Howard Kurtz omits War on Gore from list of decade's media misdeeds
December 28, 2009 10:28 am ET by Jamison Foser
Media failures mentioned in Howard Kurtz's look back at the Aughts:
Jon and Kate, Octomom and Balloon Boy
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The failure to challenge the Bush administration's case for invading Iraq
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the press fell way short on the housing and lending bubble that nearly sank our economy in 2008
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the breathtaking fabrications of Jayson Blair at the New York Times and Jack Kelley at USA Today
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Rather's reliance on suspect documents in challenging Bush's National Guard service
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the media mainstream played a central role in fostering sky-high expectations for Obama, which, inevitably, crashed into the messy reality of governing.
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old-line organizations more frequently chase tabloid melodramas
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Cable television and morning shows breathlessly pursue narratives involving missing white women, a runaway bride, a mom with octuplets, a beauty queen who opposes gay marriage
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the media mobs over Paris Hilton's brief jail term
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a mind-set that breathes life into celebrity deaths -- such as the two-week frenzy over Michael Jackson's -- and gorges on misbehavior by the likes of David Letterman and Tiger Woods. (Imagine if all the reporters chasing Woods's many mistresses had been assigned to study whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.)
Media failings not mentioned in Howard Kurtz's look back at the Aughts: Coverage of the 2000 election, in which news organizations like Kurtz's own Washington Post lied about Al Gore in order to portray him as a liar, ignored new evidence that George W. Bush may have made his fortune by engaging in illegal insider trading, and generally did everything they could to hand the presidency to someone who is now generally regarded as having been a horrible president.
Not to defend the things Kurtz did list -- I've written about the tabloidization of the news media many times, and it's safe to say I'm generally less fond of it than Kurtz, who is a frequent participant in it -- but most of them pale in comparison to what happened in 2000.
Howard Kurtz thinks Jack Kelley's fabrications damaged the media's credibility? How many people have the foggiest idea who Jack Kelley is, or ever heard of his fabrications? He thinks Jack Kelley's fabrications are important enough to merit inclusion in a look back at the decade? Nonsense. Ceci Connolly's fabrications, on the other hand, helped decide a presidential election in favor of a disastrously incapable liar. But Connolly -- Kurtz's Washington Post colleague -- escapes mention, as does the dishonest media-wide assault on Gore that she helped lead.
It is nauseating the way the media has become a tabloid style news these days.
Most people despise it despite the contention of the media that people love it. I am still trying to find someone that does in real life.
I never understood what the talk was about the sky high expectations for Obama was. I knew people were happy and felt he had the potential to be a very good president but, at the same time I always thought people, outside of a few naive and very young people, knew that he was not Harry Potter.
That is until this year of governing. I am simply stunned by the amount of people who actually thought that one man could wave a wand and everything would be perfect in 6 months.
Especially progressives.
I never suspected that so many did not understand what governing was about and who made the laws and legislation. What it took.
It tells me the failure of the media to educate the public now, unlike in past eras, and the lack of civics and history in schools, and the magical thinking that has taken over the minds of the people of this country. The total lack of common sense and reality is stunning.
Covering substance correctly would be nice. But you go to war with the media you have.
And no Howie, climate related scientists are *not* divided on the central issues regarding the causes and effects of AGW. Read the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the IPCC.
But I guess to include that, Kurtz would have had to bump something huge, like "Rathergate" </sarc>.
Then there's Judy Miller, Iraq War Cheerleader, who bought every justification W & Co. offered up for the invasion.
That is the reason why Obama's polls number are down. The American people, for the most part, are easily misled, gullible, mis-educated [and lack common sense].
Republicans are doing their dirt right out in the open and the media and American people act as though Republicans failure to participant constructively in the democratic process is a normal undertaking, it is not. It is un-patriotic, un-American and treasonous.
Republican motto is; Just say no and obstruct, misled, misrepresent, distort, lie, deceive, attack and criticize. That's it in a wing'nut ' shell.
The Republican Party [of no] and the conservative media engineered a propaganda campaign of missinformation and lies to raise fear about the Presidents plans and agenda is why the president's poll numbers are down.
Folks with common sense knows the President inherited a mess, as a result there is no need to hold that against him, especially in light of the fact he is trying to reverse the trend.
Republicans, who don't give a damn about the adverage American, are doing their dirt right out in the open but you are too blind or too dumb to notice it.
Only Fox News is a reputable media organization. They have outed Gore as a fraud. The climategate emails from East Anglia prove that scientists have known all along that the earth is cooling. THey need to perpetuate this fruad in order to line their own pockets.