Saturday, November 13, 2004

MSM - ignored, irrelevant, still lying

Liz Halloran, Hartford Courant, on whether the MSM is ignored and irrelevant quotes PressThink's Jay Rosen.

He says the Bush administration has effectively stripped the mainstream press - and in particular the White House press corps - of its relevancy by largely ignoring it and delivering its message through other media.

Previously, 'the White House press and the president needed each other,' Rosen said. 'The relationship was assumed to be of common interest.

It's a rare admission from the MSM and good for GW. It's the only piece of reporting in the piece. The rest is typical, "we are the good guys" and we are the "honest brokers" and Brownstein (Los Angeles Times) claiming "major newspapers very quickly published detailed accounts undermining the [Swift Boat veterans] claims" and so the story should have gone away. Typical of the agenda-driven Brownstein - who works more on behalf of the Democrat party than just about any journalist - to claim that kind of power. Most of us are still very grateful that the Swift Boat Veterans had an opportunity to tell their story, an opporunity that the left-of-Lenin Los Angeles Times would never provide. Undermined? I dont' think so. The book was a bestseller, John O'Neill is still giving interviews, and the consensus seems to be that the Veterans are more credible than say, John Kerry or, say, Ron Brownstein.

That's the problem with journalism's introspection. They might acknowledge their faults in private, although that's not a given, but they sure as heck would never admit their irrelevancy in print. Take such stories for what they are - pep rallies for their dwindling number of readers who still believe such total BS.

Ownership notes: Chicago Tribune owns both the Los Angeles Times and the Hartford Courant.

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