An Indictment Of Right Leaning Journalism By Ben Domenech
Wednesday, November 16th, 2011Ben’s Transom newsletter was particularly good today and he saved the best for last. It’s so important I’m sharing it here.
Here’s the nutshell: The Left-leaning journalism investigates the right. The Right-leaning journalism provides commentary and (and Ben doesn’t say this, but I am) when they do rarely investigate, investigates the right after being given oppo research by someone on their own side.
The right is resource-deprived and lazy with the resources they do have.
Here’s what Ben says [subscribe here]:
RISE OF THE CONSERVATIVE THUMBSUCKER CLASS:
David Freddoso isn’t wholly wrong here, but I think his career is instructive in the real failings of conservative journalists. http://vlt.tc/cu Freddoso is one of a number of solid shoe-leather investigative journalists with a conservative bent – he’s now at the Examiner as an opinion page editor. Phil Klein was the same – now he’s an opinion columnist at the Examiner. So was Tim Carney – same deal. The general trend among conservatives is to ditch the investigative thing and move into what we might call Novak-lite opinion writing; they talk to sources and cover events but rarely break news. They take the second or third bite out of something, not the first. And they generally leave it to Gawker to file the FOIA requests. http://vlt.tc/da
There’s a whole class of people in DC who live this trend, wasting writing talent on minor league punditry which ought to be applied to keeping politicians accountable and rooting out scandals on the other side. Instead of offsetting in some small way the overwhelming advantage the left has among investigative journos, the sights of these writers are nearly always trained on their own party (Carney, for example, criticizes both sides, but much of his aim is at remaking the right into a less big business friendly entity). At the same time, the big publications on the right have gravitated toward three kinds of stories: the thumb-sucking or humorous rehash of what’s in the news; the big think-piece commentary about some social or political meme; or the throw-off profile of a friendly Republican politician. The effect is that these publications have little or no impact on the left or the broader conversation – their influence is limited to the right and stays there.
This trend is a real shame, and it’s one of the reasons that story-breaking on the right about the left has been almost entirely conceded to the amateur or semi-pro class online. The biggest story of the year on the right is Solyndra – a story broken by ABC News. The second biggest story of the year on the right is Fast & Furious, which is now resulting in Congressional investigations and calls for Eric Holder’s resignation – it’s a story broken by CBS News. In a just world, these stories would’ve been broken first on the cover of a major conservative publication. But that hasn’t been true since, well, the days of David Brock.
At the Redstate confab in South Carolina (this was pre-Solyndra) I pointed out onstage that Obama’s administration had been to that point remarkably scandal free. I pointed out that scandal had followed the Chicago team for decades, and that we’d learn about the scandals eventually, but likely only after everyone was out of office. This is an indictment for every journalist on the right who has the capability to investigate but spends their time on opinion writing instead. It’s no longer debatable: Andrew Breitbart has done more for the cause of conservative investigative coverage than any of the right-leaning outlets under Obama (Schweizer works . And that’s something the DC-NY conservative professional thumb-suckers should be ashamed of.
As for Freddoso – who’s no more than an acquaintance, but again I genuinely like his work – yesterday is a bad day for him to be throwing this stone. He spent a good hour on Twitter deriding Rick Perry for calling Sam Brownback “John” at an event based on a Twitter report from a Bloomberg journo, a report which turned out to be completely false – Perry was referring to John Archer, a candidate for Congress who was in attendance at the government reform event. http://vlt.tc/cv It’s not that there’s anything wrong with that –but the point is that the Examiner doesn’t have anyone covering that event to correct him, and neither do any of the right-leaning outlets. It’s a different problem from the lack of investigative-focused stuff, but it illustrates the same truth. Writers on the right mostly don’t do journalism; they do play-by-play.
So much of the investigative work is being done by bloggers and they are under-funded and often over-worked.
One thing Ben doesn’t mention is how the right-leaning DC journos don’t want to be hated. They hang out with other journalists and want to be included. The social pressure in DC is liberal. Always.
Journalists are people (most of them). They want to be liked, included and respected. The way to be a skunk at a garden party is to criticize Democrats or investigate them.
Note also: bloggers and commentary from outside DC tends to be a lot more strident, and, I’d like to add, truthful. That social pressure isn’t there. It’s difficult to write about friends.
Herman Cain: Untenable Positions
Monday, November 7th, 2011
1. I like Herman Cain.
1.(a) Well, I liked the Herman Cain who was giving inspiring speeches and firing up a movement. The blaming, obfuscating Cain? Not so much.
2. I do not want Herman Cain to be our President because of things like this. [I have openly endorsed Governor Rick Perry in the Republican primary.]
3. I can still like Herman Cain even if I think he mishandled the crisis.
1. The press is grossly biased. See also Bill Clinton and John Edwards.
2. The press was right to post the Cain case. It was news. Yes, the press is unashamedly hypocritical: Edwards was BIGGER news.
3. The press should be as bull-doggedly after the Democrats as they are the Republicans.
1. Sexual harassment laws are vague and can harm people.
2. Sexual harassment happens and is wrong when it does.
3. It strains credulity that four women are making up charges (just like it did with Clinton).
3 (a). Women coming forward in this day and age know that they will be destroyed by the media (left, and now, it seems, the right) when they bring forth charges against popular men. Why on earth would a woman come forward in this climate? Some say money or fame. Really? These women would likely be middle-aged now or mid-career and with kids. They have NO good reason to come forward in the face of this.
1. The left is far more racist and sexist than the right.
2. The left would bring these charges against ANY conservative, no matter the race or gender. They hate conservative ideology and especially their special-interest groups (blacks, women, other minorities) who embrace conservatism.
3. The race card should not be played. Period. Unless there is actual racism.
What bugs me about this whole thing is that conservatives are using liberal defenses they’ve long reviled:
1. Talk radio wants to destroy the traditional media so badly that the Big Three ignore how their posture negatively influences the conservative movement, ultimately. They end up sounding like they excuse sexual harassment. They end up sounding like they’re blaming the (possible) victims which is exactly the disgusting thing the press did with the women who came forth about Bill Clinton. It is wrong. Period. In addition, their fury at the media sounds like ardent support of Herman Cain as candidate for President at any cost. This is ridiculous and ultimately undermining of them.
2. People who support other candidates who take glee in this story should beware. Candidates who pile on with the media destruction of another Republican should also beware. The media loves destroying conservatives. Remember the media lovefest over John McCain? Slobber, slobber — until he became the nominee. The same thing is happening in the conservative political field now. The media, one by one, is systematically making it seem like all conservatives are awful. They’ll take a magnifying glass to little problems and blow them up into huge issues. It is distressing that people participate in this game because their favored candidate is spared. It is NOT okay.
3. Defending the indefensible is indefensible. It damn well DOES matter if Herman Cain or any other nominee sexually harassed or assaulted a woman or women.
I understand the fury at the press. After watching Jay Rosen in his journalism class at NYU where he discussed manipulating the front page of the New York Times to create a guy like Barack Obama and destroy conservatives like Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, I wouldn’t be sad if the whole media system got nuked. Either that, or they should just out their biases instead of being deceitful, hypocritical moralistic destroyers of truth.
I get it. But hot damn, I haven’t been part of the conservative blogosphere six years to become the very thing I hate.
Conservatives should:
1. Be open about biases.
2. Print the truth.
3. Do not defend wrong.
“By any means necessary” works for leftists and it is destroying the fabric of our society. See the Occupy Wall Street folks? They believe that anything is fair game — children as shields, crapping on police cars, raping, stealing, breaking things.
No.
We win nothing if we win this way.
Herman Cain is well-liked, an amazing speaker, he energized the Tea Party movement. He is loved. It seems he is also a flawed person.
The women who have stories, if they’ve watched this media storm, would be terrified to come forward. Remember what the feminists did to Monica Lewinsky? It made me sick.
Some people I very much respect are treading awfully close to this evil territory. A woman who has a true story to tell, shouldn’t fear being assassinated by conservatives. CONSERVATIVES. That is the provenance of the left. It should stay theirs. This is sickening.
More thoughts here and here and here.
The Purpose Of The GOP Debates
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011
There’s only one purpose for the Republican debates and none of them are as follows:
1. To inform
2. To educate
3. To enlighten
The ONLY purpose for the GOP debates is so the media can make all the candidates look like complete unelectable idiots.
So far, they’re succeeding. Gotcha questions and stupid expressions are heightened by a GOP-hating media meanwhile all of Obama’s ignorance and mistakes are minimized and avoided. For those not paying attention, it might seem like Obama is the only rational alternative.
GOP folks look at them and think that the purpose is to influence primary voters. Really, that’s tangential. What’s most important is gathering as much data for Obama’s media team as possible.
For the media, it’s a win. For the GOP, it’s a net loss no matter who the nominee ends up being.
NOTE: If the GOP really wanted to educate the public, they’d sit down in front of conservative audiences with Republican and conservative moderators and answer questions and the media would be forced to show up. The side benefit would be that people could actually make an educated decision.
Marco Rubio: American. Exiled Cuban.
Friday, October 21st, 2011
Marco Rubio punched back against the defamatory Washington Post piece. Liberals are loving it because Marco Rubio — an ardently pro-American Senator of Cuban descent can not only lead, but he can give a speech, too — scares them to death. More here.
Articulate minority? Why, he should be a Democrat. How dare he be uppity?
Since he isn’t, it’s a mission to destroy him as a person.
A friend of mine, Bettina Inclan, also of Cuban descent was incensed at the hit and said this privately and I asked if I could share her thoughts. Here’s what she said:
I am beyond disappointed by the Washington Post and their attack piece on Marco Rubio and his family’s history fleeing Cuba’s political turmoil. I keep wondering why they deiced to run this piece now? Is it for the financial gain of article’s author Manuel Roig-Franzia who has an upcoming unauthorized biography on Rubio?
I’m not sure what to be more upset about, Washington Post’s sloppy reporting, their total lack of understanding of the Cuban exile experience, how they conveniently ignore Cuban history or their veiled attempt to try to bruise Marco Rubio, a rising Hispanic Republican star ….
My grandfather suffered for 13 plus years in a Cuban prison because he refused to become a Communist. His experience as a political prisoner and my family’s flight for freedom in America has shaped my political beliefs. My story is similar to thousands of Cuban-Americans whose family history might be slightly different, yet their pain is very much the same.
Marco Rubio embodies what we feel, what we’ve experienced and the hopes and dreams of our parents and grandparents. He has succeeded not only because he been able to effectively communicate the Cuban American experience but also because he represent thousands of exiles and immigrants who might have come to America for different reasons, but all are searching for their American dream…
For the Washington Post to say that he is not a “real” exile is beyond insulting. The facts stand, his family left Cuba because of a dictatorship. They tried to go back, but because of Fidel Castro, they couldn’t return to their beloved homeland. Like many Cuban exiles, the Rubio family felt like all was lost. In 50 years dates and exact details get blurry and bruised. Yet, even with half of century past, the exile experience is still raw and in many ways sacred…
The Washington Post is opening a huge can of worms. They attack Rubio for not being a real Cuban exile. This hit piece on Rubio is tied to birther attacks that Rubio is not American-enough to be considered for President of the United States of America. It’s an unfortunate game… I hope that if anything comes of this, more people learn about the harsh realities many Cuban families have faced and the sacrifices they had to make in search of freedom in this great country.
Like Bettina, I think the Washington Post and the DC media, hell-bent on helping Democrats, is making a big mistake here. The country is becoming more diverse, not only racially, but ideologically. Independents make up a huge portion of the voting demographic. This kind of thing doesn’t sit well. You’re hurting the Democrats, WaPo. I know that’s not your intention.
Here is Marco Rubio’s own statement in full:
Dear Friend,
The Washington Post on Friday accused me of seeking political advantage by embellishing the story of how my parents arrived in the United States.
That is an outrageous allegation that is not only incorrect, but an insult to the sacrifices my parents made to provide a better life for their children. They claim I did this because “being connected to the post-revolution exile community gives a politician cachet that could never be achieved by someone identified with the pre-Castro exodus, a group sometimes viewed with suspicion.”
If The Washington Post wants to criticize me for getting a few dates wrong, I accept that. But to call into question the central and defining event of my parents’ young lives – the fact that a brutal communist dictator took control of their homeland and they were never able to return – is something I will not tolerate.
My understanding of my parents’ journey has always been based on what they told me about events that took place more than 50 years ago – more than a decade before I was born. What they described was not a timeline, or specific dates.
They talked about their desire to find a better life, and the pain of being separated from the nation of their birth. What they described was the struggle they faced growing up, and their obsession with giving their children the chance to do the things they never could.
But the Post story misses the point completely. The real essence of my family’s story is not about the date my parents first entered the United States. Or whether they travelled back and forth between the two nations. Or even the date they left Fidel Castro’s Cuba forever and permanently settled here.
The essence of my family story is why they came to America in the first place; and why they had to stay.
I now know that they entered the U.S. legally on an immigration visa in May of 1956. Not, as some have said before, as part of some special privilege reserved only for Cubans. They came because they wanted to achieve things they could not achieve in their native land.
And they stayed because, after January 1959, the Cuba they knew disappeared. They wanted to go back – and in fact they did. Like many Cubans, they initially held out hope that Castro’s revolution would bring about positive change. So after 1959, they traveled back several times – to assess the prospect of returning home.
In February 1961, my mother took my older siblings to Cuba with the intention of moving back. My father was wrapping up family matters in Miami and was set to join them.
But after just a few weeks, it became clear that the change happening in Cuba was not for the better. It was communism. So in late March 1961, just weeks before the Bay of Pigs invasion, my mother and siblings left Cuba and my family settled permanently in the United States.
Soon after, Castro officially declared Cuba a Marxist state. My family has never been able to return.
I am the son of immigrants and exiles, raised by people who know all too well that you can lose your country. By people who know firsthand that America is a very special place.
My father spent the last 50 years of his life separated from the nation of his birth. Separated from his two brothers, who died in Cuba in the 1980s. Unable to show us where he played baseball as a boy. Where he met my mother. Unable to visit his parents’ grave.
My mother has spent the last 50 years separated from her native land as well. Unable to take us to her family’s farm, to her schools or to the notary office where she married my father.
A few years ago, using Google Earth, I attempted to take my parents back to Cuba. We found the rooftop of the house where my father was born. What I wouldn’t give to visit these places where my story really began, before I was born.
One day, when Cuba is free, I will. But I wish I could have done it with my parents.
The Post story misses the entire point about my family and why their story is relevant. People didn’t vote for me because they thought my parents came in 1961, or 1956, or any other year. Among others things, they voted for me because, as the son of immigrants, I know how special America really is. As the son of exiles, I know how much it hurts to lose your country.
Ultimately what The Post writes is not that important to me. I am the son of exiles. I inherited two generations of unfulfilled dreams. This is a story that needs no embellishing.
Marco Rubio
Andrew Malcolm Gets A New Job!
Thursday, September 15th, 2011
So excited to announce that Andrew Malcolm, formerly of the L.A. Times and currently my Malcolm and Melissa blog partner will now be writing for Investors Business Daily! Here’s the press release:
LOS ANGELES, CA (September 15, 2011) — Investor’s Business Daily is proud to welcome acclaimed blogger Andrew Malcolm to its Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial team with a new blog at IBD’s award-winning site, Investors.com.
“Andrew has built one of the most incisive and entertaining political blogs,” said Chris Gessel, IBD’s Executive Editor and Chief Strategy Officer. “He is a veteran journalist who’s also worked inside politics. His experience and insight are both unique and impressive, and Andrew’s enthusiasm, wit and exuberance are infectious. I’m sure our readers will feel the same when he kicks off his new blog on Investors.com next month.”
Malcolm is a veteran national and foreign correspondent and editor with 36 years experience in journalism and another eight in government and politics, including a national presidential campaign. He’s been based in Chicago, San Francisco, Vietnam, Tokyo, Toronto, New York and the United Nations.
The winner of numerous journalism prizes including the National Headliners Award, the George Polk Award, and a Pulitzer Finalist in 2004, Malcolm for the past four years has written the highly-rated Top of the Ticket political commentary column at LATimes.com. He is one of the top-ranked conservative writers on Twitter, where he has 73,000 followers, and is a regular commentator on HotAir, LibertyPundits, XM/POTUS, Fox & Friends and KABC.
Malcolm is also the author of 10 books, including two best-sellers and two that became TV movies. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Northwestern University and was an adjunct professor of communications at Montana State University.
Waxman Wants A Media Bailout
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009From Accuracy In Media’s Danny Glover:
The California Democrat, who chairs the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, didn’t say it quite so bluntly, but his point was clear. “Government’s going to have to be involved, in one way or the other,” to save journalism from an ongoing “market failure” that will only worsen without intervention, Waxman said.
He spoke at the second day of an FTC workshop on how journalism can survive in the Internet era.
Waxman bemoaned the demise of newspapers across the country, including in Denver and Seattle, and warned that the troubling media trends will continue. “This recent depression in the media sector is not cyclical,” Waxman said. “It is structural.”
“Congress can’t impose a solution” to that structural problem, he said. But the government should partner with the media industry to ensure a sound future for journalism. Waxman praised the record of “independent” reporting in U.S. history and said it has implications for democracy.
“There needs to be a consensus within the media industry and the larger community it serves” before the government acts, Waxman said. “We have to figure out together how to preserve that kind of reporting.”
How are all these bailouts not takeovers turning the country into a socialist state where even the newspapers are owned by the government?
Obama’s Desire To Control Fox News, The Media & Everything–UPDATED
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009Donald Sensing has a must-read piece about the Barack Obama strategy. I’ll quote one paragraph, but you must go read the whole thing:
And to think that George W. Bush was mocked for saying, “If you’re not with us, you’re with the terrorists.” The White House is laying a foundation of future media relations that does two things. First, they are identifying, and most importantly trying to get all the media to identify, good and bad media coverage, both terms defined by the White House. Second, they are nudging each reporter and news organization to move further toward the “good” side by trying to drive a wedge between them and Fox News.
What flashes to my mind is Scientology. Stay with me here. One of the very first precepts in their ideology is to take control–control everything. Another precept is to match tone. That is, if someone is combative, match the person’s tone.
And then what comes to mind is this: all cults have the same traits. Controlling the message, building a personality, stagecraft, etc. The Obama administration came to power by force of jingo. Now, tough decisions must be made, personnel choices committed to. The people watch and judge these decisions. The people don’t like what they see.
Since President Obama doesn’t want to bend his agenda or bring it to the center, his only choice is to control the medium, the filter through which the agenda is seen. Fox News is the only fly in the ointment. He figures the other members of the press are too stupid to question him.
The Obama administration is filled with Marxists, utopians, and workers with fluff resumés. It’s better if no one looks too closely. The president’s agenda is meeting with opposition from the American people. The only way to change that is to try to harm the messenger. Really, the only way to do that is to harm all messengers.
There is only one voice President Obama wants the American people to hear and it’s his own.
UPDATE:
The Politico has more:
All of the techniques are harnessed to a larger purpose: to marginalize not only the individual person or organization but also some of the most important policy and publicity allies of the national Republican Party.
Dunn said that in August, as the president’s aides planned for the fall, they made “a fundamental decision that we needed to be more aggressive in both protecting our position and in delineating our differences with those who were attacking us.”
“It was a time for us to look at the extraordinary success we’ve had in terms of legislation but also to look at where we needed to be more aggressive in defining what the choices are, and in protecting and pushing forward our agenda,” she said.
The campaign underscores how deeply political the Obama White House is in its daily operations — with a strong focus on redrawing the electoral map and discrediting the personalities and ideas that have powered the conservative movement over the past 20 years.
A former national security adviser said that Robert Gibbs now sits in briefings with the military. So even the war in Afghanistan and Iraq is now politicized.
The idea is to control every thought and message out there. And were it not for a few rare exceptions, they would.
More at The Underground Conservative.
Obama’s Big War With Fox News Makes Him Look Small..And Reveals His Relationship With The Press
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009Ruth Marcus calls out President Obama (uh oh, no scoops for her):
Where the White House has gone way overboard is in its decision to treat Fox as an outright enemy and to go public with the assault. Imagine the outcry if the Bush administration had pulled a similar hissy fit with MSNBC. “Opinion journalism masquerading as news,” White House communications director Anita Dunn declared of Fox. Certainly Fox tends to report its news with a conservative slant — but has anyone at the White House clicked over to MSNBC recently? Or is the only problem opinion journalism that doesn’t match its opinion?
The interesting thing here is that President Obama has received nothing short of fawning adoration and tenderly delivered, incurious questions from the rest of the press corps save a few notable examples. He probably gets less love from basketball team members. The press, unfamiliar with physical endeavors and the kinship of teams, takes loyalty to a whole new level. Obeisance thy name is modern journalism.
And then there’s Fox News.
Fox’s collective sin is not loving enough. Bill O’Reilly makes me throw up in mouth a little every time he opines about Obama’s bravery for coming on his show. Puhleeze. And all the round-tables have at least two Obama apologists for their “fair and balanced” coverage. And Shepherd Smith? When he’s not gazing into a mirror, I imagine him gazing at glossy, signed 8x10s of The One.
And yet, it’s just not enough.
Barack Obama makes himself look like a silly man fighting Fox. People who actually watch all the networks know that a roomful of Depression-affected hookers couldn’t give the President more attention than the current press corps. So his quibbling rings hollow.
And why do the rest of the press care about this cat fight? Well, it reveals their own bias, for one. By obsessing over Fox News, President Obama, by default acknowledges the rest of the press serves him and serves him well. While that’s the truth, the Press would prefer that it not be so overtly acknowledged. It’s embarrassing. Still, he does love us….sigh.
The press should be more embarrassed. So should the President of the United States. But they’re not. They’re just a little piqued that other people are seeing the love affair so obviously. They thought they were keeping a secret! Turns out, the joke’s on both of them. Everyone sees the “special relationship” between the press and Obama. Everyone.
People seek a bit of fairness. That’s why Fox News is doing so well.
H/T Memeorandum
More On Rush & Race
Saturday, October 17th, 2009Rush defended himself, as expected, handily in his Wall Street Journal editorial yesterday. Here’s a bit:
The sports media elicited comments from a handful of players, none of whom I can recall ever meeting. Among other things, at least one said he would never play for a team I was involved in given my racial views. My racial views? You mean, my belief in a colorblind society where every individual is treated as a precious human being without regard to his race? Where football players should earn as much as they can and keep as much as they can, regardless of race? Those controversial racial views?
The NFL players union boss, DeMaurice Smith, jumped in. A Washington criminal defense lawyer, Democratic Party supporter and Barack Obama donor, he sent a much publicized email to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell saying that it was important for the league to reject discrimination and hatred.
When Mr. Goodell was asked about me, he suggested that my 2003 comment criticizing the media’s coverage of Donovan McNabb—in which I said the media was cheerleading Mr. McNabb because they wanted a successful black quarterback—fell short of the NFL’s “high standard.” High standard? Half a decade later, the media would behave the same way about the presidential candidacy of Mr. Obama.
The double-standard, the lies, and the collusion of the media should cause all fair-minded to pause.
A fellow blogger here this weekend said to me, “Why are people still watching the news? They lie.” Well, it is difficult for people to believe that all the networks shape the narrative, push a point of view and outright deceive their viewers. Even when people poll noting the bias, it’s another thing to fully believe it.
Rush is just one very visible American who got slammed by the new power brokers. It’s not much of a stretch that any average American could be next.
Shocker: Conservatives Not Racist
Friday, October 16th, 2009Gather a bunch of white good-old Georgia boys in a room and ask them questions. Wait how long it takes til they bring up race and blame black people.
It won’t happen. Even if James Carville really, really, really hopes it would happen:
Instead of focusing on these intense ideological divisions, the press and elites continue to look for a racial element that drives these voters’ beliefs – but they need to get over it. Conducted on the heels of Joe Wilson’s incendiary comments at the president’s joint session address, we gave these groups of older, white Republican base voters in Georgia full opportunity to bring race into their discussion – but it did not ever become a central element, and indeed, was almost beside the point.
So, will the media let it go? Doubtful.
