentence.
Thanks. I fixed it.
Corner Stone
@DougJ: I normally don’t say anything about speeling or grammar since I think that’s lame and we’re all in these tubes together, but since I saw you fixed the “s” it looked like you care so thought I’d mention.
Col. Klink
Was it really any worse than NBC’s Olympics coverage? Could anything be worse than NBC’s Olympics coverage? Let’s run a sob story about an American athlete who placed 5th with a John Tesh voice over to find out.
Dave C
OT: Here’s some glibertarian nonsense that’s worth a laugh: Michael Levin defends Scrooge.
bago
@AngusTheGodOfMeat: 4tehlulz is going to go straight up furry on a straight line like that.
Kryptik
@Dave C:
Bring back the workhouses and the child jails!!
Karen S.
For the most part, I’ve stopped watching network and cable TV news. I remember how excited I was back in the ’80s when CNN first launched. I’m a news junkie from a family of news junkies. I also used to be a regular NPR listener. I can barely tolerate NPR anymore. My dad has yet to wean himself from TV news and NPR (and its Chicago affiliate WBEZ). I love seeing him, but he almost always has the TV or radio tuned to some news program or other and since he’s hard of hearing now, the volume is turned up pretty high, so it’s pretty much an aural and visual assault as soon as I cross the threshold.
PaulW
This isn’t where our country is: this is where our professional media is. Self-serving circle-jerk Villagers who act and speak like A) they speak for all Americans when in fact they only speak for their shrinking circle of friends, and B) they’re experts on every topic across the board when in fact they’re mostly college (and high school) dropouts who slept through Economics 101 and can’t understand how anyone not making six-figure salaries like they are are having problems balancing checkbooks.
Don’t imply that the media blowhards are indicative of where our nation is. We’re only watching them because they’re the only damn game on the channels.
Dave C
@Kryptik:
Yeah, no kidding. If I hadn’t looked up the author, I would have thought this was a parody of libertarians. It’s that ridiculous.
Jim
I am consistently surprised at the apparently sincere respect some intelligent people have for Chris Matthews. I know he has brief moments of lucidity, and as I recall his old print column was cogent and sometimes insightful, but he’s such screeching, histrionic buffoon, almost two-thirds of a full Beck. I am glad Fallows name-checked him though. You just know Tweety reads everything written about him.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
No.
Thus endeth today’s episode of One Word Answers To Questions.
One winter I worked in Italy, I got to watch the Olympics in Norway on Eurovision. Coming home to watch ‘Murkin teevee coverage of the Olympics is like imagining Glenn Beck screwing Orly Taitz. Only more painful.
Mary Jane Leach
It occurred to me today that one of the problems with the national press is that unlike the politicians they’re covering, they don’t live anywhere else, which reinforces their insularity, making them even more out of touch than the politicians they cover.
blahblahblah
PaulW
Cancel cable. You’re giving them money to lie to you. How stupid is that? I put up an antenna, but rarely turn the big screen TV on for anything but a DVD. I won’t watch television news. I won’t give money to PBS’s News Hour any longer.
However, I will pay for a subscription to the Economist. I will read English version of Der Spiegel. I will – occasionally – read the New York Times. But, honestly, I did cancel my subscriptions to the NY Times and the Washington Post over the last ten years. Because they stopped selling NEWS. I won’t pay money to be lied to any longer. F*ck them. -M
Kryptik
@Dave C:
That’s the saddest part of where we are now. Stuff that would be outright parody a couple of decades ago are touted as the height of economic ethics and innovation, and ‘sane, principled governance’. Which leads into…
@PaulW:
This. Our media essentially caters to the DC Political bubble, where the ‘Real Americans’ who help people understand what the country really wants are the people Dean Broder talks to over Sunday Brunch, and where Bipartisanship means Cater to the Republicans or there will be hell to pay.
Kryptik
@blahblahblah:
Broadcast news isn’t much better at times.
And the Sunday Shows already HAVE lifetime seats for the Cheneys, McCain, and Lieberman it seems.
Taylor
You should remind your readers that there’s a reason that Fallows is exiled to China. He is persona non grata among US media whores after writing a damning book about the corruption of the profession back in the 90s.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
NYT saw something like a 7% drop over last year in a recent tally.
I think this is more indicative of something relevant to the country than handwringing over a tempest in a teapot like the Chuck Todd kerfuffle.
If you ask me, and I’m glad you did, the country is sending a message to newspapers that whatever the newspapers are doing is less and less relevant to peoples’ real lives. And what the media in general are doing are focussing more and more attention on less and less. More Palin, more Chuck Todd, more nonsense, and little in the way of useful or essential information that impacts peoples’ lives in some meaningful way. For example, nothing useful about the healthcare debate other than regurgitation of the same churn you can get on cable tv or the blogs. Nothing useful about foreign policy other than churn-mongering talking points. Nothing useful about the economy other than coverage of phony tea parties.
If you designed a country that needed to learn to govern itself by having citizens vote in favor of their own best interests on a consistent basis, wouldn’t you want to see a decline in attention paid to sideshow and circus bullshit that has no bearing on anything useful?
Well, there it is, the decline. I take it as a positive indicator.
Randy P
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
As I approach curmudgeon-hood (whaddaya mean, “approach”?) I find that I have no problem being grumpy about stuff that first made me grumpy 10-20 years ago. So for me the epitome of awful Olympic coverage is a moment in women’s gymnastics that was at this point probably at least 3 or 4 olympics ago. It was during Women’s gymnastics, probably the All-Around. We were forced to watch some American after her routine was over, putting on her socks or something for about 2 minutes while the commentators nattered about some complete nonsense. We finally went back to watching the competition to hear the commentators on the floor say “Wow, that was an amazing vault from the Russian…”.
A vault which, needless to say, we never saw.
Also, Greg Louganis isn’t competing anymore so we’ll never see diving on TV again.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@bago:
I take that as pure win, then!
blahblahblah
Kryptik
I do not promote broadcast television news as an alternative to to the cable liars. They’re all liars. I promote READING as an alternative. It’s much harder to lie to people in print, because it’s much easier to remember and reference a lie in print.
Col. Klink
If John Waters or David Lynch directed the sequence I confess I’d be tempted to watch. (And it would still beat the Hell out of the Olympics on NBC.) Unless John Tesh and Mary Hart did the voice over of course.
Karen S.
@Randy P (23)
Hey, remember the Beijing Olympics in 2008 when it seemed like Michael Phelps was the only swimmer or practically the only participant? It sure seemed like that, given NBC’s coverage. I used to love watching the Olympics because I enjoyed seeing the various events, especially the ones you rarely saw except in Olympic years. But the summer Olympics on NBC TV is mostly swimming, girls gymnastics and some track and field. The winter Olympics is figure skating mostly, according to NBC TV.
El Cid
I bet people like Chuck Todd think it’s funny that people in other countries, especially in poorer income countries, think that they have journalists and newspapers and stuff.
I bet they think it’s cute, because how could those poor and brown people do actual “journalism” when that requires a close and appreciative personal relationship with the Washington conservative establishment and people who sup with the American super-rich?
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Col. Klink:
Then you need weed to make it palatable.
Or so I’m told.
Regarding ‘Murkin teeeveeee Olympic coverage: we all know it sucks hind tit. But you don’t come close to realizing just how bad it is until you watch teevee coverage in Europe. There, they show you a crapload of events, start to finish. The commentary is about the sporting event as it unfolds before you, not all the padding crap NBC stuffs down our throats.
I love winter sports so would pay some kind of pay per view fee just to see unabridged coverage. But would NBC do that? Nooooooooo.
Just another reason traditional media in this country is going tits up.
bayville
Reason #47 why I don’t read The Atlantic. Typical “liberal” Fallows. One of the most timid media critiques I’ve ever read.
Matthews, his former Carter-era pal, will have him on Hardball this week to explain this “scathing” personal attack.
Napoleon
@Jim:
I think he was being courteous to Matthews. The were both (along with Hendrik Hertzberg, Walter Shapiro and some others) speech writers for Jimmy Carter.
Martin
@Napoleon:
Fallows alone has kept my subscription running for 2 years now.
Martin
@Karen S.:
NBC has turned the Olympics into a sweaty People Magazine.
mk3872
If Fallows and other journalists would stomp their feet and throw jouvenile fits like Beck, Limbaugh and Malkin, then maybe the press would pay more attention.
More importantly, there is no fear from the press to left-wing pressure. They fear the Murdoch empire, but the MSM does not fear the non-conservative press.
slag
Not to mention, I cannot believe we’re still talking about the goddamn bow! There’s no way we can make any kind of progress in this country with Jake Tapper and his band of buffoons continuing to dominate our discourse. I’m really starting to loathe these people to an extent that I never before thought possible (and that’s saying something). Frustrating. Demoralizing. Crazy-making. Just wake me when the rapture comes. At least it will be something new.
justinslot
Re: NBC’s Olympics coverage: I dunno, I kind of liked it. You could watch pretty much everything you wanted live on their website.
IndieTarheel
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Damn you. Damn you to hell for that image!
__
(exit stage left, sobbing and desperately seeking either a melon baller or a spork)
timb
@Napoleon: After reading Marc Bowden’s advert for the Air Force a few years back and a terribly disingenuous essay on breast cancer drug availability in national healthcare plans around thew world (thesis: I got mine, who cares if others get theirs, but they might in some other country), I found it very easy to miss Robert Kaplan’s “More Wars we should be fighting;” Jeff Goldberg Jewish settler-esque perspective, and Caitlyn Flanigan’s “Keep your knickers on, Volume 37.”
Never been happier than missing conventional wisdom distilled from the mind of a right-wing kook.
PTirebiter
From the Fallows piece:
That we have a President who is secure with himself and what he represents is a real blessing. What could be easier, and more attractive than being a gracious winner?
That he doesn’t suffer the likes of Kristol, Hume and Wallace may be what galls them the most. They are for more comfortable with petty pukes like Joe Lieberman.
debg
In the spirit of Lurky Day, I’m acknowledging how much I enjoy Balloon Juice. If I had time to read all the comments on every post, I would participate more and lurk less. Nevertheless, I get great joy from the whole site–even if I don’t get involved as much as I should.
Chuck Butcher
One thing about the news that has been true for an awfully long time is, “if it bleeds, it leads.” The problem is that the bleeding won’t fill a paper or broadcast so actual news winds up having to be done. The current model is to make that bleed as well or just do stenography. I’d take the decline in fortunes as a good sign if something were poised to take its place. There isn’t that something and this nation really can’t afford to get much dumber.
Preston
Judge Land and now judge Carter, smack down the crazies (case dismissed), poor little Birthers.
Not even “Fake News” Bill O’Reilly believes the crazies, how funny.
http://belowthebeltway.com/2009/10/29/bill-oreilly-slams-orly-taitz/
http://tesibria.typepad.com/whats_your_evidence/BIRTHER%20CASE%20LIST.pdf
To all the birthers in La, La Land, it is on you to prove to all of us that your assertion is true (TOUGH WHEN YOU KEEP LOSING CASES), if there are people who were there and support your position then show us the video (everyone has a price), either put up or frankly shut-up. I heard Orly Taitz, is selling a tape (I think it’s called “Money, Lies and Video tape”). She is from Orange County, CA, now I know what the mean when they say “behind the Orange Curtain”, when they talk about Orange County, the captial of Conspiracy Theories. You know Obama has a passport, he travel abroad before he was a Senator, but I guess they were in on it.
In my opinion the Republican Party has been taken over the most extreme religious right (people who love to push their beliefs on others while trying to take away the rights of those they just hate) and that’s who they need to extract from their party if they real want to win. Good Luck, because as they said in WACO, “We Ain’t Coming Out”.
I heard that she now wants to investigate the “Republican 2009 Summer of Love” list: Assemblyman, Michael D. Duvall (CA), Senator John Ensign (NV), Senator Paul Stanley (TN), Governor Mark Stanford (SC), Board of Ed Chair, and Kristin Maguire AKA Bridget Keeney (SC). She wants to re-establish a family values party.
I can only hope that Taitz will resist the state collectors that will be coming to collect the $20K.
Hob
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Actually, I don’t imagine that would be either painful or enjoyable for either of the people involved, any more than an air guitar performance can be loud or melodious. The only erectile tissue in Glenn Beck’s body is above the neck.