These two emails say a lot about the state of American journalism, and I say that as someone who likes The National Journal and thinks Atlantic publisher David Bradley did a decent job picking out bloggers for the Atlantic (you-know-who notwithstanding).
——– Forwarded message ———-
From: Mosser, Kimberly
Date: Sun, May 2, 2010 at 10:03 PM
Subject: Photos from The Atlantic/National Journal WHCD Weekend Kick-Off Dinner
To: “Mosser, Kimberly”David and Katherine Bradley opened their home for a dinner party on Friday night to kick off the weekend festivities. The evening, underwritten by Audi, featured The Atlantic’s renowned food writer Corby Kummer, who guided guests through a dinner service featuring ‘green’ and sustainable dishes……
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Mosser, Kimberly
Date: Sun, May 2, 2010 at 10:12 PM
Subject: RE: Photos from The Atlantic/National Journal WHCD Weekend Kick-Off Dinner
To: “Mosser, Kimberly”Correction: The evening was underwritten by Audi, Shell and AstraZeneca.
There are a lot of pictures, too, but they’re not particularly exciting.
Violet
Freedom (of the press) isn’t free.
Mike Kay
if only obama slammed his fist on the bully pulpit – this corporate corruption of the media would cease!
DFS
I like the word “underwritten.” It sounds much more polite than “bought and paid for.”
robertdsc
On one hand: Chunky David Brooks and McMegan.
On the other: Sully, Fallows, TNC, and Matt Y.
Yeah, he’s done good. But when he’s done bad, he’s done really bad. /eyeroll
Mike Kay
I wonder which news organization had their nerdprom weekend “underwritten” by BP?
fee press isn’t fee
JGabriel
Cars, Gas & Seroquel(tm).
Yeah! Rock & Roll, Baby!
.
Mike Kay
I would feel more comfortable if the “press’ just wore logos and a jump suit, just like race car drivers. I’d have no problem with Diane Sawyer being the next “Go Daddy” girl, just as long as I know who specifically are their masters.
robertdsc
Let us savor.
Iluvcapra
Speaking of you-know-who, anyone else find it suspicious that Lisa’s enemy in the debate club on tonight’s Simpsons episode was brown-haired, glasses-wearing girl named Megan who foiled Lisa with contrarian/libertarian blather?
Steeplejack
@Iluvcapra:
I noticed that too. Found myself eyeballing the credits at the end to see if McArdle was a guest voice. But no.
MTmofo
How many of the WHCD side-events weren’t sponsored by some corporation or interest-group of whatever stripe? I’m guessing none.
jl
@Mike Kay:
“I would feel more comfortable if the “press’ just wore logos and a jump suit, just like race car drivers.”
I support that.
We could suggest it to the Daily Show news team. If they did it, it might start a trend.
(duplicate comment because original used the wrong version of my e-mail address in the ID window that made WP suspicious. FYWP).
jl
NY Times story on spill
BP Describes Race to Fix Well as Obama Warns of Oil Damage
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON and HENRY FOUNTAIN
Published: May 2, 2010
nytimes.com/2010/05/03/us/03spill.html?hp
Story has updated interactive map, so you can watch the spread of the slick through today.
If you want to.
Martin
Does the FDA need to put out a warning to the Villagers to avoid any seafood dinners sponsored by BP? I mean, that should be obvious to all of us here, but we don’t swoon at the sight of dollar signs and sucking up quite like the Villagers do.
Mike Kay
@MTmofo: these whores are one thing – money hungry.
I mean can you image the Grand Dame of DC, Pamela Harriman shaking a tin cup to host a party.
these corporate news whores came to DC and he trashed the place, and it’s not there place.
hamletta
Damn! It just so happens I finished Katherine Graham’s autobiography today, and I’ll bet she’s spinnin’ in her grave.
When she hosted a dinner party, she paid for it her own damn self.
jl
Forgot to note that my first question at seeing this post was, if this very very rich couple ‘opened their home for a dinner party’, why did it need underwriting by three (3) corporations?
How can I get corporate underwriting when I open my home for a dinner bash?
I would feel weird saying, or having some flack say, that I ‘opened my home for a dinner party’, when really it was some big corporations that opened my home for a dinner party.
Am I self-righteous, shrill and prudish, or can this type of behavior be described as deeply sleazy in some sense? But maybe I am just an average schmuck with old fashioned notions.
Mike Kay
@hamletta: I know. I’m shocked that Sally never lowered the boom on these nouveau tarts.
these $2-tricks have no style, no class, no grace.
They couldn’t hold Lady Harriman’s g-string.
blogreeder
Well the whole idea of a “sustainable” dish is a PR stunt anyway. It’s like the concept of “Food miles”; might as well just call it a “subsistence” dish. And make sure you bring a lot of flies to make it look authentic.
MikeBoyScout
Pass the mutilated limbs of American soldiers, and has anybody seen the buckets of Iraqi civilian blood?
mmmmm, mmmmm gooood journalism.
Brian J
Oh, come on. He’s been gone for many months now. Why can’t you stop picking on The Atlantic for once employing Matt Yglesias?
Seriously now, he’s the reason I started reading that magazine. I don’t do it very often any more, if only because it comes once every couple of weeks and, unlike The New Yorker, there’s less of a chance that I will notice an unharmed copy. But there was at least one really, really good article about the younger generations and unemployment, specially white males, in a recent issue. It was so good that based on that alone, I’d be willing to recommend the magazine to others. Now if only they’d reassign McArdle to the comedy pages where she belongs.
Comrade Kevin
@Brian J: Who’s picking on them for employing Yglesias? I’m pretty sure he was listed as one of the good things they’ve done.
I will say that TNC and Fallows are the best hires they have done in years.
Brian J
@Comrade Kevin:
I was kidding.
Yutsano
@Brian J: Methinks everyone needs to get their snark meters adjusted. There’s been a lot of flared tempers lately. Could just be me though.
Brian J
@Yutsano:
Nah, it’s probably me just not being funny anywhere but in my own head. :]
Splitting Image
Just goes to show you how long it’s really been since the press sold its soul. Advertising has been the lifeblood of newspapers for many decades, and this is just business as usual.
Back in the 1800s, most of a paper’s advertising was local, and if the news was heavily biased, it was at least locally biased. You could get a handle on things by reading papers from different cities.
Once corporations became multinationals, that became impossible. Advertising from Ford and Esso became the lifeblood of every newspaper, and then radio and TV as well.
It’s been a really long time since you could count on “the press” to keep these guys honest.
burnspbesq
Not sure about Shell, but IIRC Audi and AZ are major advertisers in the Atlantic. If you mean to suggest that their financial support might affect editorial judgment, either that horse got out of the barn a long time ago or it didn’t – and this marginal bit of $ isn’t going to change it.
These aren’t the drones you’re looking for.
Ripley
Correction to the correction: The evening was underwritten by Sarah Palin ™, Tucks Hemorrhoidal Wipes, and Satan.
Comrade Kevin
@Brian J: Sorry.
Comrade Kevin
Big Media Matt is one of the few bloggers I’d like to actually meet sometime. I’d love to ask him, in person, about his weird spelling that reads like it comes from a voice-dictation system.
Other than our gracious host, of course :-)
burnspbesq
Someone must have slipped strong hallucinogens into my last Diet Coke, cuz I read the latest from Chunky Bobo and some parts of it almost seem to make sense.
nytimes.com/2010/05/03/opinion/03douthat.html?hp
Mike Kay
@Splitting Image:
But I’m constantly told by the blogosphere that Obama can whip them into line if he only pounded the bully pulpit.
Of course, advertising is legitimate a function of business trying to create RETAIL sales and build a CONSUMER brand. But so called “sponsorship” of news programs by Business to Business entities like Boeing and GE serve no such purpose, and is simply all about buying off the media. I mean, I don’t any corporate board who says, we’re going to buy Boeing instead of Airbus cuz of the niffy commercial on MTP.
Yutsano
@burnspbesq: I can sort of see what you’re saying, as liberals have been saying for decades that a more open and easier immigration policy makes sense for the country. Then he pulls shit like this:
Umm…bullshit Ross. The numbers of Border Patrol officers that would take would basically be like adding another branch to the military just to make it happen. Not to mention that the Arizona law addresses none of these points. He then launches off into some neocon fantasy where we have to
shoot brown people on sightbeef up the BP and add layers of bureaucracy just to satisfy his wet dreams of white power satisfaction.Martin
@Yutsano: I think there’s a middle ground that both sides are somewhat intentionally ignoring. The problem concerning many state governors isn’t illegal immigration but the drug and gang violence. Truthfully, it doesn’t seem like we’re doing much on that front, and it’s a tough nut to crack because most of the problem is in Mexico and not here, and well, Mexico is just fucked on trying to fight these guys.
Now, the nativists want an armed guard every 5 feet along the border. That’s not going to happen. But a stepped up effort (at least a more visible one) in those areas where the drug crime is spilling over the border would go a long way to calming down the rational anger out there.
Of course, that would be a lot easier to achieve if most of the national guard wasn’t committed to fighting wars in Asia. Nobody seems to be making any mention of that either.
Yutsano
@Martin:
QFT. Of course in a base election year getting anything but ideological answers from both sides is a virtual impossibility. We need to loosen our immigration restrictions and get a better handle on the drug/gang problems on the southern border. California could possibly make a huge leap forward in curbing a large amount of the violence with one single vote. I don’t know whether it will stand considering federal drug law (most likely not and you know some asshole will sue over it) but at least they’re trying something besides more guns.
BethanyAnne
@burnspbesq: Damn, that does seem scarily sane. Not done with the article yet, but still, I’m impressionable. Er, impressed.
slag
@Brian J: I thought it was funny.
I’ve been spending a bit of time on PBS.org lately and it sparked a conversation about the paradox of “state run” media fears. We’re all supposed to be afraid of “state run” media because of its totalitarian undertones. But it’s hard not to view our public media as being far more independent, inclusive, and even subversive than all of our corporate run media combined. I wish it got more public funding than it does.
sneezy
@Comrade Kevin:
“I will say that TNC and Fallows are the best hires they have done in years.”
Fallows has been with the Atlantic for 25 years.
Ranjit Suresh
@slag:
The “state run” media fear you refer to has always been misplaced. When Americans think about public broadcasting they think of Pravda when they should be thinking of the BBC, Canada’s CBC, Italy’s RAI, Australia’s ABC, and so on.
Contrary to the views of American anti-statists, public radio and television *in democracies* is typically more independent and inclusive than private media outlets.
EthylEster
Remember the good old days when if you couldn’t afford to give a big, splashy party, there was no big, splashy party?
I’m mean we GOTTA have parties. Otherwise the terrorists win. (They hate us for our parties, doncha know.)
I’ll know things are really bad in the USA when the splashy parties paid for by someone else STOP. Obviously there’s still too much money available to douchebag corporations, be they oil, car, or pharmaceutical companies.
In other news the WH correspondents dinner polluted a great deal of CSPAN’s weekend coverage.
Triassic Sands
I can’t figure out why any organization should have a “dinner party” that needs to be underwritten by anyone. Does Bradley believe that Atlantic employees are entitled to a lifestyle that exceeds what their own earnings can support? Since when did dinner parties matter enough for one to sell one’s integrity for an upgrade?