If there’s anything you’ll never read in this
column, it’s a categorical defense of the news media.
One way or another, my last three books have
been about the terrible harm done to individuals
and the country by slipshod and dishonest reporting.
Among those criticized most vigorously
have been some of the major so-called liberal
news organizations—broadcast and print.
Here’s how I put it in a 2003 Harper’s review
of Eric Alterman’s fine book, "What Liberal Media?
The Truth About Bias and the News":" ‘Bias,’
left or right, isn’t an adequate word for what’s taken
place over the last decade or thereabouts. Claiming
the moral authority of a code of professional ethics
it idealizes in the abstract but repudiates in
practice, today’s Washington press corps has grown as
decadent and self-protective as any politician
or interest group whose behavior it purports to monitor.
"I wouldn’t stipulate a golden age of American
journalism, but I would argue that TV fame and money
have become big corrupting factors. Celebrity
journalists and sleazy tabloid coverage have existed since
newspapers began during the 18 th century. But
the American press used to be regulated by an informal
but fairly effective honor system. Now it runs
on a star system not unlike Hollywood’s. Once a degree
of professional visibility is achieved, it’s
hard to lose.
I’d cite currently imprisoned New York Times reporter
Judith Miller as Exhibit A. Her bungled
"exclusives" on Iraq’s mythical weapons of mass
destruction did as much to drive the U.S. to war as
the Bush administration’s fanciful geopolitical
imagineers. If she were a sports reporter, she’d have been
laughed out of the profession. Baseball
fans demand that you get the scores right.
But you know what? I also know of crooked cops,
disbarred lawyers, drugaddicted physicians,
child-molesting teachers, skirt-chasing preachers,
scientists who fudge data, corporate execs who
pad profits, ballplayers who bulk up on steroids—well,
you get the point. If there’s a politician alive
who’s never lied, bronze him fast before somebody
gets a photo of his hand in the till.
Anyway, I recently wrote a column about the GOP
media machine’s domination of Washington.
"Outfits like FOX News, The Washington Times
and Wall Street Journal editorial page... serve as
propaganda organs of the Republican National
Committee," it said. I knew that would annoy some
people, because one of contemporary conservatism’s
articles of faith is that, although the GOP
controls all three branches of government, it
is constantly being picked on, boo-hoo.
Sure enough, the letters and e-mails came rolling
in. What really chapped some readers was my point
that the Democrats have no equivalent apparatus.
One guy wanted to know if I’d ever heard of
"ABC... CBS, CNN, NBC, the Los Angeles Times,
The New York Times, The Washington Post."
Actually, yes, as the sentence following the
one he quoted mentioned the last two newspapers’ role
in touting Iraq’s WMD.
But it wasn’t the fellow’s poor logic that struck
me. It was reading the same complaint in virtually the
same words from a dozen readers. When that happens,
you know you’re dealing with recycled
propaganda, so I Googled the list of alleged
Democratic media outlets exactly as he’d presented it.
I got almost 100 hits, most traceable to a right-wing
Washington outfit called the Media Research Center,
which exists to bully journalists who stray from
the GOP party line, often through the dark art of selective
misquotation. My favorite was when MRC honcho
Brent Bozell made the TV talk show circuit claiming
that then-New York Times editor Howell Raines
had shown contempt for Real Americans by writing
that Ronald Reagan "couldn’t tie his shoelaces
if his life depended on it."
Bob Somerby at dailyhowler. com tracked down the
quote. Turns out it came from a book Raines wrote
about fishing. He was quoting a Camp David fishing
guide. The guide was talking not about Reagan’s
brain power but about his lack of interest in
tying trout flies.
Does anybody believe someone would make that kind of "mistake" accidentally?
Meanwhile, if the news organizations on MRC’s
laundry list owe fealty to the Democratic Party,
they’ve an odd way of showing it. All of the
above pushed the phony Whitewater scandal for years.
They played Bill Clinton’s sexual sins bigger
than the invasion of Normandy. Their coverage of the
2000 election clearly favored George W. Bush,
and their failure to effectively expose the Swift Boat
dirty tricksters probably decided the 2004 election.
Their collective performance during the run-up to
the Iraq war was a national disgrace. Otherwise,
yeah, they’re more "liberal" than Rush Limbaugh.
But then, that’s how the fundamentalist mind
works in religion and politics: You’re either with them
100 percent or you’re the enemy. In that regard,
no selfrespecting press organization can be anything
but "liberal" in the sense of sharing a post-enlightenment
world view that distinguishes between fact
and belief. And facts, see, are the enemy of
dogma.