Today in The Washington Post opinion pages it's columns from George Will, David Broder, and Robert Novak balanced out by op-eds from Bjorn Lomborg and Richard Perle.
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Your Liberal Media
26 Jun 2008 03:20 pm
Comments (41)
Your link is wonked.
Perle's liberal application of Brill Cream (along with his liberal comb-sucking) certainly provides some liberal balance to the equation.
Wolfowitz was the comb-sucker, but six in one...
I think it's best to just stop reading these rags. We tried long enough to get some change, but they are owned and run by people with their own agenda. It would seem to me that the blogs could pool together and form a much better online newspaper, even with better reporting, without much effort. Hell, even make a print version.
I'm glad I'm not the only one left a bit perplexed.
Though I have to admit I was impressed by Broder's fairminded proposal for bi-partisan or nonpartisan solutions to kinks in our electoral system. Who knew?
As my wife would say, this is wonderful news for John McCain!
It would seem to me that the blogs could pool together and form a much better online newspaper, even with better reporting, without much effort.
I don't know about the reporting part, but if you're talking about the crappiness of opinion pages and the net replacing that...well, that's already happened in a big way. Frankly, if I were running these papers, I don't know how I would justify to my bosses/shareholders/whoever that paying money to people like Robert Samuelson and Richard Cohen is an effective use of resources.
Linkee no workee.
Which just goes to prove that Obama is nothing but a politician and you were wrong to call him a messiah, even though you didn't.
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The Post is always complaining about declining subscriptions, blaming it on competition from the internet. The editorial page is a better explanation.
Grading on a curve, everyone is liberal next to Richard Perle.
The Post is always complaining about declining subscriptions, blaming it on competition from the internet. The editorial page is a better explanation.
And see, they're right! We're all here, laughing at them!
We tried long enough to get some change, but they are owned and run by people with their own agenda.
“Long enough” being the operative word. This Ralph Gleason column from 1972 makes that clear:
“Newspapers, as A.J. Liebling explained in The Press, are neither public servants nor custodians of the Holy Grail.
“They are private enterprises in a capitalist economy whose primary function is to make money. Just like a department store or a gas station.
“They are not in the business of truth and honesty and the public good unless the owner of the paper sees that as a way to making money.
“The other thing to understand about newspapers is that they are owned by rich people and rich people are, by and large, Republicans.”
It's like, "All the President's Men" -- except now, they all work for the Post. What happened?
I assume that Ms. Ann Coulter was not avilable, as she is recuperating from an Adam's Apple transplant.
I'm as liberal as anyone, but which is the exception
three conservatives w/ columns in the post
or
three liberals like Gail Collins, Nick Kristof, and Roger Cohen in today's NYT
Not all newspaper owners view their publications as primarily money-making ventures. The Murdochs view many of their news providers as instruments of propaganda and don't mind losing money on them.
I noticed that this morning and made a screen grab of it. It's sad when the left-edge of the Op-Ed page is a pox-on-both-your-houses screed by Dana Milbank.
I noticed that this morning and made a screen grab of it. It's sad when the left-edge of the Op-Ed page is a pox-on-both-your-houses screed by Dana Milbank.
I think what you are seeing is an acknowledgment that the readership for newspapers is aging. More than the fact all five columnists are more or less conservative (Will, Novak, Perle are more; Broder and that Swede enviro-skeptic are less) is that they are all OWG's (Old White Guys).
Newspapers have pretty much given up attracting anyone under 40. Case in point: In an alternative universe, where people under 40 were increasingly turning to newspapers as their primarily source of information, a bolder New York Times editorial board might -- while looking for another "conservative" voice (conservative being a relative term) -- have made an offer to Douthat, a young, literate, independent conservative with a surprisingly modern and eclectic pop-culture insights. Instead they hire Kristol -- a middle-aged, neo-con apparatchik.
So, yeah, the Washington Post editorial page serving its audience: middle-aged, affluent, conservative white men.
"three liberals like Gail Collins, Nick Kristof, and Roger Cohen in today's NYT"
HAHAHA! Good one. One lightweight who hates policy, one wonk-type who loves John McCain, and one Iraq War monger.
I bet you think Maureen Dowd is "liberal" as well.
Nick Kristoff likes John McCain? I had no idea...
Read a real paper. I get the Post mostly because it is cheap and I like paging through it, but for my actual news I read the FT. Each day I have both of them with me on the Metro--the difference throughout is night and day.
"three liberals like Gail Collins, Nick Kristof, and Roger Cohen in today's NYT"
HAHAHA! Good one. One lightweight who hates policy, one wonk-type who loves John McCain, and one Iraq War monger.
I bet you think Maureen Dowd is "liberal" as well.
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I laffed at that one, too.
"From hell's heart, I stab at thee. For hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee."
Fuckin' wingnuts. They watch too much star trek and eat too many Cheetos™.
~
I bet you think Maureen Dowd is "liberal" as well.
She voted for GHWB so of course she isn't
That said, liberal doesn't exactly mean "left-wing radical." I figured we are more inclusive than that. Or perhaps I'm just more liberal about my idea of the term
"Newspapers have pretty much given up attracting anyone under 40. Case in point: In an alternative universe, where people under 40 were increasingly turning to newspapers as their primarily source of information, a bolder New York Times editorial board might -- while looking for another "conservative" voice (conservative being a relative term) -- have made an offer to Douthat, a young, literate, independent conservative with a surprisingly modern and eclectic pop-culture insights. Instead they hire Kristol -- a middle-aged, neo-con apparatchik."
Good point. Picture an op-ed page whose stable consisted of (for example) Reza Aslan, MY, Joseph Nye, Paul Krugman, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Tyler Cowen, Reihan Salam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Dan Drezner. That would cover a lot of age demographics while also bringing a variety of voices to the page. Instead, op-ed pages seem to increasingly care about making their old, white, upper-middle class, midbrow readers feel safe and stable about their opinions in a rapidly changing world and an increasingly diverse, pro-gay America. Op-ed pages have become ideological retirement homes.
The funny thing is that Washingtonpost.com has two great blogs, Phillip Carter's "Intel Dump" and Dan Froomkin's "White House Watch." Besides providing their opinion, they both explain the thinking that got them to that opinion and also report new information. The writers on the Washington Post print version though are mostly unreadable to me, or necessary since what Gerson, Broder, Novak, and Cohen will say is utterly predictable (Will has on occasioned surprised me, but then he is also a horse's ass.) For news on the net, besides the British entries (BBC, The Guardian, and The Independent), I can recommend The Washington Independent http://washingtonindependent.com/, and McClatchey's Washington Bureau http://www.mcclatchydc.com/.
"'Long enough' being the operative word. This Ralph Gleason column from 1972 makes that clear"
Hitler said the same thing back in the '30's. Of course, he blamed it on the Jews, but he was still right about the bottom line.
Aleister Crowley said the same thing back in the late 1800's.
The press has NEVER been non-partisan. Their job is to support the Establishment. And they do it well.
Not all newspaper owners view their publications as primarily money-making ventures. The Murdochs view many of their news providers as instruments of propaganda and don't mind losing money on them.
...if said propaganda will help keep the money flowing in through some other pipe. The goal is still to make more money, or increase their personal power somehow. Same difference once you get into Billionaireland. So the guy's point still stands. The point being: newspapers exist to make their wealthy owners wealthier, not to keep us informed.
Not all newspaper owners view their publications as primarily money-making ventures. The Murdochs view many of their news providers as instruments of propaganda and don't mind losing money on them.
...if said propaganda will help keep the money flowing in through some other pipe. The goal is still to make more money, or increase their personal power somehow. Same difference once you get into Billionaireland. So the guy's point still stands. The point being: newspapers exist to make their wealthy owners wealthier, not to keep us informed.
Op-ed pages have become ideological retirement homes.
Thanks for the new Gmail away message
Instead, op-ed pages seem to increasingly care about making their old, white, upper-middle class, midbrow readers feel safe and stable about their opinions..
Hey! You've just described the NPR business model.
While I agree with your general point, I liked Broder's column and Lomborg one is interesting (and not really conservative as much as a cost-benefit analysis)
"Op-ed pages have become ideological retirement homes."
More like ideological hospices -- where old, decaying belief systems go to die.
Speaking as a Scandinavian, here's what I don't get: Where are the liberal newspapers, and why don't they sell more than they do? If there is a market...
Klaus-
That's the thing: there are no (or very few) unabashedly liberal mainstream news outlets in the US. The reason for this has to do with the particularly American obsession with "neutrality" and "objectivity" in the media. Of course, the pursuit of these shadowy ideals 1) does not equate with fair or truthful journalism, and 2) is futile in the first place, since every single news item in the media is filtered through an ideological perspective, even if editors blather on and on about how "neutral" they really are.
I don't have much first-hand experience, but I hear it's different in Europe, where the media is a little more honest about disclosing their own editorial ideologies.
"Newspapers have pretty much given up attracting anyone under 40.
Au contraire! My daily fishwrap has done nothing BUT try to attract the under-40 reader, in an entirely lame, ham-fisted way. They offer gadgets like online blogs and silly little USA Today type graphics and "user generated news!" and lightweight, sparkly content. What they fail to provide is INFORMATION! Do under 40 readers really want the latest wingdings and doodads or do they want, like the rest of us, NEWS?
I'm a few years past 40 myself, and I'm as distressed by the state of our news media as any 25 year old.
As Chris Matthews said (correctly for once), Wapo is a neocon newspaper. I'd add that it pays Froomkin as its token liberal. (No offense meant to the admirable Froomkin.)
But apparently it pays. Newspapers are in trouble everywhere, but WaPo stock is doing (relatively) all right, with share prices roughly where they were when Bush became president. McClatchy, the one US media corporation that still takes journalism seriously, meanwhile has junk bond status and recently announced massive layoffs.
Either far-right ideology sells better than good reporting, or advertisers prefer to sustain right-wing papers.
By the way, Nick, over here in Europe newspapers don't really disclose their leanings, but those are pretty well understood by the public. Editorials (as opposed to journalistic articles) over here have far less importance than in the US, and I have never seen a European newspaper endorse a political candidate. Which means that I, as a leftwinger, will gladly read the Figaro of my employer while she will read my Libération, without either of us getting angry at the reporting.
Enron loophole, terrorists and Republicans
How do we know that right-wing religious terrorists haven't been taking advantage of the so-called "Enron loophole" overseas through deregulated on-line energy trading, playing the oil futures market, putting any "winnings" into financing their terrorist activities?
How do we know they haven't been doing this, over the eight years since a Republican created this gaping regulatory hole, a hole that a right-wing terrorist could drive a truck through...a suicide truck?
We know that Enron took advantage of this gaping regulatory hole, gaming West Coast on-line energy markets in 2001, causing rolling blackouts and doubled/tripled monthly utility bills in California.
Afterward, Republicans in Congress blocked Democratic Party attempts to close this "Enron loophole," both the domestic and foreign end, blocking attempts to re-regulate what Gramm (and Enron) had deregulated.
The recent Farm Bill contained a provision closing the domestic end of the "Enron loophole" (which doesn't take effect until next year) while leaving open the gaping foreign end of the loophole.
This is a national security issue. The "Enron loophole" needs to be completely closed, fast, returning the regulatory process to that which worked so well for 70 years before Sen. Gramm and Enron deregulated things in late 2000. After 9/11, any oil trading loophole that could be taken advantage of by those behind the 9/11 attacks shouldn't be open, but should have been closed a long time ago. National security.
Besides, if economists are correct (especially those that testified before Congress the other day), closing the "Enron loophole" will cause high gasoline prices to drop significantly within thirty days. Thus, making closing of this loophole, once again, a national security issue.
Completely close the "Enron loophole" RIGHT NOW. Republicans continue to endanger all U.S. citizens, including our nation's children.
(By the way in my above comment I did not mean to say that European media are superior to those of the US. What I meant is that we have less information segregation, for now.)
Nick, thanks...this means the entire goddamn press is infected with High Broderism? Why couldn't someone make an alternative, then? Why not publish a weekly with the best pieces from the left blogosphere? See how that would sell? If there's a market...
Comments closed July 10, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Must be Krauthammer's day off.
Posted by goethean | June 26, 2008 3:32 PM