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May 10, 2007
Who’s Barking Now?
The irascible Chicago columnist Mike Royko wrote that the relationship between a reporter and a politician should be the same as that of a barking dog to a chicken thief. As Bill Moyers reported on his April 25th PBS program titled “Buying the War,” none of the main-stream media (MSM) except the Knight-Ridder newspapers were barking when the Bush administration lied to the world about WMD and led us into the disastrous war in Iraq—and that included the New York Times, the Washington Post, and all the major television networks. If the MSM won’t bark at chicken thieves, who will? Who should we count on to fulfill the watchdog function of the press when the press is asleep?
One answer was in evidence when Media Matters for America called attention to Don Imus’ notorious “nappy-headed hos” comment. Imus has been uttering insulting racist, sexist, and homophobic remarks on the air for over 30 years, so his remark about the Rutgers women’s basketball team was nothing new. What was new was that his offensiveness was widely distributed—people other than his regular listeners and viewers and frequent guests became aware of his meanness. When people began protesting, advertisers bailed out and CBS and NBC canned Imus. But the advertisers knew what Imus was all about and the only reason they jumped ship because a watchdog started barking.
Today the watchdog function of the press is being performed by blogs and websites, such as Media Matters for America. For example, a team at Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo did excellent investigative work and broke the story about the politically motivated Federal prosecutors firings at the Justice Department and Attorney General Gonzales’ unbelievable incompetence. A bunch of bloggers looked into Dan Rather’s claims about George Bush’s Air National Guard service and found the evidence was forged, and Rather retired early.
The MSM is becoming less relevant, less credible, more lowest-common-denominator junk day by day, especially television. Anyone who wants to know what’s really happening and who’s stealing chickens, should go to the Web; depend on such sources as Media Matters for America, Talking Points Memo, The Huffington Post, The Nation, or The Washington Monthly, and, yes, the NY Times online and the Washington Post online. Even though the last two newspapers were asleep and didn’t bark at Bush on Iraq, these newspapers have learned the errors of their ways and generally perform the watchdog function of the press—often following up on malfeasance reported on blogs.
Of course you noticed that all the sources I mentioned are considered progressive or liberal. Except for the NY Times and the Washington Post, all the others mentioned did not support Bush’s Iraq war—they got that right. On the other hand, you can read the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal or, better, watch Bill O’Reilly on the Fox News Channel where you’ll get a dog who makes love to the chickens.
Posted by Charles Warner at May 10, 2007 10:49 PM
Comments
Media Curmudgeon ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mediacurmudgeon.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 11, 2007 12:24 PM writes:
My comments about the Wall Street Journal were directed to its editorial positions supporting the Iraq war, not to the whole paper, which, like you, I admire and respect--the WSJ is certainly not a sleeping dog or even a dog, except on its editorial page.
Media Curmudgeon at May 11, 2007 12:20 PM writes:
Bill Grimes writes:
"Very smart and very well-written. My only slight disagreement is with your take on the WSJ, which I don't think is a dog in either your context or in its more common vernacular slang.
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