There are many signs that the American Press is in some trouble these days. Sure, changing technologies and new ways to get information are part of the story, but the real problem is laziness, group think and a default to embrace the silly and sensational over the important. Yes, there are exceptions. There has been some exceptional reporting done in major newspapers, magazine, and even some TV and radio networks. But when these reports happen they stand out because most of the work is so bad. So very, very lame.
If you want to follow the decline of the American Press then watching the White House Press Corps is a good place to watch. Now, back in the day there were real reporters on the WH Press Corps and they broke many stories. That’s ancient history. Now the WH Press Corps is where good reporters go to seed and bad reporters go to enhance and polish their brand.
It is pretty sad to watch.
I’ve been watching the WH Press Briefings for most of the last year. It is like a sitcom. It is a crazy collection of goofballs, primadonnas, posers and a few actual journalists. The day in and day out of this bunch is ridiculous. The only time that news seems to be made is when Robert Gibbs shares information before he takes questions and/or has guests from the Administration share information. 80 percent of the questions are poorly framed and pretty stupid.
And yet, inside the beltway, these are suppose to be the toughest reporters in town. Maybe that was true back in the 1960s or maybe even in the 1970s, but since Reagan the WH Press Corps has been a tamed and timid bunch, especially when a Republican is in the White House. They’re a little “tougher” on Democrats, but that’s just because Democratic Presidents tend to like the idea of a free press, read, treat the press with some respect and expect some effort to hold them accountable. Republicans OTOH, treat the press with contempt and most in the press respond with fear and meekness. Who remembers anybody in the WH Press Corps (with the heroic exception of Helen Thomas) taking on Bush over anything? It just didn’t happen.
Six months ago the WH Press Corps was complaining that President Obama was holding too many press conferences and that he was over exposed. Now, they’re complaining that it has been six months since President Obama held a formal WH Press Conference. And worse of all–in the view of the WH Press Corps–the President is talking to other people and finding other ways to communicate that completely bypass this gaggle of gas bags.
On February 3, Peter Baker wrote about this trend in the NYTs and on Monday Howard Kurtz whined about it in the Washington Post. Both argued that it is so very important for the President to take questions from the WH Press Corps in formal settings, but neither ever explained why. Zero evidence of an important story that broke because of a question from a member of the WH Press Corps was ever offered. It was all process about a President who was not catering to the process demands of a group of primadonnas.
There was one story that Kurtz pointed to in his story:
During a news conference devoted almost entirely to health-care reform, Obama answered a final question about the arrest of his friend Henry Louis Gates — he said the Cambridge police acted “stupidly” — and the resulting flap dominated the news for a week.
See according to Howie, we need these press conferences so we can have the chance of a new silly and trivial story to hype and push important issues off the table. It is pretty sad that the only highlight they could mention about the work of the WH Press Corps was an overhyped sideshow that meant nothing then and still means nothing now.
On Tuesday, President Obama surprised the dilettantes of the WH Press Corps by opening Daily Briefing with a Press Conference. This is, IMHO, the best way that President Obama can deal with these folks. An announce conference gives them too much time to think about meaningless things to ask to fuel the sideshow. Showing up unannounced at the Press Briefing yields a better set of questions than the formal kabuki dance of a scheduled press conference.
Of course Kurtz quickly took credit for President Obama’s appearance, but alas it was not the case. I just loved the Gibbs smackdown of Kurtz in this reply to a question from Greg Sargent (emphasis added):
A coincidence indeed, Gibbs says. “We had planned for the President to go into the briefing room to make this statement probably a week ago,” Gibbs told me. “I mentioned then that if we went into the briefing room, we should take questions.”
“At that point neither Peter nor Howard had written their articles,” Gibbs said. “I read Peter’s piece over weekend. But I never read Howard’s piece.”
Soon we will be treated to the annual WH Correspondents Dinner where in years past members of the gang joined Karl Rove on stage to help him rap. The image of David Gregory swaying to Rove’s mad rhymes tells one all you need to know about the WH Press Corps.
Treating these folks with a bit of contempt is something they have earned.
There should be journalists in these seats at the WH. There are a few, but mostly they are goofballs, primadonnas, posers and WATBs.
Shed a tear for the little darlings.
Cheers
dengre
Amy
Knowing that those folks hold Broder in the highest respect is all you need to know.
Comrade Jake
Kurtz is such an asshat.
beltane
Maybe I’ll shed a tear for them when they lose their livelihoods. In the meantime, I’ll just regard them as grossly overpaid, simpering and corrupt courtiers.
penpen
great post, thanks dengre.
This kind of bogus shtick is amazing, and happily, doomed. I’m 25 and the idea of watching the nightly news for important or insightful information is simply a joke to me. People get nostalgic over this stuff, put they’ll get nostalgic over anything. I get a little nostalgic over video rental stores and the death of Blockbuster, but god knows they’re an outdated pain too, and didn’t even exist when I was born.
Morbo
It’s sort of a shame that Helen Thomas has to be lumped in with these folks. She has consistently asked pointed questions of both this administration and the last (and the ones before as well). But she got nothing but the usual contempt from Bush’s press secretaries, and Gibbs has pretty much given her the same cold shoulder as the rest of the press corps despite the fact that they decidedly deserve it and Helen really doesn’t.
Mike Kay
remember how they whined and whined and whined when Obama gave HuffPo’s Nico Pitney a chance to ask a question on Iranian elections.
penpen
@Mike Kay: the birth of “dickwhisperer” and thus, a beautiful moment
MagicPanda
I won’t feel sorry for the press until they have a moment akin to the last scene in Angel Heart — the press thinks it’s trying to help uncover the truth, when in reality, they are complicit in its murder.
Wake up, people! Do your jobs!
soonergrunt
@beltane:
THIS.
They’re like the old royal courts of medieval times, really.
Mike Kay
@MagicPanda:
Who’s Lou Cyphre?
Max
These fuckers should all be fired. I follow random people on Twitter who ask more insightful questions, to say nothing of the lovely people here.
These are the same people who allowed us to go to war with Iraq. Fuck them all. Seriously. Fuck Chuck and Savannah and Jake and Major (twice) and Chip and Kurtz (three times) and the rest of them.
Bill Press and David Corn aren’t quite in F.U territory, because they aren’t completely worthless, only slightly.
Gibsy rocks!
MagicPanda
Speaking of Broder, read it and barf….
Jon
WTF isn’t Broder in a home? We ran Joe Gibbs off and he did more for DC than Broder ever did…
darryl
One of the most popular myths in the world right now.
The american press is in trouble because ad revenue has collapsed 60% since the advent of the internet, craigslist, etc. The tiny, 3-line classified ad for my tutoring services which cost $120 for 4 runs in the Raleigh N&O is now a full page ad on craigslist, for free. The AP stories you used to pay the N&O $1.50 to receive are now on 100 websites for free.
It has nothing to do with a decline in content. Charles Krauthammer and David Broder were just as stupid in 2000 as they are here in 2010.
TR
It’s the White House Press Corpse. They’ve been dead for a while.
Dennis G.
@Morbo:
It is a shame that one lumps her in with these numbnuts. There are a few others as well who ask smart questions and do good work. You can pick them out if you watch these daily briefings.
The folks in the first rows (AP, teevee) are more often than not the silliest. It is hard to pick the biggest lunkhead out of the group, but I lean to calling out Ed Henry of CNN for that dubious honor. He is a boy with an ice cream face and an intellect that melted years ago.
Cheers
rootless_e
i gotta say that Dick “therapeutic violence” cohen is still my most despised msm character. whoever plays him has that oozing smarmy creepiness down and makes it standout even in an ensemble where such traits are common and expressed with verve and flair. The whole series though, has a repetitive and dismayingly ugly flavor and i prefer watching puppy-cams where one sees a lot more curiosity, intellectual vigor, and cute.
scav
ok, did anyone else see the White House press corps scene from Dr Who’s penultimate episode? Everyone, Everyone in the room has just been turned into The Master? ok, in real life, it’s not John Simm, it’s Paris Hilton.
Mike Kay
Why won’t David Broder die?
Dennis G.
@darryl:
The change in revenue models is just a part of the story as is the other ways to get your daily news feed. Both my point and your point are true and there are other pieces of the puzzle as well.
OTOH, I totally agree about Krauthammer, Broder, Wills, Roberts and a host of others who are stupid now, were stupid in 2000, 1995, 1990, 1985 and well, ever since they started if you want to get technical.
Cheers
dengre
Max
Oh, I forgot someone… that April chick who cares more about getting into a pissing match with Gibbs that actually reporting.
As a whole, I hate when they ask the same question over and over and over again.
It’s mindnumbing and of no use whatsoever to the public.
P.S. Sorry for the excessive f words above. I just dislike the way these folks operate in the briefing room.
Notorious P.A.T.
Thank you. I’m so glad when people point this out, rather than just going with the lazy “internet did it” excuse. There’s lots of free pornography on the internet, for example, yet people still pay for the stuff too. I mean, Americans last year spent more on pornography than on tickets to athletic events.
mr. whipple
@Mike Kay:
He’s not dead? Then why does he smell so bad?
Beej
Though I hate to admit it, I’m old enough to remember Watergate. This gaggle of idiots couldn’t hold the coats of the Rathers, Chancellors, Donaldsons, etc. Our current quote repeaters are the ones that couldn’t be bothered to check on whether or not there really was anything in the Senate Health Care bill that would “pull the plug on grandma”. They just reported it as though it was as valid as the explanations of what was really being done with end of life decisions in the bill. Lazy, stupid, and cowardly. Damn them to hell.
darryl
I think if you’ll look at Playboy’s annual revenue you’ll see the same thing. The internet has removed a huge amount of the profit from both businesses. Same with the music industry. The internet is a drastically different business model. The old distribution models, be they WaPo, Playboy, or Turtles records, are suffering as a result. It’s not lazy, it’s just looking at the numbers. Skipping the numbers and sticking with your ideology–that’s lazy.
darryl
Look at the advertising revenue of newspapers in 1995, and then compare them with the ad revenue of newspapers in 2009. Then tell me that argument is lazy.
Lev
@Notorious P.A.T.: Just goes to show that people WILL pay for quality. What most outlets provide isn’t very good.
J. Michael Neal
@Max:
I’ll do Savannah, but I’m leaving the rest of them to you and gbear.
scav
@darryl: The numbers are such an easy rationalization for not doing their damn jobs.
soonergrunt
@mr. whipple:
His Depends need changing?
Dennis G.
@MagicPanda:
Broder is a senile turtle.
He came to Washington in the sixties. By the eighties he blessed Reagan as a centrist, hopped on the Reagan wave and never got off that surfboard ever since. He’s been writing the same shit for decades. The column you point to is more of the same. Broder’s understanding of history is pretty weak and you could predict what he’ll say about any issues. Perhaps it is because he is always reliably the same that he gets celebrated by the sycophants of the beltway. Who knows.
His understanding of populism in America is about as knowledgeable as that of the average 5th grader in Peoria. (Why yes of course Palin and Carter are both populists cut from the same cloth… oh, for fucks sake. Broder is an idiot).
As I said, he is a senile turtle.
Cheers
Lev
@Dennis G.: Broder’s thinking is based on the assumption that the center rules American politics. Therefore, parties and politicians only become more popular when they move toward the center. Their popularity proves their centrism. QED.
Talk. About. Lazy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Dennis G.: In Broder’s world, it’s always 1973, without Nixon or Vietnam.
Notorious P.A.T.
@darryl:
What you say about Hefner’s magazine is undeniably true. However, according to Wikipedia (not personal experience) Playboy has lost most of its ground to other magazines–the Maxims and stuff like that–than to new media. But anyway, they have invested heavily in internet and TV enterprises.
People will buy bottled water that is no different than what comes out of their faucets. They will buy treadmills that offer nothing they couldn’t already get. People will buy a quality product, or a product they feel offers quality.
scav
And the center is where they tell us it is.
tgeb
The WH press corps is failing because Obamcifer is using his serpent tongue to weave a spell of befuddlement on them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MagicPanda: I wish the people who are constantly screeching about all the things Obama “just/still doesn’t get!” would get it through their marble noggins that this is what he’s dealing with.
Has anyone read the TNR article on the dying Washington Post? I’m just curious if they factor in the sheer bullshit spewing out of the op/ed page yet?
28 Percent
dengre if that is your real name you do not understand Obama is not answering the questions that either the moderator or the media want to hear, but he’s going to talk straight to the American people and let them know his track record also, too. And that is bad because he is not ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS it does not matter if he goes to these town halls because who turns up at those? Only people who want to see their Obamessiah the rest of us stay away because we are afraid of getting hit by lightening or maybe a pillar of fire it will strike someday you will see. But Obama is only avoiding the press because he is SCARED that they will find out important questions about his ARROGANCE and ELITISM that is also why he does not let them in his kitchen it is like they say “and Yea by their Countertops shall Ye Know Them.”
Violet
@beltane:
This. They do more harm than good. I’m glad the President is finding other ways to communicate with the people. These idiots in the press corps don’t do much besides collect paychecks and hope to create drama.
gbear
@J. Michael Neal:
Eww. Leave me out of it. Please.
Yutsano
@28 Percent: :: points and laughs ::
Comrade Luke
Do people in DC actually wait and wonder what Broder thinks of things? I swear he doesn’t even write his columns anymore. I think he has a team of writers that do it for him, like the guy who does Garfield.
darryl
@scav: they didn’t do their jobs before. George Will’s stupidass columns were just as stupidassed in 1980 as they are now. But the fact is, advertising revenue has been cut over half since the rise of the internet. That has nothing to do with how dumb columns were then vs now. That has to do with more efficient business models are now. Ad revenue has crashed for numerous distribution reasons. Not because of content reasons, any more than conservatives claim they stopped subscribing to newspapers because of the liberal bias. Ad revenue has crashed for technological reasons. Not because we all stopped subscribing to Newsweek because George Will writes the same stupid column for the back page that he wrote 20 years ago. It’s a structural change. Ad revenue has dropped 60-75% because you and I don’t search the classifieds for a 1999 Datsun B-2010 anymore. We read craigslist for those ads, for free.
I think the mainstream press is stupid, sure, but they were stupid back then too. The difference is they no longer have a monopoly on local content distribution. Nobody used to subscribe to local papers because of the amazing reporting that went on, and nobody does that now. It’s not the amazing reporting that’s the problem. It’s the ad revenue. To ignore that is to misunderstand that you were never the newspapers’ customer. The ad buyers were. Ad buyers have much better options now, and local newspapers have crashed as a result. Not because David Broder suddenly got much stupider.
darryl
Everything in the success of local newspapers vs national magazines like Vanity Fair makes sense if you look at graphs of the ad revenues.
darryl
and BTW, George Will’s stupidassedness feels like a personal betrayal, because he was one of the last conservatives I could stand to read. But after reading his global warming stuff, it was clear he was either 1 lying or 2 deliberately misinforming people. Either of which I can’t tolerate. I liked him, because he didn’t offer the creationists any refuge, but at this point, if you’re denying global warming, you’re just as bad as the creationists.
Mike Kay
@Dennis G.:
Actually, he came to DC in the 50s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxe6wyyyhP8&feature=channel_page
Dan Robinson
@2 Kurtz is such an asshat.
HE IS NOT!
Kurtz is not an asshat.
Kurtz is an ass puppet.
RadioOne
With the possible exception of Valarie Plame and Jeff Gannon during the Bush administration, the WHPC hasn’t really been relevant to American politics since Nixon and Press Secretary Ziegler during the Watergate investigation. And before that, the WHPC were pretty much irrelevant too.
hamletta
I think darryl’s right, to an extent. But newspapers started dropping in quality long before the rise of the Web.
Time was, local families owned the papers, and they had a money-printing machine, but it made single-digit profits in good years, and broke even in bad years.
The Gannett-ization of the press began in the ’80s, with papers being publicly traded. Investors weren’t going to sit still for steady, but meager profits.
I quit subscribing to my local fishwrap years ago when the quality dropped substantially. It was once a great paper, the training ground for some of our country’s greatest journalists. They once sent a reporter undercover to infiltrate the fuckin’ Klan.
The local ink-stained wretches started an annual event called the Swine Ball in honor of a couple of local veteran reporters who had died of cancer. It was always held the same night as the Swan Ball, the old money society event of the year. The porcine version died out, because all the newsies were going to the fancy party. Which gets back to the Versailles business. And makes me want to take up knitting.
A few weeks ago, my buddy was pointing out a certain story, and as an aside, he said, “and this one’s not from the AP; it has a local byline.”
It’s just bad.
Joey Maloney
I believe it was the late, great George Carlin who had a line about a guy who, when he had to take a dump, would announce that he was going to go shed a tear for Nixon.
In that spirit, I will indeed shed one for the WH Press.
Toni
I watch the WH briefings very often and I don’t know if Gibbs drinks, smokes or takes drugs to deal with them but I know I would do all if I were in his shoes. The questions are dumb and idiotic. Every once in awhile someone’s phone would go off and disturb the briefing. On Mondays Gibbs tends to take question from those reporters seated further to the back, “the crazies” I call them. Their questions are even more idiotic.
In some cases I think there is a conflict of interest. Take Chuck Todd, he appears on Morning Joe almost daily, has his own show and is in the WH daily briefings? So are the questions he asks really substantive or are they just “gotcha” or conflict driven that make for good TV ratings?
de stijl
You know you’re old when your go-to wank fantasy is buried in the “Retro Pornstar” or “Vintage Porn” section. I’m not sure I want to live in a world where Devon is considered a MILF.
Midnight Marauder
@28 Percent:
This never gets old.
+4
M. Carey
Remember, the Iran-Contra connection (~1986) was broken by a small newspaper in Beirut, I think; NOT in DC. The Wash press corps were useless then, they remain useless now.
Cain
@28 Percent:
Dude, you don’t post enough. Way funny, man!
cain
Yutsano
@Cain: You know, that little zinger about the countertops does scream spoof to me, however I think I’m just gonna point and laugh until the culprit fesses up to their true identity. Delicious word salad though, slightly fruity.
slightly_peeved
That’s because unlike news, you can never have enough porn.
Cure 7802
@beltane: This…
is perfect.
Mnemosyne
@darryl:
There are other big factors in that advertising drop. Here’s just one local example:
In Los Angeles, we used to have three large department stores: Bullock’s, The May Company, and Robinson’s. All three of them have been taken over by Macys, so where you once had three competing companies buying huge full-page ads in the LA Times, now you have a single company whose business you have to beg for.
Brainz
If memory serves, Woodward and Bernstein were crime reporters on the metro desk.
It’s a necessary job — the White House beat — but has the WH press bureau ever produced anything exceptional? It’s a glory thing — they get lots of airtime and prominent bylines. A great place for the professionally ambitious.