Media Control: Starving the Beast
By Montag | Related entries in General Politics, MediaHere is a great post about the Bush Administration’s dealings with the press.
Press Think: Rollback
…[The Bush Administration's] policy toward the press has many strengths as a working piece of politics, and supporters of it abound within the Bush coalition. I believe the ultimate goal is to enhance executive power and maximize the president’s freedom of maneuverâ€â€? not only in policy-making, and warfare, but on the terrain of fact itself.
Much of this stuff almost goes without saying, nowadays.
Is this politics as usual?
Or have the Bush people taken this to a new level?
Beyond the pale?
July 20th, 2005 at 4:57 am
It’s time to recognize that we’re now completely in the era of the “partisan press” in America. In the wake of “Rathergate”, and the despicably one-sided (anti-Bush, pro-Kerry coverage) during the election campaign, the Bush camp wisely realizes that it will not get a fair hearing from the mainstream media. In reaction, the Bushies have settled on a strategy of circling the wagons and keeping their heads down which is a completely justified strategy in face of enemy fire. I watched Dateline two nights ago and I believe the host was Cuomo junior. At other times Stephanopolos is the stand-in host. This on a show that claims to be objective. Cuomo addressed the Rove-Plame controversy in typically pro-Democrat fashion. Completely omitted from the report was Joe Wilson’s egregious lie that his wife had nothing to do with his being chosen for the Niger yellowcake junket. This fact was established in a report of the bipartisan Senate Intelligence committee
July 20th, 2005 at 9:36 am
I find it difficult to believe - after Rathergate, Easongate, the Jayson Blair/Howell Raines debacle, the daily lies of omission regarding what’s happening in Iraq and elsewhere in the ME, Kim Jong Il’s reinvention by the LAT, the ongoing hyperbole over GITMO, the selective memory loss over Judith Miller’s previous choice of anonymous sources, Noam Chomsky’s idiotic predictions of millions of casualties in Afghanistan, the “100,000 dead Kosovars” canard, the “120,000 Iraqi civilian casualties” canard, Jamie Shea’s “200,000 refugee babies”canard … and on and on and on - that anyone can fail to see how the media has not run completely roughshod over the terrain of truth itself.
IMHO, if there is any *one* thing resposible for creating the polarization this blog seeks to avoid, it’s APNBCREUTERSCBSTIMEABCNYTVIACOMTIMEWARNERETAL, now a self-styled special interest “victim” group unto itself.
July 20th, 2005 at 10:16 am
How can you possibly mention “partisan” press without mentioning Fox? This seems very short sighted. And by the way, the coverage of Kerry v. Bush was a wash. With all the pushing of the “flip-flop” meme I think we can be fairly certain that neither candidate really got a fair shake.
However, treating the press with contempt and using the tactics of “we don’t like your reporting so we’re not going to answer your questions” isn’t really the way to engender cooperation. It’s the press’ job to keep the Administration on its toes. They have to be constantly asking questions and digging in. Politics can be fairly corrupt and the media acts as watchdogs. Sometimes their barking up the wrong tree. Sometimes they sink their teeth into something worthy. That’s the risk we run to have an active and informed media.
And I will say that Stephanopoulos has been particularly centrist after becoming the anchor for This Week on ABC. Just because he’s a Dem doesn’t mean Nightline all of sudden becomes a haven for liberal ideology. It’s not like he pulls a Brit Hume and becomes a true conservative commentator on the weekends.
In any event, keep the discussion going. Am I completely full of it?
July 20th, 2005 at 12:05 pm
While it’s not constructive to take the approach of “we don’t like your reporting so we’re not going to answer your questions”, neither is “we’re only going to report on what you’re doing wrong, and bury what you’re doing right on page 15, but you’ll just have to suck it up because we’re the Media”.
Or maybe you think the media’s not saying that. Maybe they aren’t. It sure feels to a lot of people like they are, though, even if that’s just unintentional bias or even if it’s purely illusory.
It feels to me like this was a war of escalation between the White House and the media. Any perceived slight was answered by a bigger one. Neither party is wholly innocent. Meanwhile, I’m starting to feel like if the media’s going to exert so much control over this country, we should start getting to elect reporters.
P.S.: When typing the above, I originally typoed “reporting” as “preporting”. I briefly considered leaving it in.
July 20th, 2005 at 2:40 pm
Justin, I think if you check you’ll find that Tim Groseclose’s research disagreed with the likelihood of the “coverage was a wash” notion.
All press is partisan biased in some way. The overwhelming amount of liberal bias, however, is pretty thoroughly documented and I don’t believe the effects have been any clearer than what we saw during the last election. But that perception, of course, depends upon what one believes, e.g., whether John Kerry was more or less of a lying opportunist than GWB.
That said, I absolutely agree that Nixon-style hostility toward the press isn’t doing the public interest or the fight against islamic terrorism any favors. It is, however, a two-way street. And the press’ hostitility toward this administration is just as much a factor. In the context of the bias I believe pervades the rest of the news, I think it’s the factor to blame.
Then again, I guess I’m the only guy around here who thinks it patently absurd that the President should be held accountable for responses to an questions on an issue that was created from scratch by the media, beaten to death by the media, pushed into a special investigation by the media and then used by the media to take upon itself “victim” status in its own reportage when the investigation backfired. And all this is over an issue where a crime - or even an impropriety by anyone except perhaps Bob Novak - has yet to be clearly identified. But like I said, that’s just me… ;-)
July 20th, 2005 at 2:51 pm
Again, how much credibility should the general public award the media when — time and again — we see that the media pays no price for being wrong, gets small reward for being correct, and and therefore takes enormous risks to be first?
If the public doesn’t — and shouldn’t — trust the old media to convey a message accurately, why should any one with a message to publicize offer it to the old media, either?