All the news that's......

I had this big post I had been working on excoriating the media for being exceptionally thin skinned about any sort criticism. I am actually kind of disappointed I did not post it actually, it was chalk full of vitriol and links galore.

But after reading the Newsweek piece on Dr. Paul Krugman (an oft cited individual round these parts), I just did not have the rage anymore.

It would be like yelling at a wall. The mainstream press, just does not get it what its role is supposed to be. And this quote from the Newsweek's Evan Thomas positively distills exactly what the problem is in media today:

If you are of the establishment persuasion (and I am), reading Krugman makes you uneasy. You hope he's wrong, and you sense he's being a little harsh (especially about Geithner), but you have a creeping feeling that he knows something that others cannot, or will not, see. By definition, establishments believe in propping up the existing order. Members of the ruling class have a vested interest in keeping things pretty much the way they are. Safeguarding the status quo, protecting traditional institutions, can be healthy and useful, stabilizing and reassuring. But sometimes, beneath the pleasant murmur and tinkle of cocktails, the old guard cannot hear the sound of ice cracking.

When those who are supposed to hold the "establishment" in check or to some sense of accountability, dismiss that duty for greater access and essentially become the "establishment", the country and our discourse has lost something very valuable.

When the stories of the day are about who is up or down and less about substantive issues. Why is this story not covered more? Instead we listen to shrill and histrionic proclamations by political figures. That are never really checked versus reality. There is not even the pretense of accountability. Senators can be for something when their party is in control and absolutely apoplectic when the other party is, as this wonderful piece by Jonathan Chait in 'The New Republic' illustrates:

If you do not follow Senate arcana for a living, you have probably never heard of reconciliation until the last few weeks, when it has suddenly emerged into the public debate as a terrible weapon with fearsome consequences. A recent front-page Washington Post article described reconciliation as a "shortcut." Republican Senator Judd Gregg cast the tactic in the most dramatic terms. "You're talking about running over the minority, putting them in cement and throwing them in the Chicago River," he wailed.

The notion that reconciliation represents some radical and extreme partisan step has settled in so deeply in part because numerous Democrats are making the same case, albeit in slightly less hysterical terms. Eight Democratic senators signed a letter opposing the use of reconciliation to pass a cap-and-trade bill limiting carbon-dioxide emissions. Reconciliation, they wrote, "would circumvent normal Senate practice and would be inconsistent with the administration's stated goals of bipartisanship, cooperation, and openness." Several Democrats also oppose using reconciliation to pass health care reform. Democrat Mary Landrieu offered up a somewhat less melodramatic argument when she said that reconciliation "was intended for deficit reduction, and it should not be used for other things."

Reconciliation may have been intended for deficit reduction, but it has been often used for other things, such as deficit expansion--as in the case of the Bush tax cuts, which Landrieu voted for. (As did Gregg, who, as my colleague Jonathan Cohn discovered, was happy to support reconciliation for proposals like drilling for oil in ANWR when Republicans controlled the majority.)

These things are commonplace.

Then you have this piece in the Washington Post, chronicling the activities of the Khmer Rouge and low and behold they used water-boarding on prisoners there! Even more shocking is that the writer of the piece (Tim Johnston) called it torture. This is a first for the Post. It has been common knowledge for sometime that the United States has used water-boarding, yet the Post has not referred to our uses of water-boarding as torture. However someone else does it and it most definitely is. Jason Linkins has a good take down here.

Any criticisms that are levied at the media, as a whole, are dismissed as partisan/ideological/illegitimate complaints. Regardless of the legitimacy of those claims. The recent Stewart vs. Cramer dust up would be a good example of this, with the inevitable response from Cramer (and those in the media) here. Basically a collective, "It's not our fault! It isn't our job to police those we cover and adjudicate the veracity of their statements!".

Ummm...yes it is. That is the presses role.

It is the reason, why Charlie Savage's reporting was deemed worthy of a Pulitzer, and the reason it was so sad to me (though the reporting was quite good and exactly the sort thing that should win a Pulitzer) is the comment from his editor about why he won:

"What Charlie does and the reason he won this richly deserved Pulitzer is because he covered what the White House does, not just what it says," Globe Editor Martin Baron told his staff as they hoisted champagne and cheered Savage this afternoon in the newsroom.

Seriously questioning what people in power are saying, and checking the veracity of those statements now is the stand-out of journalistic achievement.

Okay I lied about the vitriol....and the links..

-cheers