An interesting commentary by echidne on one of my favorite targets, the press. Interesting, I should say, as far as it goes, which is, like most of the commentary I see on the MSM, identifying symptoms. I tend to take a slightly darker view of life, apparently, and tend to zero in on the personal and sometimes seamy.
This article at Politico is quite a good summary of many of the criticisms the blogs have directed at the way the mainstream media covers politics. It defines three problem areas for political reporters: seeing election campaigns as horse races (or as theater performances), living in an echo chamber, and having personal biases influence the reporting. And oh boy but are those problem areas!
The Poliltico piece she cites essentially covers the same points in more detail. What I'm seeing underlying this is a sort of double-barreled motivating force: the "in-group" mentality, and power -- what the blogosphere has begun to call "the Village." The Village, of course, is the Washington insiders -- the press, pundits and politicos -- who honestly do seem to think that the rest of us out here should just go back to sleep and let them make all the decisions. The problem is, they're doing a really crappy job of it. It's symptomatic of the whole syndrome that William Kristol, who has not been right about anything in so long that everyone's forgotten when he went off track -- if he was ever on it -- is now an NYT OpEd columnist. As if thh Times didn't have enough problems with credibility. The point is, of course, that the whole situation there is a joke, and the only ones who don't get it are the Times
The whole power thing started with the Reagan presidency, simply because reporters who got out of line lost access. That phenomenon has transformed itself into a true in group -- what some on the left (most notably Atrios) call "the kewl kids." That's a sobriquet that may be more accurate than even Atrios realizes: remember how the high-school in group was so sure of themselves, at the top of the food chain as they were, while the rest of us thought they were jerks (even though we secretly wanted to be them)? And remember when we realized just how irrelevant they were?
Guess what?
The New Hampshire call (and the reporting on the presidential race to date, as disgraceful as it's been) is merely the latest in a long list of egg-on-face moments that by right should be shaking up the press establishment. Know what? It won't. It will be swept under the rug along with the other things that the press doesn't want to think about.
In the meantime, they still think they are molding public opinion. The problem with that is, as much as the idea gives them a collective woody, the public doesn't seem to be buying it any more.
But that's the syndrome: they are the kewl kids, and they're the kewl kids because they tell everyone what to think. The only way they manage to maintain that idea is that they don't listen to anyone but each other. Meanwhile, the rest of us aren't paying attention very much any more.
Something in the back of my head is saying "emperor, clothes."
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