John and old friend ED both had posts today that relate to something that is hypothetically interesting but practically nonexistent: conservative journalism.
I thought the Fox reporter in John’s video acquitted himself pretty well (as did the Democratic committee) and, in fact, there is no reason to assume the guy is a conservative hack, even if he willfully turns a blind eye to the fact that his reportage is used for hack conservative purposes. A lot of the best reporting in Rochester comes from a tv station that is owned by Clear Channel. But I doubt many of these reporters — or many of the lower level Fox reporters — would describe themselves as conservative. Very few journalists of any kind do. And that is why the notion of better conservative journalism, which ED discusses at length, is something that is purely theoretical.
Not only are there no decent sources of straightish news that identify as conservatives, but look at any of the better-respected conservative commentators (Bobo, Sully, Chunky Bobo, etc.) and you’ll find that the arguments are generally based on C.S. Lewis or Burke or Hayek or some other dead non-journalist. Very little is based on anything that originates from contemporary reporting (no, right-wing think tank propaganda doesn’t count).
Conservatives are not interested in conventional, fact-based journalism. They’re interested in what they think of as principles.
Conventional, fact-based reporting is a liberal activity, just as teaching, academic research, social work, public defense, and public broadcasting are liberal activities. Can we just accept that once and for all and move on?
arguingwithsignposts
Why can’t I post?
ETA: I tried three times to laugh my ass off at the thought of “better” conservative journalism, and none of them posted. WTH?
DougJ
@arguingwithsignposts:
Speaking of which, send me your review of that BCS book when you have it and I’ll post it.
arguingwithsignposts
@DougJ:
Haven’t received the book yet, but I definitely will when I get it.
morzer
It seems a bit unfair to blame Burke or CS Lewis for the witless and spineless panderings of the new Ignorati. Both said some genuinely interesting things, both had some sense of the value of facts, and both would never have gone along with the rampant abuse of power and war crimes of the GOP. Perhaps Sullivan and Bobo have read these writers – but they clearly read them very superficially if so.
John
“Conventional, fact-based reporting is a liberal activity, just as teaching, academic research,…”
This one is especially good, since the fundies love the Intelligent Design Creationists, who love to go on about their degrees and training, while never actually doing any science (i.e., testing their hypotheses).
Meanwhile, the liberals are doing science, while wingnuts are fond of saying, “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”
DougJ
@arguingwithsignposts:
Shoot, it went to somebody else then, now I’m confused….
arguingwithsignposts
@DougJ:
Damn. I was looking forward to reading it, too. Oh, well. You’ve got my addy if you have any other review copies you’re not interested in. Shoot me an e-mail.
DougJ
@morzer:
I’m not blaming them! They’re dead and they weren’t reporters when they were alive. They can hardly be blamed for the fact contemporary wingers want to substitute their decades-old rumination for fresh reporting.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Repaired at no extra charge.
@morzer: See also the Bible and the U.S. Constitution.
Really, a whole lot of assholes have made a living out of being functionally illiterate.
DougJ
@arguingwithsignposts:
Will do. I thought this one had gone to you, but it went to someone else.
Dave Trowbridge
“Conservatives are not interested in conventional, fact-based journalism. They’re interested in what they think of as principles.”
Umm, what good are facts without principles? As a gospel anarchist I certainly hold no brief for what passes as conservatism today, but really, that’s a very odd implied dichotomy.
El Cid
This
is it.
Things that don’t fit the party line are Not True. If you do not 100% repeat the most right wing talking points all the time, you are biased, and librul, and probably soshullist.
Not for nothing did the right wing movement of the late 1960s and 1970s begin setting in place the alternative scholarly and ideological and policy advisory system to replace the traditional ones, since those simply could not be counted upon to serve conservative causes.
Sharl
“Reality has a well-known liberal bias”
– Stephen Colbert, 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner (link – actual statement at about the 5:10 mark).
morzer
@DougJ:
The point is hardly whether their thoughts are old – rather whether they are deep enough and good enough to be worth taking seriously. After all, we still read and debate ideas from Aristotle, Plato, Hobbs, Machiavelli, Montaigne etc – and in doing so we find ourselves given greater insight and made more profound. A more profound reading of Burke would after all unquestionably benefit many so-called conservatives. For that matter, we have often talked here about our wish that they actually read the Constitution, which is, when all is said and done, really quite an old document.
The problem is not that the conservatives read “old” writers – the problem is that their reading is superficial, and serves merely as a source of convenient quotations that apparently support their own distinctly modern and distinctly shallow ideology.
This is an important distinction to be clear about.
As A Fish Called Wanda reminds us:
“Apes don’t read philosophy!”
“Yes, they do, Otto, they simply don’t understand it”.
El Cid
@morzer: Wait — are you suggesting that the pundits’ Oxford Book of Quotations go back on the shelf for a bit? That’s unfair!
morzer
@El Cid:
I sometimes doubt that they’ve reached such an advanced stage of literacy, mio Cid.
Mark S.
Well, just to play devil’s advocate, two names pop up in my head: Dave Weigel and Marc Ambinder. Weigel’s not really conservative but he ain’t a liberal either; I don’t want to call him libertarian because he’s nothing like the dildos at Reason (and I mean you, Radley Balko). But if you’re interested in teabagging, he’s the place to go.
I don’t read him a lot, but Ambinder has some good sources and does actual reporting, which is a rarity over at McCardleland. He had the best reporting on the McCain camp during the election.
arguingwithsignposts
@Mark S.:
Weigel, who once said he had great respect for Dick Armey. Fuck him. (and this was after he was canned at WaPo).
Here’s the link and the exact quote: “I said Gingrich had a “screwed-up tenture” because Republicans I admired, like Sen. Tom Coburn (R, Ok.) and Dick Armey, had serious problems with how Gingrich ran the House.”
Sly
@Dave Trowbridge:
When “principles” are a filter through which facts must be cleansed of anything that might impugn the integrity of personal biases, both become meaningless.
Roger Moore
I don’t think that’s true. The search for facts is non-ideological. I’d even say that it’s inherently non-ideological, since the goal is to allow the facts out without regard to the consequences. It only looks as though those pursuits are liberal activities because the facts happen to be in the liberals’ favor right now. But there’s nothing in liberalism that guarantees that liberals won’t wander off into their own epistemic closure.
morzer
@arguingwithsignposts:
Gingrich does have a “screwed up tenture” in his pants, but I am not sure that was what Weigel meant.
morzer
@Roger Moore:
This is only a reasonable argument if you ignore the right wing war on science and promotion of religion and ignorant certitude. Sorry, but the GOP aren’t even pretending to take facts seriously right now.
Mark S.
@arguingwithsignposts:
Oh, he can be infuriating at times, like when he didn’t think Paul’s statements on the Civil Rights Act were a big deal. Mighty white of you, Dave.
DougJ
@morzer:
I agree, the problem is that they think this is a substitute for contemporary observation.
DougJ
@Mark S.:
Ambinder purports to be a straight, non-ideological reporter and Weigel’s ideology is all over the map. I don’t think either identifies as conservative.
DougJ
@Dave Trowbridge:
And what good are principles without facts?
freelancer
@morzer:
Yes. Glenn Beck says that Evolution is a scam and Global Warming is a hoax, but you better be careful and buy some food insurance!
Roger Moore
@morzer:
My point is that liberals are happy with facts, and conservatives unhappy with facts, right now because that’s the way the facts happen to lie. But that has more to do with where the ideologies currently lie in respect to the facts, not with their attitude toward facts in general. IOW, any ideologue is happy with facts that support his argument and unhappy with ones that oppose it; that’s what it means to be an ideologue. Liberalism may be more inclined to adjust its aims to account for the facts than conservatism is, but neither one is free from the tendency to ignore inconvenient facts.
morzer
@Roger Moore:
But this is where you aren’t looking at how the GOP approaches facts. They have no interest in them, and are postively averse to them. That’s different from the facts not being in their favor. Look at how they attack any and all experts on any given subject. Look at the systematic falsehoods and evasions by their candidates.
DougJ
@Roger Moore:
I don’t think that’s right. First off, let’s be clear: the definition I’m working with here is ideological self-identification. Maybe if you draw up some scale and ask questions, then I, you, and everyone here is actually conservative according to some or another definition. That’s not what I’m talking about.
In today’s world, people who call themselves conservatives dislike conventional journalism, people who call themselves liberal do not, for the most part.
El Cid
This right here is a right wing thing of beauty.
Via Sadly No!, from Talking Points Memo:
That is fucking awesome. That’s like an Arrested Development level of bullshit instant exculpatory explanation.
Suck It Up!
Kentucky Stomper:
tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/10/kentucky-stomper-i-stomped-because-of-back-pain.php
C Nelson Reilly
@El Cid:
That guy should apply for disability benefits
El Cid
@C Nelson Reilly:
And then dress up as Sam Adams and demand the fedrul gubmit stop with all the soshullism and make all these lazy people get jobs.
freelancer
@El Cid:
Profitt to Fox Local: “And don’t tape this so it looks like I’m screaming-”
arguingwithsignposts
@El Cid:
L to the O to the muthafuckin’ L!
El Cid
‘Your honor, I swear, I was just taking his car because my back hurts and I really needed to get home, and unfortunately in all my pain I forgot to ask his permission. It’s an honest mistake.’
birthmarker
@El Cid: I could add several other things to DougJ’s list of liberal activities, (such as certain religious groups) but instead I would like to mention the fact that the “stompee” at Paul’s event was carrying a sign from MoveOn that read “RepubliCorps.” This has been a buried lede, in my opinion.
Edit: MoveOn is spelling it RepubliCorp.
annp23
He may be the exception that proves the rule, but Daniel Larison is a serious writer and always worth reading. I know he does opinion, but it’s opinion that’s far more fact-based than your typical Friedman bullshit.
I also think Shep Smith has his moments as a real reporter. For instance some of his reporting on Katrina.
John Bird
Look, if you’re a Fox News ‘reporter’, you can expect me to acknowledge that you’re paid to write and even to talk to people, but you can’t possibly expect me to consider you a journalist.
John Bird
@DougJ:
I am always bowled over by kids my age who pull out Edmund Burke.
I mean, interesting points about gradual reform and all, but they came rolling out of a guy who was directly opposed to democracy and spent most of his time talking about how the vote was the most depraved evil ever to enter the hands of ordinary men.
Those words about reform were written not in response to the French Revolution, but in response to the preposterous idea that British subjects should elect their government and that kings were normal people like anyone else.
Many young conservatives literally do not know this. They have never read any single book all the way through, as far as I can tell.
It’s like quoting Mao approvingly on cultural reform. I mean, maybe the poet should be elevated. But, you know, all those people who got disappeared and executed? Also relevant to the thought of Mao.
DougJ
@annp23:
Larison is the one example I had in mind. But, honestly, at the risk of offending, he is, like many Irish-Catholics, an idiot-savant, Bob Somerby’s conservative twin.
I don’t Shep Smith would self-identify as conservative if he weren’t paid to do so.
Another Bob
OK, DougJ, but only if you acknowledge that rich conservatives had to work real hard to make their dough and we all owe them a tremendous amount of admiration.
FlipYrWhig
Not John Stossel? Hidden camera, wasted money, “Give me a break!”, conservative reporting!
BGinCHI
Conservatives: cigars, golf, treating women like shit (this takes the form of “fucking you would be doing you a favor” if I even acknowledge you exist), and being afraid of everything.
I’d also point out that there are also no conservatives who are good at throwing a frisbie.
It’s unpossible for them. Go ahead. Imagine Bobo doing it. Frisbie I mean.
ornery curmudgeon
“They’re [Conservatives] interested in what they think of as principles.”
Hahahahahahahahah.
Thank you, DougJ. I needed that. Unless you’re calling self-interested brutality a principle.
redoubt
Because Michael Kelly is what happens when conservatives try to “report.” Safer and more lucrative to just make up a bunch of stuff from your office chair.
Howlin Wolfe
@John Bird: Ditto with Adam Smith.