THINKing

From Joe Klein:

The story of the day out here in Minneapolis is
the McCain campaign’s war against the press … So what’s going on here? Two things. McCain is just plain angry at us. By the evidence presented in the utterly revealing Time interview, he’s ballistic. This is a politician who needs to see himself as the man on the white horse, boldly traversing a muddy field…any intimations that he’s gotten muddied in the process, or has decided to throw mud, are intolerable. The second thing is more insidious: Steve Schmidt has decided, for tactical reasons, to slime the press. He wants the public to believe that there is an unfair–sexist (you gotta love it)–personal assault going on against Palin and her family. This is a smokescreen, intended to divert attention from the fact the very real and responsible vetting that is taking place in the media–about the substance of Palin’s record as mayor and governor. …There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized. But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is “a task from God.” The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme.

I agree 100% – true journalism is dead. And it’s not just the stories that the MSM select to cover, it’s the language they use within those stories and the way they’re presented. For example, if there’s a story on some sort of scandal with a political figure, you’ll rarely see his political affiliation identified if he’s a Democrat, but if he’s a Republican, it’s in the lead. Also, you’ll never see the terms “left-wing” or “liberal” associated with Democrat politicians in a news story, but the terms “right-wing” and “conservative” (sometimes “ultra-conservative”) are used with impunity when describing Republicans. People are getting more sophisticated about the way the media work, and they’re voting with their wallets – as they should. As for Joe Klein, he knows this … he’s just indignant that a) people ARE figuring it out and/or b) someone’s calling him (and his colleagues) out. Talk about unprofessional – he’s publicly angry at a candidate/campaign that he is supposed to be covering objectively. And Katy Spiecha, it’s interesting that you would try to refute Harry by citing a left-wing website like “Media Mutters” which is funded by George Soros and others who are also behind moveon.org.