I don’t know if you know anyone like this, but I have an adult relative who regularly stages temper tantrums to get what he wants. It always annoys me, because my attitude has always been “scream all you want, I don’t care”, but not everyone in my family feels this way.
So it is with the the right’s anti-media tirades. They’re welcome to it all they want, it fires up their base, and that’s all good…until the media starts taking the kabuki sturm und drang too seriously. Jay Rosen:
Here we have one of the most under-covered stories of the 2012 campaign. If the Republican candidates believed the culture war wing of their own party, if they credited it with any genuine insight, if they respected its critique of the journalistic profession, if they thought there was a solid core of truth there, they would not have agreed to participate in debates where the questions are asked by such ideological opponents as Wolf Blitzer and Jon King of CNN, Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos of ABC, David Gregory and Brian Williams of NBC, John Harwood of CNBC and the New York Times and on and on. As Hewitt said: Hey, these guys are left wing! It doesn’t make any sense!
Unless… the candidates see the culture war wing of their party as a useful idiot– wrong about what journalists are up to, but valuable for keeping the press in line.
[….]My view: even Newsbusters knows their critique is a joke. They’re just working the refs, and raising money off their Agnewisms. And it’s a pretty sweet gig. Brent Bozell’s 2010 salary: $423,000. He should be raging at the Republican candidates for legitimizing the David Gregorys and John Harwoods of the world.
And of course the ref-working works! The Kaplan ombudsman today:
“See, you liberal media nincompoops, this is all your fault, you treated Obama like a saint when he was running in 2007 and 2008 and you didn’t vet him, investigate him, report on him skeptically. You were so fawning (and adoring of his blackness), you missed that he was a (pick your adjective), radical, socialist, Muslim, inexperienced, dangerous, corrupt, weak Chicago politician with no track record of accomplishment, whose only talent is giving speeches.”
Those e-mails usually employ much harsher language, and some are filled with expletives.
[…]Deborah Howell, Post ombudsman from 2005 through 2008, said at the end of her tenure that “some of the conservatives’ complaints about a liberal tilt [at The Post] are valid.”
I won’t quibble with her conclusion. I think she was right.
[….]And that’s what The Post needs to do in covering his reelection campaign this year: be hard-hitting on his record…
I guess if I were a Kaplan employee I would ask the wingers who write pissy emails to papers, just as I would ask my rageaholic uncle, what the fuck are you gonna do about it? Why are the people at Kaplan so scared of a few angry emails from wingers?
I understand that most national-level journalists are careerist sociopaths who have made a career out of betraying journalistic principles in order to seem “fair and balanced”. I understand that they know they will be fired — a la Ashleigh Banfield and Phil Donohue — if they don’t tilt right.
But that’s all at the level of pleasing their bosses and sponsors. I can’t see why they bend so easily to a few tirade-writing wingnuts.
cathyx
I’m with you on this one. I never understood why they are so afraid of the whinging right wingers. They certainly aren’t afraid of us.
dr. bloor
They don’t give a shit about the wingnuts. However, they care deeply about their paychecks and social mobility, and that’s what the Kabuki is ultimately about.
Calouste
They’re not scared of the right wingers, they give in because it feeds the narrative they want to see.
And why? It’s right there in one of your quotes:
The national media are the 1%.
Hunter Gathers
The press just wants to be loved; is that so wrong?
(done in my best Harvey Firestein via Jon Lovitz voice)
Martin
@cathyx: Because liberals don’t subscribe to the paper or watch the news any more. Their revenue comes from selling ads to people that think that Craigslist is a liberal plot to lure them into gay sex.
They’re going to cater to the right so long as Goldline and HoverRound are paying the bills.
David Koch
Walter Pincus was on CSPAN a couple of years ago and he mentioned that when Reagan became president he would say a host of incorrect facts during his news conferences. So the Post decided to run “fact check” pieces pointing out Reagans factual errors.
He said they would get some letters basically saying, “LEAVE RONNIE ALONE!”, In sole response to a couple dozen letters, they dropped the “fact checking”.
This was in 1981. Think how far they’ve declined since then.
The Moar You Know
Stockholm Syndrome. And the really dirty truth is they get off on the abuse.
kindness
But…but…Sally Quinn’s parties? Are you suggesting that the WaPo get itself blacklisted from Sally’s parties?
What are you a DFH Commie or somethin’?
handsmile
ADJ:
Permit me to sneak in an O/T remark up top here to thank you for hosting/organizing the Balloon Juice Book Club. Your selection of Robin’s book was brilliant, the book itself is enlightening and accessible, the exchange of comments has been conducted with knowledge and civility, and the participation of Corey Robin himself has been of great benefit.
I hope you have found the process to be enjoyable and worthwhile.
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
Learned helplessness.
one two seven
Last week after one of the debates, I was listening to some NPR coverage and the reporter mentioned that one of the big applause lines of the night was when Newt Gingrich blamed the “liberal media” for airing the interview with his 2nd wife.
Then they played the clip and Gingrich never used the word “liberal”.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Maybe because no one wants to return home to their family pet in front of the front door with “JOURNALIST” scrawled on the poor thing’s corpse.
MikeJ
See the previous post.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Ugh…and to add on, it’s absurd to go through the comments and find 90% of them screaming about how Obama was the most unexamined and fluffed president in the history of ever. Because Rev. Wright, Birthers, “Obamacare”, etc. never fucking happen and weren’t fluffed by the media as the biggest scandals in the history of the entire fucking universe.
ChrisNYC
Gingrich didn’t use the word liberal but he did say in his gross rant that the media was determined to bring down any Republican in order to help Obama get re elected. Same diff.
13th Generation
This is what makes me scream at my radio when NPR insists on their “both sides do it” style of reporting. Just who do they think their audience is? The ever dwindling liberals who can’t stand that crap anymore, or the handful of wingnuts who listen just to call them out on perceived liberal bias?
Face
Go fuck yourself with a rusty skate, Tim Thomas. You worthless d-bag
slag
Old people. And rich people. And old rich people.
Some exceptions apply, of course.
Calouste
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
As usual, more projection than a cineplex on Harry Potter opening night, after they had the most unexamined and unvetted VP candidate since Nero nominated his horse for the Senate.
one two seven
@ChrisNYC I stand corrected then. The clip that they played didn’t quite go that far and I thought it was odd that NPR would utter “liberal media” as a synonym for what Newt said which was just “media”
Spaghetti Lee
Of all the stupid wingnut tropes, the one that never fails to amuse/baffle me is how the dittohead idiots will swear on their mamas’ graves that mush-mouthed Establishment clowns like Blitzer and Stephanopolous are secretly conspiring Bolsheviks. They just want everyone to worship them and their fetishes and their delusions, all the time, I think. Anyone who fails to do that, even a little bit, is a commie soshulist liberal.
It’s hard to know who to hate more: the spluttering idiots who write the mail, the right-wing ratfuckers like Bozell who give them voice, or the establishment weenies who chose to legitimize it.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Calouste:
The most depressing and mindnumbing this is that, amidst all this, the media continues and continues to fucking kowtow to these assholes EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME NO MATTER WHAT, and they STILL get off on playing the victimization card and screaming how downtrodden they are, how unfair everything is, and raging against every single fucking thing except Fox News…and that simply encourages places like the Post to bow even fucking further to people who will never ever ever fucking trust them even if they literally sold themselves to the GOP.
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
@Calouste:
Ahem. Caligula, not Nero. Allegedly the beast had a stable of marble, with an ivory manger, purple blankets, and a collar of precious stones. I suspect it was a business editor for the Roman version of the Atlantic.
Calouste
@MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson:
Ah well,
Bush, McCain, RomneyCaligula, Nero, one mad inbred Roman emperor or the other.The Roman version of the Atlantic? The Mare Nostrum?
Angry DougJ
@handsmile:
Thanks, I’ve enjoyed it a lot.
Bubblegum Tate
@MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson:
I recently read something (can’t even remember where–I wanna say in the New Yorker) positing that Caligula wasn’t so much crazy as he was a snarky, sarcastic bastard who loved trolling people who bugged him. The horse-as-Senator thing, for example, wasn’t Caligula being batshit insane, but rather Caligula taking the piss out of the self-important Senate.
I kinda like that theory.
JoshA
What’s especially weird about this is that the wingers would never deign to subscribe to a publication that doesn’t match up with their preconceived ideas of the world 100% of the time. So they’re basically responding to people who either
A. Don’t buy/view their product and never will OR
B. View their product because they like to get mad at the MSM
Why would you try to shift your coverage for folks that fall into these categories? If anything, the shift will only hurt, because fewer wingers will visit the website (finding a new outlet for their 2-minutes-hate), and moderates and progressives might get annoyed at how the coverage has been even more Foxified and stop reading as well.
Oh so serious, oh so stupid.
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
@Bubblegum Tate:
A sort of Roman DougJ then?
Mnemosyne
@Face:
Meh. If I didn’t get upset when liberal celebrities refused a chance to meet with Bush, I can’t get my panties in a twist when conservative celebrities refuse to meet with Obama.
His kids will probably make him feel like a bigger douche than I’d ever be able to: “Why didn’t you meet with the president, daddy?”
lamh35
At Florida Town Hall, Rick Santorum Cowardly Panders To Woman Who Alleges Obama Is ‘An Avowed Muslim’
WaterGirl
@cathyx: Because they shoot people like Gabby Giffords and kill defenseless cats to make a political point?
WaterGirl
@handsmile: Kudos to dougJ on this particular book club, but am I wrong in thinking that Anne Laurie started the first BJ book club?
Egg Berry
Hey, Politico turns five. Watch the media blow them.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Another addendum, even if I’ve posted quite a bit in here already: when people worry about the damage possible by people like Newt? This is the kind of dipshittery they tend to fear. The media have already internalized the idea of them being so hopelessly liberal that they have to bash everything left of Limbaugh to ever be accepted by anyone except….gasp…LIBERALS. And how far they’ll bend over backwards to do this are only the tip of the iceberg.
Jeffro
Here’s “liberal tilt” for you: in today’s WaPo, George Will actually threw out the following:
Got it? Impeaching the president of the United States is now an ‘indignation festival’…I think Will may be a better revisionist historian than ol’ Newt himself.
TBOTP indeed
FlipYrWhig
What evidence is there that Blitzer, King, Williams, or Gregory is remotely an “ideological opponent” of Republicans? They’re all brainless purveyors of garbage and unadulterated spin.
At any rate, I also don’t understand why the suits at media organizations give a shit about tirades from wingnuts. The hard-bitten, seen-it-all, ink-stained journalist of yore is supposed to say things like “I get it from both sides, so I must be doing something right.” But for some reason they care immensely. It’s ludicrous.
WereBear
Well, Caligula was crazy, but the horse thing: that was sarcasm, yes.
Amir Khalid
@lamh35:
Even John McCain knew better than that. Well, it’s a consolation that Brave Sir Frothy is (probably) not a serious contender for the nomination.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@FlipYrWhig:
Because they’re part of the media, duh. That automatically makes them the height of effete commulibs.
JGabriel
DougJ @ Top:
I’m not convinced that they are.
I suspect that this may simply be the Kaplan Daily’s way of announcing that they’ll be protecting their business interests in private education scams by attacking Obama more thoroughly, and in alignment with GOP propaganda, over the course of this year’s run-up to the Presidential election.
.
Egg Berry
@lamh35:
WTF?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mnemosyne: my favorite was when Obama had the ’85 Bears, Dan Hampton refused to go because he doesn’t like Obama’s policies, and his wife wasn’t invited. I guess that’s the meat-headed wing nut version of the old “terrible food, and such small portions”
lamh35
@Egg Berry:
Fuckin’ Coward is what he is. No surprise there. Just like he didn’t say “blacks” he said “blah”…dude’s a joke.
The Moar You Know
@lamh35: In fairness to Cardinal Santorum, what else is he going to do? Call that shit out for what it is and he’d stand way less than even odds of getting out of the hall alive. Hell, I’d probably do the same thing.
Of course, you’re not going to see me running for president of a crowd of people whose preferred method of problem solving is lynching.
lamh35
So Romney called on Newt to release his “contract” with Freddie & Fannie trying to box Newt in I guess. Well it seems Newt called Romney’s bluff and they are saying on twitter that Newt will release contracts before tonight’s debate.
If I was the Newt campaign, if Romney tries to attack and ask Newt about his Freddie/Fannie contract, then Newt will turn around and ask Romney when he’s gonna show his contracts/paper/etc from his years at Bain?
lamh35
@The Moar You Know:
McCain did not do much right, but when he corrected that woman at the campaign rally in ’08 I had mad respect for him when he did that. And McCain did not do much, just told the woman, no ma’am that aint’ true and went along with his rally
So yeah Santorum could have done more.
Villago Delenda Est
@Spaghetti Lee:
Well, it’s simple, really.
The “Media establishment” doesn’t openly hate the black, or openly hate the gay, or openly hate unwed mothers, or Muslims, or brown people who speak Spanish.
This makes them Bolsheviks.
These particular markers have NOTHING at all to do with their economic status, or their support of the status quo (which, btw, doesn’t demand an immediate return to the antebellum status of aforementioned objects of hate) or their obvious love for the powerful, but especially the Rethuglican powerful.
The markets have to do with social attitudes. Accepting a black man as an equal? Absolute blasphemy. Not in favor of putting gays in death camps yesterday? Obvious sign of Marxist sympathies. Failure to scream their love of Jeebus at the top of their lungs? Unacceptable.
Villago Delenda Est
I want my mother-fracking edit button back, dammit!
“The MARKERS have to do with social attitudes”. I apologize to all for my shitty instant proof reading skills. And again demand my edit button back!
Suffern ACE
@JGabriel: I agree. Getting even for the attempt to make them come clean about the education thing and ending social security and medicare by any means possible are the policy goals of the Washington Post. They honestly couldn’t care about much else.
trollhattan
@MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson:
Better parties (or so I’m led to believe).
David Koch
Chuck Todd is beside himself that Mittens is losing.
Gotta love that lib3r m3dia bias.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suffern ACE:
There seems to be quite an affinity for dropping bombs on brown people, as well.
The Moar You Know
@lamh35: You’re comparing apples and Martians. McCain, shitbag that he is, did lay it on the line and go off to fight in a war that even he knew was stupid. He paid a horrific price and didn’t whine about it.
Santorum is a fucking religious psycho with a demagnetized moral compass. The only risk he’s even taken in his life was depositing those fat checks full of sweet lobbyist cash – he might have gotten a paper cut.
I will agree with you that McCain did the right thing at his private Nuremberg rally. Look what it got him. A lesson not lost on the current crop of aspiring Fuhrers.
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
@trollhattan:
Perhaps we should start calling him Dougius Jaius Maximus?
Villago Delenda Est
@The Moar You Know:
When McCain did the right thing at those rallies, he was demonstrating leadership. Much to his credit.
And yes, look what it got him.
Suffern ACE
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I thought this was a domestic policy election. But quite true. The Post has not meet a country with a leader who talks back to the US who’s citizens didn’t deserve a bombing, as long as that nation was small and couldn’t send a bomb right back.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Villago Delenda Est: McCain was standing next to that woman, and there was a camera pointed at him. When one of the howler monkeys yelled out “Kill him”, McCain blinked and carried on, later claiming he didn’t hear it.
@David Koch: It always cracks me up that NBC is seen as the scariest of the Liberal bugaboos. Almost the entire McCain Media Myth was created by Tom Brokaw, Tim Russert and Tweety Matthews. David Gregory calls Obama’s platform “class warfare” and apparently all but went bobbing for Chris Christie’s testicles.
Amir Khalid
@The Moar You Know:
Doesn’t Mr Frothy’s campaign org have an events security team for their candidate?
As for Mr Frothy himself, it’s bullshit for him to disavow the responsibility to correct someone who had her facts wrong, to push that responsibility on to the press. He was the one interacting with the woman, not them. Was a reporter supposed to butt in and say, “Excuse me ma’am, but Obama’s a Christian”?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Amir Khalid: i’m not sure if what we’re seeing is the whole exchange, but it seems like she’s saying it’s illegal for a muslim to be president, a religious test that doesn’t seem to phase this man who wants to be be Chief of the Executive branch of our Constitutional government.
pseudonymous in nc
Actually, I take back what I said about Chuck Todd. Pissy Pitty-Patty Pexton, the Kaplan hall monitor, is the Peter Principle in a dodgy yellow jacket . What a lackwit.
Chris
I appreciated McCain correcting the woman, because Lord knows that carried electoral costs in the GOP.
At the same time, I still think blogger Rahul Mahajan summarized the fucking absurdity of the event best: “Is Obama an Arab, or a decent family man? Opinion is divided. The idea that one could be both is still a little radical for many Americans.”
Calouste
@Suffern ACE:
And people feign surprise that Iran wants an atomic bomb. After they have been screwed over by the British, the Russians and the Americans for most of the last two centuries, either directly or by proxy *cough*Saddam Hussein*cough*.
Holden Pattern
They’re not bending to the wingnuts. They’re bending to their bosses, using the wingnuts as the “reason” because their bosses will hurt their careers if they’ don’t bend, again using the wingnuts as the “reason”.
pseudonymous in nc
Which is pretty much the market rate for a top-tier wingnut welfare whore. I think the Donaho at the Catholic League is on about the same.
A spreadsheet showing the annual salaries for professional wingnut welfarees would be… illuminating.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Madison was pretty adamant about the “no religious test” clause in the Constitution. He meant it, and he later in commentary specifically said that he meant it to apply to Muslims as well as Christians. He really meant “no religious test”, and that’s a direct response to the Bill of Test passed by Parliament in the 15th Century to exclude anyone Catholic as an English officeholder.
Calouste
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Santorum, just like Gingrich and Romney, wants to be the uncrowned King of America, not some whimpy “Chief of the Executive branch of [the] Constitutional government.”
When running for President, Republicans are running to be head of state, Democrats are running to be head of government. Unfortunately, in the US constitution, head of state and head of government are combined in one post.
Downpuppy
You didn’t quote Pexton’s solution. He wants the Post to as best I can tell, start reporting news. Or maybe he’s just trying to outstupid Brisbane:
Apparently, they just pick the dumbest guy in the company & tape an “Ombudsman” sign on their back.
Villago Delenda Est
I WANT THE DAMN EDIT BUTTON BACK!
The Bill of Test was in the 17th Century. My bad.
flounder
Kelly O’Donnell, NBC, once wrote something on Twitter about how she covered the Plame Trial and I snidedely comment something about how she “covered” it all right. She sent me a PM about how she had to sit through every day of that damn trial. Sounded exhausting. You should compare her twitter feed to Emptywheel’s today, given that ghosts of the Plame saga were out today. I don’t think calling these people refs is valid, as it is an insult to the refereeing business.
bemused
@Egg Berry:
Surprise, surprise. Along with his many other abhorrent personality flaws, he is also a chicken shit.
Villago Delenda Est
@Egg Berry:
What an ideal gathering to blow to smithereens.
Scamp Dog
@Egg Berry: Santorum does have a point there. Why should a Republican do the media’s job for them, if they aren’t going to do it themselves? Especially when doing so works against Republican interests. He pretty much mocked them the way they deserve to be mocked, it’s just a shame that it doesn’t happen in a more public forum. If only there were some people who had jobs that involved informing the public, via some sort of communications medium…
Never mind, I’m drifting a bit far from American reality.