As a writer, I've written a few articles I wasn't too thrilled with, largely because they were written under deadlines and I thought I could have done better with more time. Other times I wrote the odd piece (usually on my blog) based on a misunderstanding of the facts, and I've issued corrections as a result. But while I try to do my best, many in the Big Media seem to be happy to coast on their achievements and their generous salaries . . . and one media figure finally admitted so.
When MSNBC's Savannah Guthrie spoke this morning of a "gang of six" in the U.S. Senate trying to work out a bipartisan blueprint for the 2012 federal budget, Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND), told Ms. Guthrie that he and the other five senators in this group are not a gang. (Of course they're not; can you imagine Conrad, the nerdiest man in the Senate, as a gang member?) Ms. Guthrie apologized, saying that it's common practice to label any aggregation of public figures a "gang," just as it's common to name a scandal by attaching the word "gate" as a suffix to the cause of the scandal (Billygate, Debategate, et. al.) after Watergate. She said that the media happen to be lazy.
Oh, my God! A Big Media personality admitted it! The Big Media are lazy! They don't challenge what the government tells them! They don't investigate serious conflicts of interest, like Clarence Thomas's possible involvement with Citizens United (honorable exception: Rachel Maddow)! They don't fact-check! And they're too lazy to come up with new names for scandals! That would explain why the senior George Bush - awarded the Medal of Freedom this week by President Obama - was able to say in 1980 that nuclear war was "winnable" (it was recorded on video) and to be able to get away with denying he'd ever said that four years later. Or why his son was able to get us into an unwinnable war in Iraq over non-existent nuclear weapons without being challenged by the press.
For a more recent example, how about John Boehner's claim about the growth of the federal payroll? Boehner said yesterday that if federal budget cuts result in federal employee layoffs, "so be it. We're broke." Boehner - who became Speaker of the House by promising to help create jobs - complained that over 200,000 federal jobs had been created in the first two years under President Obama's watch. But a 2010 Washington Post report found that only a tenth as many government jobs - 20,000 - had been created since 2002. The journalist who reported this did his/her homework. But I have yet to see any of the overpaid media personalities on MSNBC or even on public television point this out, and I doubt anyone on broadcast media or on CNN has done so. (Fox News? Yeah, right.)
How did I learn this factoid? I read about it on the Huffington Post, which has not sold out entirely despite its merger with AOL.
Look, I like Savannah Guthrie. She and Chuck Todd actually make a cute couple on MSNBC's "The Daily Rundown." But if she agrees that the Big Media are lazy, maybe she and Todd should set an example and do some more serious reporting on their show.
They can start by getting rid of their daily reporting of the soup du jour in the White House cafeteria.
When MSNBC's Savannah Guthrie spoke this morning of a "gang of six" in the U.S. Senate trying to work out a bipartisan blueprint for the 2012 federal budget, Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND), told Ms. Guthrie that he and the other five senators in this group are not a gang. (Of course they're not; can you imagine Conrad, the nerdiest man in the Senate, as a gang member?) Ms. Guthrie apologized, saying that it's common practice to label any aggregation of public figures a "gang," just as it's common to name a scandal by attaching the word "gate" as a suffix to the cause of the scandal (Billygate, Debategate, et. al.) after Watergate. She said that the media happen to be lazy.
Oh, my God! A Big Media personality admitted it! The Big Media are lazy! They don't challenge what the government tells them! They don't investigate serious conflicts of interest, like Clarence Thomas's possible involvement with Citizens United (honorable exception: Rachel Maddow)! They don't fact-check! And they're too lazy to come up with new names for scandals! That would explain why the senior George Bush - awarded the Medal of Freedom this week by President Obama - was able to say in 1980 that nuclear war was "winnable" (it was recorded on video) and to be able to get away with denying he'd ever said that four years later. Or why his son was able to get us into an unwinnable war in Iraq over non-existent nuclear weapons without being challenged by the press.
For a more recent example, how about John Boehner's claim about the growth of the federal payroll? Boehner said yesterday that if federal budget cuts result in federal employee layoffs, "so be it. We're broke." Boehner - who became Speaker of the House by promising to help create jobs - complained that over 200,000 federal jobs had been created in the first two years under President Obama's watch. But a 2010 Washington Post report found that only a tenth as many government jobs - 20,000 - had been created since 2002. The journalist who reported this did his/her homework. But I have yet to see any of the overpaid media personalities on MSNBC or even on public television point this out, and I doubt anyone on broadcast media or on CNN has done so. (Fox News? Yeah, right.)
How did I learn this factoid? I read about it on the Huffington Post, which has not sold out entirely despite its merger with AOL.
Look, I like Savannah Guthrie. She and Chuck Todd actually make a cute couple on MSNBC's "The Daily Rundown." But if she agrees that the Big Media are lazy, maybe she and Todd should set an example and do some more serious reporting on their show.
They can start by getting rid of their daily reporting of the soup du jour in the White House cafeteria.
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Since I wrote this post earlier today, Chris Matthews covered the conflict of interest stroy involving Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He apparently spoke at a meeting in California sponsored by the Koch brothers, who supported Citizens United in that awful Supreme Court case. Common Cause is trying to look into possible conflict of interest, but Matthews seemed less than sympathetic to their argument.
Update: Boenher's lie about federal employment was exposed on the February 17, 2011 edition of "The Daily Rundown." And I forget what the White House soup of the day was.
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