||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
DANA MILBANK, PLAYGROUND BULLY
SAM SMITH - There are few more repugnant journalistic habits than to
making fun of the weak. We journalists were put on this earth to keep
the powerful under control, not to ridicule those without power. But
it's a principle without value in Washington, especially by playground
bullies such as Dana Milbank of the Washington Post who - like bullies
everywhere - shores up his insecurities by making fun of those he feels
it's safe to beat up. The latest example is a Milbank article
ridiculing Dennis Kucinich's efforts to impeach Richard Cheney, even
making fun of Kucinich's size by noting he was " standing perhaps 5 feet
6 inches tall in shoes" and wearing "a solemn face as he approached the
microphones, which nearly reached his eye level."
As a political tactic, Kucinich's effort is certainly debatable, but in
a decent world - by any standard of traditional American values - Cheney
would be eminently impeachable. Cheney and his boss have done more
damage to the American republic than any White House in our history.
The fact that we are logistically and politically unable to deal with
this problem is no joke. But for Skull and Boner Milbank, it is far more
important to stay in tight with the local power structure than to worry
about the future of the republic. The fact that Kucinich is right - as
he has been about a lot of things - makes no difference; he's just not
preppy and conventional enough for Milbank's taste.
But Yalie snobbery won't change the course of history for the better in
the slightest. Milbank should consider the fact that during over
two-thirds of the quarter century or so that America has been going down
the tubes, a fellow graduate of Yale has been in charge of this country,
two of them members of this own infantile secret society. That is
nothing to be snobbish about.
MILBANK'S ARTICLE
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/24/
AR2007042402341_pf.html
SAM SMITH, JUNE 2005 - Dana Milbank's snotty attack on critics of White
House behavior as revealed in the Downing Street memos illuminates a
carefully concealed truth about the media: its definition of objectivity
stops at the edge of anything left of center. Standard Democratic policy
is okay, even a liberal quote or two, but anything further to the left
is simply excluded from coverage unless - as in Milbank's case - it is
there to ridicule.
Milbank's dislike for the left began long ago and writes of it in a
style that might be called unmaturated preppie. For example, in
September 2000 the Washington Post reporter said one of the presidential
candidates, Ralph Nader, that his "only enemy is the corporation." Skull
& Bonesman Milbank also described Greens as "radical activists in
sandals." Since your editor was soon to speak with Nader at an event in
Washington, I brought along a pair of sandals so Milbank's description
would not be totally false. Of course, he didn't show up because Nader
and the Greens fell into that classic media category: important enough
to scorn but not important enough to cover.
Being among the last progressive journalists in the capital I am
conscious of the massive disinterest of the rest of the media in
anything left of center. When I started in 1964, my work was appealing
enough to mainstream journalism to be offered jobs at the New York Times
and the Washington Post. I was frequently called by journalists wanting
to know what was going on in the civil rights or anti-war movement.
These calls were seldom hostile: the left was a reality that needed to
be covered and even the Post had some good reporters on the case. I
tried, then as now, to serve as an helpful interpreter rather than as a
rhetorical advocate and even developed a few friends along the way.
But these days I rarely get calls from the conventional media. Jim
Ridgeway of the Village Voice, down the hall from my office, reports a
similar phenomenon. Two guys with decades of history and background
about progressive politics that is considered totally irrelevant by
establishment Washington. The left, progressive movements, and social
change are simply not thought to be worthy subjects by the corporate
media - or by NPR for that matter.
The exception is that it is generally presumed amongst the media that
progressives are fair targets for mockery. In a recent article in the
faux hip Vanity Fair on Jeff Gannon, David Margolik and Richard Gooding
offered as a positive that Gannon "balanced off some of the left-wingers
in the room such as Russell Mokhiber, editor of the Corporate Crime
Reporter, and a Naderite, who once asked McCellan whether, given the
administration's support for the public display of the Ten commandments,
President Bush believed that the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill'
applied to the U.S. invasion of Iraq."
The fact that the authors considered that a stupid question tells much
about the sorry state of Washington journalism. Further, Russell
Mokhiber often tells more important truths in one column than Vanity
Fair does in a whole issue.
The trend is also confirmed by Harry Jaffe of the Washingtonian who has
published a list of a score of political blogs that DC journalists like.
Not one is to the left of Democratic Party liberalism, which these days
means saying, "right on" to whatever conservative Democrat is in charge.
Of the 20 sites, only two are on my list - the libertarian Hit & Run and
the poll-heavy Real Politics. The common characteristic of many of the
others is their utter predictability.
Put simply, the media doesn't like the left, social change, Greens, or
progressive thought. It deals with them by ignoring them or mocking
them, in either case excluding them from its own perverted definition of
objectivity.
FAIR, 2005 - After over a month of scant media attention, mainstream
U.S. outlets have begun to report more seriously about the "Downing
Street Memo," the minutes of a July 2002 meeting of British government
officials that indicate the White House had already made up its mind to
invade Iraq at that early date, and that "the intelligence and facts
were being fixed around the policy" of invading rather than seeking a
peaceful solution.
A June 7 White House press conference with George W. Bush and Tony Blair
offered the first public response from Bush to the memo, and with that
came an upswing in U.S. media attention. But some in the media took it
as a chance to lash out at the activists who have been bringing
attention to the story all along. On June 8, Washington Post reporter
Dana Milbank referred to Downing Street Memo activists--some of whom
were offering a cash reward for the first journalist to ask Bush about
the memo--as "wing nuts." He also offered an illogical explanation for
the memo's low media profile:
"In part, the memo never gained traction here because, unlike in
Britain, it wasn't election season, and the war is not as unpopular
here. In part, it's also because the notion that Bush was intent on
military action in Iraq had been widely reported here before, in
accounts from Paul O'Neill and Bob Woodward, among others. The memo was
also more newsworthy across the Atlantic because it reinforced the
notion there that Blair has been acting as Bush's 'poodle.'"
Milbank had reported the same day that his paper's latest poll showed
that only 41 percent of Americans approved of the Iraq war--which makes
one wonder when exactly the war would cross Milbank's threshold and
become unpopular enough to make the memo newsworthy. . .
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2545
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
THE COLONEL JOHN R. STINGO AWARD
OUR AWARD of the day goes to goes to Sabrina Tavernise of the New York
Times, given in memory the late New York columnist who, as AJ Liebling
put it, never permitted "facts to interfere with the exercise of his
imagination." Tavernise wrote a puff piece about the Turkish economy
which stated that "the economy has nearly doubled in the four years that
the AK [the ruling Islamic party] has been in power, largely because it
has stuck to an economic program prescribed by the International
Monetary Fund."
But as Dean Baker pointed out for American Prospect, "According to the
OECD's data, in 2003, 2004, and 2005, Turkey's economy grew 5.8 percent,
8.9 percent, and 7.4 percent, respectively. Clicking over to the CIA
Factbook, I find an estimate of 5.2 percent growth for 2006. That gives
a cumulative total of 30.2 percent growth over the last four years.
That's pretty good, but quite far from 'nearly doubled' in normal usage.
So, this raises the obvious question: does the IMF use a language in
which 'nearly doubled' is consistent with 30.2 percent growth? If so,
that would explain why many of its critics have had complaints with the
institution."
MORE MEDIA NEWS
http://prorev.com/media.htm
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
DANA MILBANK, PLAYGROUND BULLY
SAM SMITH - There are few more repugnant journalistic habits than to
making fun of the weak. We journalists were put on this earth to keep
the powerful under control, not to ridicule those without power. But
it's a principle without value in Washington, especially by playground
bullies such as Dana Milbank of the Washington Post who - like bullies
everywhere - shores up his insecurities by making fun of those he feels
it's safe to beat up. The latest example is a Milbank article
ridiculing Dennis Kucinich's efforts to impeach Richard Cheney, even
making fun of Kucinich's size by noting he was " standing perhaps 5 feet
6 inches tall in shoes" and wearing "a solemn face as he approached the
microphones, which nearly reached his eye level."
As a political tactic, Kucinich's effort is certainly debatable, but in
a decent world - by any standard of traditional American values - Cheney
would be eminently impeachable. Cheney and his boss have done more
damage to the American republic than any White House in our history.
The fact that we are logistically and politically unable to deal with
this problem is no joke. But for Skull and Boner Milbank, it is far more
important to stay in tight with the local power structure than to worry
about the future of the republic. The fact that Kucinich is right - as
he has been about a lot of things - makes no difference; he's just not
preppy and conventional enough for Milbank's taste.
But Yalie snobbery won't change the course of history for the better in
the slightest. Milbank should consider the fact that during over
two-thirds of the quarter century or so that America has been going down
the tubes, a fellow graduate of Yale has been in charge of this country,
two of them members of this own infantile secret society. That is
nothing to be snobbish about.
MILBANK'S ARTICLE
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/24/
AR2007042402341_pf.html
SAM SMITH, JUNE 2005 - Dana Milbank's snotty attack on critics of White
House behavior as revealed in the Downing Street memos illuminates a
carefully concealed truth about the media: its definition of objectivity
stops at the edge of anything left of center. Standard Democratic policy
is okay, even a liberal quote or two, but anything further to the left
is simply excluded from coverage unless - as in Milbank's case - it is
there to ridicule.
Milbank's dislike for the left began long ago and writes of it in a
style that might be called unmaturated preppie. For example, in
September 2000 the Washington Post reporter said one of the presidential
candidates, Ralph Nader, that his "only enemy is the corporation." Skull
& Bonesman Milbank also described Greens as "radical activists in
sandals." Since your editor was soon to speak with Nader at an event in
Washington, I brought along a pair of sandals so Milbank's description
would not be totally false. Of course, he didn't show up because Nader
and the Greens fell into that classic media category: important enough
to scorn but not important enough to cover.
Being among the last progressive journalists in the capital I am
conscious of the massive disinterest of the rest of the media in
anything left of center. When I started in 1964, my work was appealing
enough to mainstream journalism to be offered jobs at the New York Times
and the Washington Post. I was frequently called by journalists wanting
to know what was going on in the civil rights or anti-war movement.
These calls were seldom hostile: the left was a reality that needed to
be covered and even the Post had some good reporters on the case. I
tried, then as now, to serve as an helpful interpreter rather than as a
rhetorical advocate and even developed a few friends along the way.
But these days I rarely get calls from the conventional media. Jim
Ridgeway of the Village Voice, down the hall from my office, reports a
similar phenomenon. Two guys with decades of history and background
about progressive politics that is considered totally irrelevant by
establishment Washington. The left, progressive movements, and social
change are simply not thought to be worthy subjects by the corporate
media - or by NPR for that matter.
The exception is that it is generally presumed amongst the media that
progressives are fair targets for mockery. In a recent article in the
faux hip Vanity Fair on Jeff Gannon, David Margolik and Richard Gooding
offered as a positive that Gannon "balanced off some of the left-wingers
in the room such as Russell Mokhiber, editor of the Corporate Crime
Reporter, and a Naderite, who once asked McCellan whether, given the
administration's support for the public display of the Ten commandments,
President Bush believed that the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill'
applied to the U.S. invasion of Iraq."
The fact that the authors considered that a stupid question tells much
about the sorry state of Washington journalism. Further, Russell
Mokhiber often tells more important truths in one column than Vanity
Fair does in a whole issue.
The trend is also confirmed by Harry Jaffe of the Washingtonian who has
published a list of a score of political blogs that DC journalists like.
Not one is to the left of Democratic Party liberalism, which these days
means saying, "right on" to whatever conservative Democrat is in charge.
Of the 20 sites, only two are on my list - the libertarian Hit & Run and
the poll-heavy Real Politics. The common characteristic of many of the
others is their utter predictability.
Put simply, the media doesn't like the left, social change, Greens, or
progressive thought. It deals with them by ignoring them or mocking
them, in either case excluding them from its own perverted definition of
objectivity.
FAIR, 2005 - After over a month of scant media attention, mainstream
U.S. outlets have begun to report more seriously about the "Downing
Street Memo," the minutes of a July 2002 meeting of British government
officials that indicate the White House had already made up its mind to
invade Iraq at that early date, and that "the intelligence and facts
were being fixed around the policy" of invading rather than seeking a
peaceful solution.
A June 7 White House press conference with George W. Bush and Tony Blair
offered the first public response from Bush to the memo, and with that
came an upswing in U.S. media attention. But some in the media took it
as a chance to lash out at the activists who have been bringing
attention to the story all along. On June 8, Washington Post reporter
Dana Milbank referred to Downing Street Memo activists--some of whom
were offering a cash reward for the first journalist to ask Bush about
the memo--as "wing nuts." He also offered an illogical explanation for
the memo's low media profile:
"In part, the memo never gained traction here because, unlike in
Britain, it wasn't election season, and the war is not as unpopular
here. In part, it's also because the notion that Bush was intent on
military action in Iraq had been widely reported here before, in
accounts from Paul O'Neill and Bob Woodward, among others. The memo was
also more newsworthy across the Atlantic because it reinforced the
notion there that Blair has been acting as Bush's 'poodle.'"
Milbank had reported the same day that his paper's latest poll showed
that only 41 percent of Americans approved of the Iraq war--which makes
one wonder when exactly the war would cross Milbank's threshold and
become unpopular enough to make the memo newsworthy. . .
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2545
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
THE COLONEL JOHN R. STINGO AWARD
OUR AWARD of the day goes to goes to Sabrina Tavernise of the New York
Times, given in memory the late New York columnist who, as AJ Liebling
put it, never permitted "facts to interfere with the exercise of his
imagination." Tavernise wrote a puff piece about the Turkish economy
which stated that "the economy has nearly doubled in the four years that
the AK [the ruling Islamic party] has been in power, largely because it
has stuck to an economic program prescribed by the International
Monetary Fund."
But as Dean Baker pointed out for American Prospect, "According to the
OECD's data, in 2003, 2004, and 2005, Turkey's economy grew 5.8 percent,
8.9 percent, and 7.4 percent, respectively. Clicking over to the CIA
Factbook, I find an estimate of 5.2 percent growth for 2006. That gives
a cumulative total of 30.2 percent growth over the last four years.
That's pretty good, but quite far from 'nearly doubled' in normal usage.
So, this raises the obvious question: does the IMF use a language in
which 'nearly doubled' is consistent with 30.2 percent growth? If so,
that would explain why many of its critics have had complaints with the
institution."
MORE MEDIA NEWS
http://prorev.com/media.htm
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
No comments:
Post a Comment