If it isn’t Benghazi, it’s Obamacare:
For reporters covering Capitol Hill, there are two phrases that should immediately raise red flags when put in the same sentence: “partial transcript” and “House Oversight Committee.”
Republicans on this committee got into quite a bit of trouble in this area during the Clinton era, and now that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) holds the gavel, reporters have been fed half-truths through “partial transcripts” over and over again.
And yet, some keep falling for the same trick. Last night, it was CBS News.
The short story is that Issa’s staffers released some edited testimony purporting to show “security risks” in healthcare.gov, but those risks were for parts of the site that won’t go live until 2014, even though the transcript was edited in a way that made it look that the current site was insecure.
It’s no accident that CBS seems to excel at dutiful, credulous stenography of right wing claims. The ads on CBS news shows are all targeted at the same older audience that’s Fox’s bread and butter. To boost their ratings, they’re quietly taking a few pages from the Fox playbook.
Linda Featheringill
The number of reliable news programs on MSM keeps shrinking.
Villago Delenda Est
The Narrative. It’s more important than anything else…especially the facts.
Your Ferengi-controlled Infotainment Networks at work!
Mike in NC
How is this surprising to anybody, given that the shitbird president of CBS News was hired directly from FOX?
CaseyL
I’m pretty damned upset. I hardly ever watch TV news, but CBS online was where I went for quick updates because they were the only ones who got a couple very high profile stories right. Looks like it’s back to NBC for me….
(And, yes, I do follow things on Twitter as well – but you can only check one story at a time, and spend a lot of time chasing multiple hashtags.)
kindness
I don’t watch any news programs. I used to. Now? Waste of time. I get quicker, better news over the net. Alt least on the net I know what filters to apply to what site I’m reading.
CBS? Yea well it sucks to be them. Let them all fight for the demographic of their dreams. Sure hope my mutual fund doesn’t have any of their stock.
Southern Beale
I just have never understood why the left does not get the same traction in the media as the right. It’s just too easy to say “well corporate media blah balh.” It’s like the left isn’t viewed as “serious” yet Republicans have actually PROVEN themselves to be fucking idiots every step of the way. I do not get it.
Touched on that a bit today in a post related to John’s piece last night on the whole “people kicked off their health insurance plans” meme. While it may be technically true, it’s collectively bullshit. You’re not really “kicked off” if the product no longer exists. Though yes, the product no longer exists because Obamacare! But if the product was the health insurance equivalent of a Nigerian scam then it should not be allowed to exist in the first place and if you’re so fucking stupid that you want to be ripped off by your insurance company then you are too stupid to be arguing this point in the first place.
Agggh.
Hal
How many hearings on healthcare.gov are we up to now? If Congress had put this much effort into investigating the faulty intelligence that led to the Iraq war Dick Cheney would be spending his days in SuperMaxx right now. Oh well. Hopefully the car thief gets to the bottom of the devious plot to deliver healthcare to Americans,
Also, because I’m a masochist, I watched Chuck Todd interview an MIT Econ Professor who kept saying it was just way to soon to judge the healthcare law, and that basically we would all have to wait a few months for total enrollment numbers and to see if all the problems were fixed. Todd just kept giving the same doomsday followup; “but if this doesn’t work, that’s a problem, right.” Yes Chuck, if everything still sucks that’s an issue. We know. You say that everyday on every MSNBC show you appear on.
JWR
Funny how quickly CBS has turned into Fox-Lite. For awhile there, I’d thought it was just my imagination, but that ’60 Minutes’ bit proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they’ve gone over to the dark side.
Violet
Isn’t this the same across the rest of the networks? When I occasionally see NBC Nightly News, the ads are all for cholesterol drugs and other medications used more by older people.
Patrick
@Southern Beale:
Not only that; the media now makes it sound like doctors don’t have a right to retire ever (since that would mean that Obama’s pledge was not kept). Or insurance companies don’t have a right to ever change their insurance plans. The reporting is beyond nuts.
And regarding CBS, is it any surprise after the 60 minutes scandal? Furthermore, Mark Knoller works for CBS and he has now for years made erroneous claims about the debt under Obama and what have you. I think CBS is right behind FoxNews in catering to the far right.
Southern Beale
@Hal:
God exxxxxcactly, that’s the point I made today, Jesus! “Obama said you could keep your plan and some people have shitty plans and can’t, whaaaah!” versus, “Saddam Hussein has sarin gas, bio weapons, nuclear weapons, yellow cake from Niger,” and on and on, repeatedly, and we fucking went to WAR and there was nothing there!
The discourse in this country is fucking stupid as hell, and it makes me insane.
gnomedad
Said it before: if the right lies about something long and loud enough, the MSM bends over backward to validate it in order to appear “balanced”. That’s why so many trust Stewart and Colbert more that “real” reporters — they’re the only ones with “bullshit” in their vocabulary.
maya
So who’s going to play Lara Logan on SNL? Lindsay Lohan would be a nice alliterative touch.
RSR
The reporter on this one was the Benghazi-hacked-my-computer lady.
MikeJ
@Violet:
I’d be surprised if it was limited to the news. Aren’t the broadcast nets now pretty much the domain of the elderly?
Mudge
Fox…CBS..must have something to do with the NFL.
maya
@MikeJ:
That all Depends.
Tone in DC
Up until the “60 Minutes” debacle, I still had some respect for CBS and their news division. Mike Wallace must be doing cartwheels in his grave.
Just for those of us currently low on caffeine… what the fuck is anyone thinking at CBS (or any other news division) regarding acceptance of “partial transcripts”? Is that just a hair better than James O’Keefe and his selectively edited videos?
KXB
I still think CBS runs a better news operations than the other broadcast networks, and certainly better than the cable news channels. But the last couple of times I have sat down to watch 60 Minutes, I have been mildly annoyed at the slant of some of their stories. Why should a report about Cheney focus on his pacemaker, and not the crimes he authorized? Why should a report about Gitmo focus on the violence of the suspects, and not the fact it exists in a legal limbo? There was also the story about the abuse of disability benefits.
On that one, I have seen enough people get away with “back pain” to actually know that the system is being gamed. A couple of years ago, an investigation found that over half of Long Island Rail Road retirees were also collecting disability in addition to their pension. All were visiting the same doctor to be declared disabled.
But while reports on abuse of government programs will always find a ready audience, how about wasteful programs that were designed to be wasteful in the first place? Defense, Medicare prescription benefit, ethanol? Those reports seem fewer now.
Elizabelle
@maya:
well done
Patrick
@gnomedad:
Remember when Obama was first elected back in 2009? He was going to make an innocent speech to the country’s students basically saying education was important and try to study hard. Yet, FoxNews went nuts and lo and behold The Today Show had people on to argue about it. Goodness, study hard is controversial?!
I stopped watching the Today Show after that. Why watch them when I can just as easily watch FoxNews or Joe S?
Frankensteinbeck
The MSM has been screaming and wetting their pants over every fake scandal they can find since summer. Nobody was listening then, and nobody’s listening now. Obama haters gonna hate. Everyone else just wants health insurance.
JWR
@Southern Beale: My God. I just finished reading the Benen piece, and I am furious! It’s truly amazing that Obama has the nerve to keep on going in the face of such idiocy. Can you imagine how much nicer the country would be if the Republicans actually gave a damn about, well, anything?
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
This November marks five years since I quit watching television news. I don’t miss it, not when I can get actual news from sources around the world. From what I read on blogs American televised news is still less in the business of presenting news and more in the business of slanting information. Why waste time being bullshitted?
Linda Featheringill
Advertising content can be amusing. I’m as old as the hills [and older on some days] but even I’m getting tired of all this public discussion of my innards.
Auto ads on cable are interesting. I realize they can target specific areas with ads. Where I was before, I used to see ads saying that “bad credit okay.” Now we get ads pitched towards “well qualified buyers.”
This particular household, BTW, has two older cars that are completely paid for and in moderate repair. And no, we aren’t “well qualified.”
Fuzzy
You guys have to remember that Issa bought his way out of a felony car theft ring charge and may be the biggest crook in the House. That’s a hell of a distinction.
Frankensteinbeck
New theory: The steadily increasing scandal mongering in the MSM is driven by insecure egos. The chattering class are desperate to pin some scandal, any scandal on Obama to prove that they really are the wise sages who lead American thought.
Marlene
@Patrick: Not only can they not retire they cannot die or the promise is not kept.
Roger Moore
@Tone in DC:
They can’t bear to pass up what might be a really juicy scoop on the off chance that the person giving it to them is a lying scum who can’t be trusted to tell them what color the sky is, especially not when the scoop goes along with the preferred narrative.
Gene108
@Southern Beale:
There are no liberal billionaires.
Conservative billionaires, on the other hand, are more than happy to shovel millions into money losing media outfits to push their agenda.
The corporate media is lazy more than biased. They check to see what the days headlines are and OMG! The Washington Times, The American Spectator and National Review Online are all talking about Benghazi-IRS-Obamacare-gate. We should just do a story on it too, so we do not get left out on the story of the day.
Epicurus
Somewhere, the spirits of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite are hugging each other. The absolute destruction of what was once one of the world’s greatest journalistic enterprises is frightening, but not unforeseen. The real question is when is the rest of the world going to catch up with this nonsense, and stop treating CBS News as a real news-gathering organization? The mind boggles…but then, i saw “Network” when it was first released. It should now be treated as a documentary.
The Other Chuck
@Gene108: There’s that reliable boogeyman of the right, George Soros. That’s about it.
maya
If GWB shot himself in the foot playing with Saddam’s pistol in the bathtub undoubtedly we’d get sympathetic news coverage. ” Iraqi Weapon of Mass Destruction responsible for leaving former War President toeless.”
JWR
Also, regarding The Big Dawg: I don’t give a s*** whether or not his wife is running in ’16 and he’s already campaigning, but right now, he’s not helping at all! The ’90’s are over, and we don’t want to go back, which is what I think of every time I see his face.
Frankensteinbeck
@Gene108:
I think ‘lazy’ is only one part of it. They ARE lazy, and eager to copy and paste whatever a crackpot is shouting, that’s true. On election night 2012 I saw something more. On CNN, the guy covering the election freaked when Obama won. He couldn’t believe it, because America is a ‘center-right’ nation. A few days later, Brokaw gave an impassioned and angry speech about how the middle class needed to learn to do without ‘entitlements’. National journalists are a social group, and I think ‘screw the poor’ conservative thinking is the norm in that group. They don’t need prodding by their bosses or Republicans. They are the archtypical Independent: A Republican too embarrassed to admit it.
Felonius Monk
@maya:
I see what you did there.
Patrick
That’s infuriating considering that Tom Brokaw was part of the media that enabled the Iraq war. And the Iraq will end up costing our nation more than a $trillion. Yeah, we need give up entitlements because incompetent people like Brokaw couldn’t do their job right. Wish we could have had that trillion back.
Elizabelle
CBS and the other networks are broadcasting over public airwaves.
They are making a fuckton of money doing so.
It’s not that onerous to make them cough up some public service broadcasting, and accurately-reported news programs.
I think us plebes should insist on a change in broadcast licensing laws, including bringing back an ACCURACY doctrine.
I am not so sure about a “fairness” doctrine, in which you give the inaccurate side equal time. No more of this stenography and “he said, she said, oh — who can say what’s the truth? — you decide.”
The news broadcasts should not be profit centers, they should be part of the megacorp’s terms of service for using our public airwaves. If that’s not profitable enough for them, let some other entity take over.
Democracy requires an educated public. Television, especially “news” as practiced in this country, is working against that.
Treat us like adults.
Frankensteinbeck
@Patrick:
He was mad. There was venom in his voice, and it wasn’t debt or economic stability he harped on, but the free ride the middle class was getting. Everyone else nodded along like this was the most brilliant speech they’d ever heard – no, worse, like he was explaining inarguable truths to children.
Elizabelle
I wonder if we’d get better broadcast news if we put a salary cap on news journalists.
Isn’t seeing themselves on teh TV enough?
And rotate their beats. They get complacent. Or compromised. (See Logan, Lara.)
Make them hungry.
Mandalay
@JWR:
This, many times over. Bill Clinton is making a bad situation worse. He is spoon feeding Republicans with lines like this:
I can’t figure out his motive, but Bill Clinton needs to STFU and go away.
Tokyokie
I stopped watching teevee news during the debacle of the Florida vote count in 2000. Students from Florida A&M, who had been effectively been disenfranchised by the closing of the campus polling station, then were given the wrong address for where they should have gone instead, were at the state Capitol, chanting, “What about the students?” every time some teevee reporter tried to do a live report. I remember they were making enough noise that the CNN anchors asked the reporter what that was all about.
Except he didn’t know. And he didn’t bother to go over and ask them. The story of the 2000 election, that Bush could only claim victory because of widespread irregularities, (the lost votes at FAMU alone were probably enough to swing the state to Gore) was literally under his nose, and he couldn’t be bothered.
BGinCHI
Remember when it seemed inconceivable that newspapers would be cast into the dustbin of history as news sources?
TV news is next. At least on networks. Lazy, slow, stupid, meet evolution.
Mandalay
@Tokyokie:
There was a thread earlier today about how a blog posting information about administration corruption at Chicago State University was being asked to “cease and desist” by the University’s lawyers. The Chicago Tribune dutifully reported that incident, but has completely ignored looking into the corruption that has been meticulously documented on the blog.
As with the reporter you describe, the story is under right their nose but they can’t be bothered.
maya
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yeah. I’m waiting for that POS to tell what’s left of, his coined,”The Greatest Generation” what ignorant putzes they were by making the financial sacrifices – War Bond and scrap drives, gas and food rationing, in addition to actual service to their country – and paying for the war they fought when the New Conventional (shared)Wisdom of millionaire assholes like Brokaw ( and Timmy) was to take their two major Bush tax cuts first and then (someone other than them and theirs) fights the war. No sacrifice needed at all, folks. Just keep shopping. He helped sell that meme and got rewarded for it handsomely. Any GE war time stock options in your bonus envelope, Tommy?
He should be out of broadcasting and be out selling reverse mortgages to what’s left of that GG instead. Pompous dick.
kindness
@BGinCHI: ‘Reality’ TV is so much cheaper to produce.
JWR
@Mandalay:
I’m pretty sure he’s campaigning for Hillary, looking to differentiate her from the black guy. And I’d lay you odds he hasn’t forgotten ’08, so there’s that..
Jim, Foolish Literalist
CBS’s Jan Crawford (think I got that right) is a long time Jonathan Karl-ish reporter, and IIRC she was the one who found the original Obamacare “victim” the one who didn’t know about subsidies or bronze and silver plans. They also hired Condi Rice to be a “news analyst”, based on her stunning record of honesty, competence, and non-partisanship.
Tome Brokaw is a multi-millionaire and, along with Russert, a pioneer of the Boomers With Daddy Issues and Vietnam Guilt Guild that gave us John McCain and the Iraq War.
Obama did three things to him that Bubba can never forgive: Stole the presidency that was supposed to vindicate his record, passed (near) universal health care, and won two terms with no plurality-asterisk. And if his conduct hurts Hillary, that just proves that his wife may be the smarter one, but he’s the better politician
handsmile
@Southern Beale:
“It’s like the left isn’t viewed as “serious”…”
It”s like!? The left isn’t viewed as “serious” by the national corporate media (the preferred phrase there I believe is “shrill’) nor indeed by more than a few regular commenters on this blog.
Katrina van den Heuvel, the editor of The Nation, is the only representative of the Left who makes a very occasional appearance among the Sunday bobble-heads or writes a very occasional WaPo op-ed piece. Liberals such as Krugman, Dionne, Meyerson, who have major newspaper columns, are treated dismissively when appearing on television with the Village cabal. Maddow does have some national presence, Hayes increasingly less so, and Harris-Perry sadly none at all. Bill Moyers has just announced that he’s retiring once again from public television. The veteran left journalist Amy Goodman and her excellent “Democracy Now” news program is, for all intents and purposes, invisible.
No “traction” is afforded them by the gatekeepers of print or broadcast/cable media for reasons of advertising profit/market share. Stephen Colbert and yes, Jon Stewart, often have more impact inserting progressive opinion into shaping debate.
You are a very shrewd person with an excellent website, so I am clearly missing something here in your comment.
Finally, I will be every bit as annoying in my advocacy of Al Jazeera America as I am with the Guardian in urging people to watch it/read it. Yep, like every other news organization it has an “agenda,” but you’ll be much better informed.
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Love your typo.
He writes some ponderous ones.
Greatest Generation! Hoo yah!
Villago Delenda Est
@Frankensteinbeck:
Only the 1% (of which Brokaw is a member) are entitled to free rides. The middle class needs to learn its place…at the feet of the parasite overclass.
nineone
@Mike in NC:
I’m shocked, shocked to learn that stupidity, greed and racism is going on in the media and Congress.
Yes, but on the bright side given the reality of the demographics we shouldn’t have to put up with this for much longer. (Tweety laugh)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Villago Delenda Est: Google says (so big FWIW) that Brokaw is worth about $70 million. It doesn’t strike me as an absurd guess-timate, considering Jennings left an estate of $25 m, and that was a long time ago and without any book franchise that I can recall.
JWR
Ian Reifowitz over at Kos has a piece up on the Clinton / Obama positioning for 2016 thing. I think Bill really needs to just pull back and/or out of the game for now.
Chris
@Southern Beale:
I don’t think it’s a “corporate media” thing. It’s just the way their society works. There might have been a time when big money needed to buy and bribe the media to make it say what they wanted, but nowadays I think you just don’t rise to a high spot in the Village unless you have just the right outlook. (America is a Center Right Nation. Both sides do it, but liberals do it more. Some stories are Very Serious, others aren’t). Etc. They’re a country club that selects its own members and weeds out anyone who might have unfortunate anti-Narrative tendencies.
rikyrah
Turtle Soup: Desperate Mitch McConnell Announces that He Will Only Talk About Obamacare
A desperate Mitch McConnell announced to the media back home that he
will only talk about Obamacare. The problem is that the ACA is popular
and working well in Kentucky.[….] Sen. McConnell hasn’t seemed to notice that the ACA is working
beautifully in his home state. McConnell refused to talk about his
horrible job approval numbers, or the fact that he is tied with Democratic challenger Alison Grimes in the latest poll.[….]
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/11/13/turtle-soup-desperate-mitch-mcconnell-announces-talk-obamacare.html
Frankensteinbeck
@Chris:
This. They’re all rich and the most senior, respected journalists are all rich, white, old men. The 80s and Reagan formed their society. The pressures of the 24 hour news system made vacuous bullshitters rise to the top. They mingle on a personal, social level with important Republicans constantly. The country club formed naturally, and now it’s self-perpetuating, even self-strengthening. They don’t need pushing.
@rikyrah:
I live in Kentucky. Focusing on nothing but attacking Obamacare should work just fine. It doesn’t matter that Kentucky is a poster child for how great Obamacare is. Hate drives Kentucky as a society, not self-interest.
Chris
@Frankensteinbeck:
Watch “Ridicule” (it’s on Netflix, I believe with subtitles). It’s a movie set in the court of Versailles during its last years and it’s all about someone trying to “survive” in a setting where the nobles are just socialites who spend all their time at parties trying to embarrass and trip up each other in order to win at the status game.
Basically exactly what our Village has become, except for the most part their skin’s too thin to snipe at each other like that – they prefer to stick together and mutually diss the people they judge Unserious.
Jebediah, RBG
@Elizabelle:
Do it on the Huffpoop model. “No pay, but look at all the exposure you’re getting!”
Frankensteinbeck
@Chris:
Sure, but it’s picked up lately. I am speculating (because I like the word speculate) that Obama’s reelection was a blow to their ego. They absolutely think they’re brilliant investigative journalists who shape the conversation and beliefs of the American people, and when Obama got reelected they got slapped in the face with that not being true. Then like spiteful little toads, when Benghazi showed up they tried to make it into an issue America cared about. It didn’t work. Then they did the same with the IRS and whatever that dumb thing was where they thought journalists were being oppressed. My theory is that they’re starting to doubt their status as Great Sages, and they’re trying harder and harder to pin something on Obama because that will reassure them that they are brilliant and important after all.
It is just a theory. There are other explanations.
Tone in DC
@Roger Moore:
Sad but true.
This is getting nauseating. There have been umpteen Benghazi hearings so far. Nothing of any import has come of them. It’s a bit like Whitewater from 20 years ago, but with even less substance. Of course, the M$M took that “shady deal” soooo seriously back in the 1990s. It was irresponsible NOT to speculate.
The major networks’ bobbleheads must wearing a new variation on the old elementary school “kick me” sign. Now, it says “bullshit me”.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Maybe this is old news, and its the sort of news the news doesn’t like to cover, but the head of CBS News, since February 2011– hence the hiring of Condi Rice, I guess-, is David Rhodes, former Vice President of FoxNews. And it all becomes much clearer….
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: From the same link
Liberals everywhere, I tells ya!
Chris
@Frankensteinbeck:
I think you’re right.
Expanding on that; I think every couple generations a president comes along who has his finger on the nation’s pulse in a way the insular mindset in Official Washington no longer does. The result is that all the old power brokers and Wise Men who thought they were the gatekeepers find out they’re now irrelevant, and they can’t do much except stutter “you… you… you can’t DO THAT!” Can be good or bad – Roosevelt was like that, so was Nixon. If Obama’s the latest version, then, that’s what’s going on. (The Village is just one of the gatekeeper groups).
Gene108
I just watched the OZY interview Clinton did that has people freaking out.
He made two critiques. The first was how the SCOTUS got it wrong on Medicaid expansion opt out and states are hurting the working poor AND hospitals by not taking the expansion.
He then talked about a guy he met, who made above 400% of the poverty limits and whose premiums doubled and something should be done so he could keep his insurance.
It is interesting the media made the second point headline material, while ignoring the first part.
PS http://www.ozy.com has the interview on line. It runs a bit under five minutes.
Gene108
@Chris:
The White House press corp agreed not to publish any photos of FDR showing him as a cripple. They did not have the same adversarial relationship the WHPC has with Obama.
Unless you meant Teddy Roosevelt?
Chris
@Gene108:
No, I meant Franklin, because I didn’t know that. I always thought it just wasn’t widely known outside of his inner circle. Correction accepted. Maybe the press corps really was better back in the day.
(Though FDR did most definitely piss off a lot of the old guard’s power brokers, but apparently the media wasn’t among them).
J R in WV
@Southern Beale:
The whole purpose of insurance companies is to collect money from “customers” and not pay any money out if a claim is filed. Any money they pay out is a dead 100% loss to the insurance company, and probably comes directly out of the bonus pool for the top level managers in charge of denying payments to claimants.
If you sit down and read your homeowners insurance policy, probably a 100+ document, you find that it is that long because they spell out all the myriads of things their policy doesn’t cover. In the end, it is a miracle if you get help with a new roof after a storm, which explains why, 3 years after Katrina, when we drove through southern Louisiana, mosgt of the roofs were blue tarps.
Why would health insurance be any different?
In this state, you can’t even sue an insurance company any more after an auto accident. You have to sue the poor sap that accidently hit you, and hope that their insurance company will then make money available to them to pay you. A futile situation for the actually injured party!
johnny aquitard
@Southern Beale:
The demographic mainstay of the teapartiers and the GOP is age 50 and older. The boomers are age 50 to almost age 70 now.
The boomers have always had the traction. Do you not remember when the left did get the traction in the media? Yeah, back when they were younger and before they were The Establishment, and smashing the status quo benefited them.
They’ve called the tune, culturally, politically and economically for at least 40 years. Every major cultural and political development in that time has been a result of or in reaction to, the boomers. American culture has been boomer culture. Until 2008. It was even more pronounced in 2012. (That teaparty hissyfit isn’t just a racist response to That One getting in the White House. It’s also a collective tempertantrum of a cohort faced for the first time of not getting their way. Boomers have never come of age in the way every other generation has and even their own children already have.
ABC is after this demographic for the same reason every marketer has been chasing them since the 70’s: There’s a lot of them and they have the most disposable income.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
Which is why tumbrels ARE the solution for the vermin of the Village.
Wipe them out. All of them.
gene108
@Chris:
I think better is a relative term.
The media basically worked hand-in-glove with those in power to give the people a version of America that the masses found appealing, which is what hiding FDR’s lameness from polio was and/or ignoring JFK’s extramarital affairs and/or not pointing out that the HUAC investigation of Hollywood personnel did nothing but ruin people’s lives and suppress freedom of expression.
The Civil Right’s movement, Vietnam War coverage and Watergate and subsequent investigations into the unsavory bits of government, by the Church Committee for example, I think gave people an overblown sense of the media being the Fourth Estate that kept government in check.
The problem with the current media is everything moves towards sensationalism and some sort of middle-school level hazing, where sixth graders start picking on kid ‘x’ and you jump in with a jab* because you want to be like the rest of the kool kidz.
And since there are more right-wing media outfits dedicated to punching liberals and Democrats, kid ‘x’ invariably turns out to be a liberal or Democrat, so the reporting gets lopsided really fast.
EDIT: In most cases the hazing would be verbal and not really physical, like calling kids names.
**********************************************************************************************************************************
As far as the “good old days” goes, I think the print media, i.e. newspapers, always had a slant. You had a Democratic paper and a Republican paper in a town and that skewed their news reporting and people sort of knew that.
Because the government regulated the distribution of over-the-air licenses for radio and T.V., the government exacted a level of public service from broadcast networks’ news coverage and made it be objective. So people came to trust Walter Cronkite.
In the late 1980’s and into the 1990’s the laws that forced objectivity in broadcast media were rolled back and we thus got infotainment 24/7.
johnny aquitard
@Gene108:
No, not lazy. The corporate media is corporate. They are not paid to be diligent and there have been a number of examples where individual reporters were punished by their corporate owners for it.
The bias is because of who writes their paychecks. Lazy is the term we mistakenly use to describe the external manifestation of the bias because at face value it looks like carelessness, lack of professionalism, indifference to thoroughness.
It’s how the Bush administration ignored evidence against the existence of WMDs. ‘Lazy’ was a strategy and later an excuse for fixing the facts around a policy.
Chris
@gene108:
“Better” is definitely a relative term. What I meant was, from what you said it sounds like the media wasn’t a total partisan class at the time, obediently carrying water for one party and undermining the other at every opportunity. If anyone nowadays had pictures of Obama weakened by polio (or an equivalent sensational thing), no way in hell would it not get published.
catclub
So did Obama read the entire bill (TM) and then lie?
or did he not know what was in the bill, so he was mistaken?
Or did he do both, as is the usual Obama is fascist and a communist accusation?
Anoniminous
@Frankensteinbeck:
Mine is they are odious toads who need a pink slip and a slap upside the head. If the readership for mass media keeps declining the first is assured. The second, however emotionally gratifying, is probably not in the cards.
handsmile
@gene108: , @johnny aquitard: , @Chris:
As so often when the topic is the corruption/venality/incompetence of the corporate media, this quote from Upton Sinclair neatly summarizes the matter:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
As Sinclair wrote this in 1935, the “better back in the day” proposition may be answered as well.
johnny aquitard
@Frankensteinbeck:
These journalists’ agenda are a reflection of who buys from the advertisers who watch their shows. Sure they’re narcissistic and full of their own awesomeness, but so’s their audience.
Just exactly who is their audience? You don’t get one without the other. It’s their media, not the journalists’. How many people under 40 do you think watch these clowns?
Boomers are who the advertisers are pitching to. They are the media’s audience and meal ticket. And so it is they, not the journalists, who actually like to feel like they are the kingmakers of cultural life in America, which to be fair, they pretty much have been. Up to now.
Egypt Steve
To be fair, there are a hell of a lot of Cialis, AARP, Denture-cream and cruise-ship ads on MSNBC.
Matt McIrvin
@Southern Beale: Just today I saw someone on Facebook giving the Bush-dead-ender “Saddam’s WMDs went to Syria” line. It does double duty as an attack on Obama now, because now Assad is punking Obama by hiding Saddam’s secret WMDs.