“I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God.”
–Newsweek editor Evan Thomas, maintaining his journalistic integrity to the bitter en…oh, wait. Never mind.
(Via Newsbusters.)
UPDATE: The Anchoress goes off on what she calls the “suckling press,” as well as a list of other links of commentators skewering Newsweek‘s resident idolator.
(Hat tip: Dave Moody.)
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June 6, 2009 at 5:22 pm
The anchoress has a ‘spit coffee through your nose’ funny post on this. http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/theanchoress/
(sorry, my html coding is not up to snuff…)
dm
June 7, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Well, if you don’t have the real God, a “sort of” god will have to do. But the real thing is a whole lot better.
June 7, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Yes, but as with all misguided worship, the Messiah of the groupthink media will simply not be allowed to fail, lest his disciples lose hope and faith.
June 9, 2009 at 7:29 am
I didn’t find it very funny at all, to tell you the truth. The right in the US is doing exactly the same thing to Obama that the left did to Bush. If it was wrong to do it to Bush, why is it ok to do it to Obama?
June 9, 2009 at 8:10 am
I’m not sure what you mean, Kate. What is the right doing to Obama that the left did to Bush?
June 9, 2009 at 8:44 am
Indeed. I’m a member of ‘the right’, and:
1) I don’t think Sotomayer should be filibustered.
2) Obama’s economic plan should be given a fair chance to work or not work.
3) I regard Obama’s current position on declassifying sensitive memos to be responsible.
4) His collaborative approach to healthcare reform, while not a silver bullet, has been constructive, at least so far.
Finding a member of the left during the Bush years who would have taken all 4 postures on all 4 key areas would’ve been a fool’s errand. I want Obama to succeed. I would like nothing more than to be able to vote for him in 3 years based upon his performance. What gets me in the crosshairs of the left is that I don’t think he’s a Savior, and I object to the way in which the press in particular treats each Obama event as if it were a tent revival – with them being the main people waving their hands and rolling in the aisles shouting Amen. I take it as a serious insult to my intelligence when these same folks tell me night after night that they’re dispassionate and objective about the way they do their job.
June 9, 2009 at 9:53 am
“the press in particular treats each Obama event as if it were a tent revival – with them being the main people waving their hands and rolling in the aisles shouting Amen.”
Yeah, that never happened to Bush. LOL. It seems a little early for folks on the right to start the revisionist history. Two words Jason: Fox News.
Or how about Jeff Gannon’s (aka James Guckert) questions in the White House Press Room that read like Homeric Odes to the great and powerful Bush, or the members of the public hand-picked to ask questions at press events, or of course any number of right wingers on Fox News who not only attempted to deify Bush, but suggested that anyone who didn’t was a traitor. And when the Bush administration wasn’t getting enough good press, they just *paid* people like Maggie Gallegher to write for them.
The left has its sycophants in the press as does the right. You have Fox News, we have MSNBC. It’s annoying on both sides, but I think most people can pretty much recognize that garbage when they see it. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with pointing it out when it happens, but to suggest that it doesn’t happen on both sides is naive at best and hypocritically dishonest at worst.
June 9, 2009 at 10:59 am
Be careful Alan. I didn’t suggest that media bias doesn’t go both ways. For you to suggest I did is presumptive at best, inflammatory at worst.
June 9, 2009 at 11:35 am
Didn’t say that you did. To suggest that I was is a bit self-absorbed at best, illiterate at worst. Only the first paragraph was addressed to you. That the “you” in the last paragraph is followed by “we” and not “I” is a clue that it is the second person plural, not the second person singular.
I was simply noting the general trend regarding the far right’s obsession with the MSM and the fact that, in general, the far right often suggests that the media is only biased toward liberals and liberal POV, when clearly that isn’t the case. I was also following from David’s question, detailing what I think that the right is doing to Obama that the left did to Bush, while simultaneously agreeing with Kate.
In other words, following on with the conversation among a group of people.
Sorry if that was confusing to you. Next time I could diagram my sentences for you, or perhaps use bullet points.
June 9, 2009 at 11:45 am
As a matter of grammar, 2nd person plurals still include those being addressed. This means as a matter of grammar, I was included in the charge, just as ‘we’ would include you (2nd person singular) as part of a larger plural group.
June 9, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Charge? Nah. Just making a point regarding the general state of affairs. I might suggest not taking the comments of a random, complete stranger on a blog quite so personally nor so seriously.
(And actually the “we” meant the left in general, following from the first sentence. Actually it didn’t include me since I almost never watch TV news of any sort, including MSNBC.)
As for the general “charge”, it is certainly no more directed at you personally than your sweeping generalizations about “the left” were directed at me personally, generalizations that you’ll notice I chose not to get offended about. But if you wish to feel offended, feel free.
However, I’m happy to hear that you recognize that the media on both the right and the left both have their sycophantic elements. I wish more folks recognized that. In any event, I’m glad we agree. We can continue to argue about our agreement, if you wish.
June 9, 2009 at 12:52 pm
See, that’s my whole point. I don’t care about the sycophants – they’re a distraction not only in and of themselves, but also to the more substantive question of bias and how it impacts governance and public policy. Two very recent and fairly non-partisan studies cited by Bob Samuelson in the Washington Post last week are fairly decisive in concluding that ‘mainstream’ media outlets, not just the mouthfoamers on cable, have treated Obama much differently and much more positively than Obama’s recent predecessors. They are doing their job in a sycophantic way, all the while claiming not to be sycophants and not engaging in advocacy journalism. It’s either complete self-denial or deliberate deception for these two things to co-exist. It matters less to me that the result of all this is that Obama (and more importantly, his policy proposals) are not subjected to healthy scrutiny. It’s that too much of the press is exempting itself from the very kind of self-reflective oversight that it often demands from those they cover. They seem completely oblivious to how their prior-order ideological commitments (what Polanyi called ‘personal knowledge’) influence how they do their job, the kinds of questions they ask (and don’t ask), the kind of stories they pursue (and don’t pursue), and what they think is newsworthy. None of this happens in a vacuum, but I have yet to hear an influential voice in the press thoughtfully articulate this, acknowledge it, and be forthright about it. And to my way of thinking, if they can’t even do that much, if they’re that incapable of owning up to the obvious, then what exactly makes them reputable when it comes to reporting the news? It goes way past hypocrisy and dim self-awareness. It’s a threat to a true free press that truly holds the powerful as equally accountable as possible, because it reduces the press to being a mouthpiece of the powerful. The fact that this reduction is entirely too voluntary on their part doesn’t change the danger it creates.
June 9, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Well, it’s not entirely true that they’re not self-reflective. They eventually spent some time issuing mea culpas for not doing any real reporting before the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. That self-reflection lasted about a week, I think, which is surprisingly long for an industry that has the attention span of a gnat with ADD.
I agree that it would be great to have a more objective press. However, I think that expecting anything like objectivity may be a bit idealistic (but then I think objectivity is pretty much a myth anyway.) I’m not sure there has ever been a time when the media was objective, or even minimally more objective than it is now. Murrow, for all the encomiums given about his journalistic integrity, was hardly objective. Certainly the antics of W.R. Hearst would be another example from nearly a century ago. And the things that journalists published about the founding fathers … heck, back then newspapers were little more than bulletin boards for anyone with a quill and an ax to grind. The press during John Adams’ presidency, for example, was a study in the politics of personal destruction.
Instead of expecting the improbable (or the impossible) like objectivity from journalists, I think it is important to become an intelligent consumer of the news so one can recognize the biases inherent in a process that is more about money than informing the public. While it seems you’re more idealistic than I am that the current state of affairs can get any better, perhaps I’m too idealistic in thinking that most folks are clever enough to see these biases pretty clearly, so I’m less concerned that this is the threat to a truly free press that you think it is.
I notice, for example, that a google search for the phrase “I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God.” returns 312,000 hits, a quick scan of which shows most of them to be less than favorable toward Newsweek and Evan Thomas. Seems to me the jig is up. In fact, instead of expecting the media to police its own biases (fox vs. hen house) it seems that the new media is doing a reasonable job of policing the old media.
Now we only need something to police the new media.
June 9, 2009 at 2:30 pm
A press that’s ineffective because it’s not trusted is not a free press. It’s a self-neutered press that leaves a catastrophic hole in the fabric of a free society – a hole that has been and will be inevitably filled by Nietzchean will-to-power.
I don’t expect an objective press. True objectivity is a fantasy because it’s a basic denial of the human constitution as given to us in the Bible. We are moral agents. The up side is that this makes us responsible for our actions. But it also means that because we’re not machines, we can’t turn off our passions and predispositions when we go to work. My problem is that journalism schools preach the opposite, and we can see where that’s gotten us – an oblivious press that’s largely a walking contradiction. They’re not being honest with themselves, so I fail to see why I should expect them to be honest with me. We don’t need objectivity. We need honesty. The former can’t be achieved, but the latter is possible.
Being ‘intelligent consumers’ only goes so far. It doesn’t guarantee that any media outlet will be accurate on any story at any time, and it encourages the level of distrust of the messenger that is ultimately destructive even if it’s intellectually appropriate. That’s what the ‘new media’ is primarily doing. They serve a role, but the degree to which they are contributing to more accurate reporting of critical stories is quite questionable. And none of it really advances the ball on resolving either our language chaos or our information chaos. This breeds factionalism, which is what we largely have in America today. By choosing advocacy over honesty, the press is contributing to the torn fabric. There is no way the doctrine of a free press was envisioned for this purpose.
June 9, 2009 at 3:44 pm
I actually think that distrust of the media is quite healthy. But then, I’m a skeptic and think that distrust of nearly anything is quite healthy.
Mostly I’ve got nothing more than a shrug to offer critiques of our media. It’s an open market. If people wanted honesty, there would be a market for it. Instead we get the shouting on Fox, the snark on MSNBC, and the bobbleheads on CNN.
It isn’t as if the viewers are blameless here either, eh?
June 9, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Villifying him.
June 10, 2009 at 10:29 pm
BTW, Jason, it might be good for you to use a last name or some other form of ID on this website. It seems that we both have similar arguments with Alan on here on various occasions, and I would hate for him to get confused which one of us he is fencing with.