Good Raines, Bad Raines
Howell Raines, good.
One question has tugged at my professional conscience throughout the year-long congressional debate over health-care reform, and it has nothing to do with the public option, portability or medical malpractice. It is this: Why haven’t America’s old-school news organizations blown the whistle on Roger Ailes, chief of Fox News, for using the network to conduct a propaganda campaign against the Obama administration—a campaign without precedent in our modern political history?
Howell Raines, bad.
One question has tugged at my professional conscience throughout the year-long congressional debate over health-care reform, and it has nothing to do with the public option, portability or medical malpractice. It is this: Why haven’t America’s old-school news organizations blown the whistle on Roger Ailes, chief of Fox News, for using the network to conduct a propaganda campaign against the Obama administration—a campaign without precedent in our modern political history?
Raines was executive editor of the New York Times from 2001 to 2003.
via.
March 12, 2010 9:50 am
Posted in: Media
22 Comments
22 Responses
Zifnab - March 12, 2010 | 9:53 am · Link
You’re forgetting, Tim. History started on 9/11. Everything before that doesn’t count.
Hell, depending on who you ask, it started January 20th, 2009.
cleek - March 12, 2010 | 9:58 am · Link
remember what happened when Obama challenged FOX News last summer ? the old-school news-organizations (the OSNOs ?) defended FOX.
Redshirt - March 12, 2010 | 9:59 am · Link
A well written article that speaks mostly the truth; thus, I assume it will be ignored by the Village and will make no difference at all.
The Grand Panjandrum - March 12, 2010 | 10:04 am · Link
With the exception of Woodward & Bernstein getting the Watergate stuff right, investigative journalism is mostly a myth. Reporters sucking up to insiders to get an “exclusive” or a “scoop” is a longstanding tradition a goes back a very long way in our history. Walter Cronkite was an anomaly among the major print and broadcast journalists.
In DC proximity does not breed contempt.
Weyland Yutani - March 12, 2010 | 10:08 am · Link
@Zifnab: You gotta be quick around here. How about those head first slides to protect his blow?
R-Jud - March 12, 2010 | 10:10 am · Link
Raines has a residence in the county where my Mom is a commissioner. I’ve met him once, briefly. Thought about choking him, but it wouldn’t change the past.
Jim, Foolish Literalist - March 12, 2010 | 10:15 am · Link
@cleek: beat me to it. I was watching the Silver Gopher (Glenn Beck, per Colbert) bleat about Eric Massa coming on his show to save the Republic, and I almost joined twitter so I could ask Jake Tapper what he thought of his “sister network”.
New Yorker - March 12, 2010 | 10:21 am · Link
@Weyland Yutani:
It’s outrageous how few Hall of Fame votes the guy got this year. He should have been the 2nd Montreal Expo in the Hall of Fame, not Dawson.
Weyland Yutani - March 12, 2010 | 10:42 am · Link
@New Yorker: Did Dawson go in as an Expo or a Cub? Can’t remember. Raines deserves to be in though.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ - March 12, 2010 | 10:42 am · Link
Hahahahaha, that’s a good one, Mr. Comedian.
Now tell us the other joke, you know, the one about your third leg.
Shalimar - March 12, 2010 | 10:45 am · Link
Raines was my favorite player growing up, but I’m not surprised he got so little Hall of Fame support. The second half of his career was far short of what would be needed, and that tends to overshadow the incredible first half in most voters’ minds. If I gave a damn about the HoF anymore, I would be upset about that, but frankly they have screwed up so many votes over the years that it’s hard to care about one more.
Quiddity - March 12, 2010 | 11:49 am · Link
I’ll take any Fox/Ailes bashing that’s being offered.
inthewoods - March 12, 2010 | 11:56 am · Link
I think the old-school media is worried that they will soon be out of existence, and that they will then be in the job market seeking jobs from the survivors – aka Fox.
Mark - March 12, 2010 | 12:24 pm · Link
Shalimar – damn straight. He should be in the HoF. 2nd half of his career punctuated by a comeback from Lupus and playing with his son. Awesome.
Also, I had no idea he could write like this :)
Dr.BDH - March 12, 2010 | 1:22 pm · Link
The Daily Howler spirit is strong in this post.
Balconesfault - March 12, 2010 | 2:42 pm · Link
Hell – Meet the Press added Ailes to their Sunday Morning Roundtable a few weeks ago.
Seriously.
It’s as if just having his own network to spew propoganda wasn’t enough – everyone else needs to pay homage?
tomvox1 - March 12, 2010 | 3:34 pm · Link
How about Chocolate Raines?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA
craptractor - March 12, 2010 | 3:58 pm · Link
The question is whether he meant the behavior or the degree. If he’s saying “they’ve never done something like this!” that’s clearly inaccurate. If he meant something like “while this behavior isn’t new, this time they’ve gone much further” then it’s arguable. Hank Aaron isn’t famous for being the first person to homer and so forth.
Judy Miller’s Editor Calls on Journalists to Expose False Journalism | No Bull. news service. - March 12, 2010 | 4:01 pm · Link
[...] F made this point implicitly, but it deserves to be made explicitly. Do you really think Howell Raines, the editor who oversaw [...]
Tim o - March 12, 2010 | 5:10 pm · Link
Because John Stewart is doing it which allows them to keep the coin of the realm intact; access. Prissy Cowards.
mclaren - March 12, 2010 | 9:31 pm · Link
Since Howell Raines gave us Judith Miller and the Excellent War in Iraq, along with mythical lakes of sarin and nonexistent mountains of nuclear WMDs stockpiled by Saddam underground, all splashed across the front page of the Newspaper Of Record daily for more than a year, my interest in Howell Raines’ judgment about the validity of news organizations gets summed up by here.
1 Boring Old Man » picking up the ball… - March 14, 2010 | 10:57 am · Link
[...] F made this point implicitly, but it deserves to be made explicitly. Do you really think Howell Raines, the editor who oversaw [...]