UPDATED: Why won't media rebut Sarah Palin's hypocritical attack?
July 28, 2009 9:20 am ET by Eric Boehlert
Just wanted to add some historical context to Jamison's excellent point yesterday about how pundits and reporters dutifully noted that Palin, in her resignation speech, took all sort of cheap shots at the press; insisting journalists "quit making things up." (She basically called them unprofessional hacks.) This coming from a woman with a deep, rich history of making things up.
Not only didn't many in the press point out that hypocrisy, but journalists have remained mostly mum about Palin's comically weak batch of media criticism. (Here's Phil Bronstein who gives Palin a pass for her press attacks.)
Okay, here's the historical context: Back in 2002 when Al Gore granted an interview with the New York Observer and unloaded on the political press corps, and delivered a far more compelling and articulate critique of the failings of the Beltway press corps, all hell broke loose among talking heads who practically sprinted in front of microphones and keyboards, hoping to be the first to ridicule Gore for having the audacity to call out their shortcomings.
*Time's James Carney called Gore's comments, "abject whining in the face of defeat" and complained that "the whining was excessive."
*Fox News' Charles Krauthammer called Gore insane: "I'm a psychiatrist. I don't usually practice on camera. But this is the edge of looniness, this idea that there's a vast conspiracy, it sits in a building, it emanates, it has these tentacles, is really at the edge. He could use a little help."
*Detroit News columnist Thomas Bray lamented Gore's "sad" "rant."
*The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes compared Gore to a 9/11 conspiracy theorist: "This is nutty. This is along the lines with you know, President Bush killed Paul Wellstone, and the White House knew before 9/11 that the attacks were going to happen. This is -- I mean, this is conspiratorial stuff."
*Rush Limbaugh also called Gore insane: "It could just be he's nuts. Tipper Gore's issue is what? Mental health. Right? It could be a closer to home issue than we know."
*Scripps Howard columnist Dan Thomasson condemned Gore's "posturing and whining." He also called Gore a "cry baby" and insisted his comments represented "a shop worn, bogus lament from losers."
BTW, this was the key point Gore made to the New York Observer, which probably stands as one of the most astute media observations from any politician in the last decade:
The media is kind of weird these days on politics, and there are some major institutional voices that are, truthfully speaking, part and parcel of the Republican Party. Fox News Network, The Washington Times, Rush Limbaugh-there's a bunch of them, and some of them are financed by wealthy ultra-conservative billionaires who make political deals with Republican administrations and the rest of the media ... Most of the media [has] been slow to recognize the pervasive impact of this fifth column in their ranks-that is, day after day, injecting the daily Republican talking points into the definition of what's objective as stated by the news media as a whole...
Something will start at the Republican National Committee, inside the building, and it will explode the next day on the right-wing talk-show network and on Fox News and in the newspapers that play this game, The Washington Times and the others. And then they'll create a little echo chamber, and pretty soon they'll start baiting the mainstream media for allegedly ignoring the story they've pushed into the zeitgeist. And then pretty soon the mainstream media goes out and disingenuously takes a so-called objective sampling, and lo and behold, these RNC talking points are woven into the fabric of the zeitgeist.
UPDATED: The WSJ John Fund cheers Palin's "media critique," if that's what you call two semi-coherent sentences uttered by a Republican politician and which reference the press:
Ms. Palin will no doubt have a future as a stump speaker and political commentator in the lower 48, and her media critique certainly will find receptive audiences
Al Gore is very astute in his observation of the Corporate Propaganda Device that has supplanted our once-useful News Media.
This is a very profound statement. I've been preaching this for years, and it just seems to be getting worse. The impending doom of HealthCare Reform is a perfect demonstration of the sad fact that the Democrats have yet to figure out how to counter this avalanche of lies from the GOP.
First, censorship. I don't like it. At all. Besides, it would mean changing the rules every time a new party came to power.
Second, enforcement of anti-trust laws. I think this has much more promise. Look at markets where the media is dominated by one outlet, such as News Corp, and break those monopolies up into smaller companies. We have antitrust legislation on the books that could accomplish this legally. Additionally, most of those rules have been bent if not actively broken for special interests like the billionaire media moguls mentioned above. Of course, I also happen to think the government should've broken up GM, though I am a died-in-the-wool Chevy guy. With so few owners controlling so much media, is it really a surprise that one or two 'voices' is all we hear on TV, radio, in the papers?
A few are doing this, but most of the MSM talking heads are just too comfortable with their seven-figure salaries to rock the boat.
"Oh yes, Sarah, we are liars." Pathetic.
Here is the Newsweek video.
The Newsweek article.
Here is a direct link - youtube.
What about.....ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS. CNN, MSNBC? I think a 6 to one margin is more than enough for the dems to work with.
algore's rant was just that. His claims that the RNC somehow weave the fabric of the news is preposterous. No more bizarre than the claims that Obama has his daily staffings with Stephenopolus, Begala and Emmanuel which exist today.
On the contrary, Governor Palin's speech was about her administration and accomplishments. Probably standard stuff for a governor. Where Foser and media matters (fvl) missed the boat was that this speech was no rant against the media. Her speech lasted about 23 minutes. She spent about 45 seconds with the alleged whine about the media coverage. By the way, it got a lengthy applause response which indicates the ressonance it had with the crowd there.
Eric, view part 1 (of 2) of the speech beginning at 3:15. She speaks of her state and her journey there and the wonderful land that Alaska is. The transition into the 'alleged' rant begins at 4:00. The segment shows that she extols the press to be the powerful agent for good in can be in a democracy. The soldier line is not the basis for her comment, no hiding behind them here, it just supports the idea of a productive media.
Yesterday, Jamison excluded the remarks just prior to her statement about the troops. It misframed her comments and did just what mm(fvl) claims is done by mainstream media, misinform the public.
Please view the entirety of the speech segment I linked above or the whole speech for that matter and add a comment.
Accomplishments? Such as?
View the video and judge for yourself. But be careful, this if 'off topic' as the media matters (for very little) thought czars describe it.
Actually, it is not preposterous to say RNC does weave the news for Fox News. Fox News was caught trying to pass GOP talking points as news. I know it was a long time ago, February 10th of this year on Fox News' Happening Now. In a segment about the stimulus package, host Jon Scott said, “We thought we'd take a look back at the bill, how it was born, and how it grew, and grew, and grew." This statement makes it sound like they did the newsgathering. They did not they just went verbatim with the Senate Republican Communications Center. Fox News even included a typographic error.
It was a rant, an angry outburst. For in your words it Governor Palin's speech was about her administration and accomplishments. Making an unsubstantial claim about the press, which is off topic of the speech is an angry outburst. Adding the excluded remarks about the troops does not change the context of the statement. MM did not take her out of context.