If Marc Tracy is actually mocking EvenTheLiberal New Republic‘s standard deference towards authority, this is kinda brilliant:
Perhaps the thing that inhibits people from understanding Alan Rusbridger is that the editor of the Guardian, the English-speaking world’s foremost left-wing newspaper, is constantly forced to think like a capitalist. At a truly shameful interrogation before a U.K. Parliament committee yesterday—at one point, Rusbridger’s patriotism was questioned; at another, an M.P. credited the British with creating the Enigma code (it was Britain who cracked Enigma, a Nazi code)—Rusbridger had to defend his paper…
But the Guardian’s longtime steward has more jejune concerns as well…
Yet these concerns, though seemingly base—and undoubtedly ironic for a left-wing newspaper—ought not embarrass Rusbridger or the Guardian. Capitalist self-interest is precisely the engine that drives a robust free press, and always has been. The desire to break scoops and embarrass governments has historically been related to a desire to sell copies (and, now, digital banner ads)… Though all the U.S. Founding Fathers’ writings insisted upon the importance of a free press, the Constitution doesn’t require one—it doesn’t, say, require Congress to fund an independent ombudsman. Rather, the First Amendment merely guarantees that any press that does exist will be free…
Jonathan Chait, in NYMag, mocks Poltico founder Mike Allan’s negotiable affections:
In the fifties, a bunch of rock stations got caught taking money from music producers to give their artists airtime. The “Payola” scam, as it was called, was sufficiently outrageous to become a major national scandal. Last month, Washington Post reporter Erik Wemple reported that Politico‘s Mike Allen is running a similar scam — accepting lucrative payments from advertisers and lending his editorial voice to hyping, and sometimes parroting, their agenda. Given the relative importance of national politics vis-à-vis rock music, this struck me as a potentially career-ending revelation. Instead, Politico has ignored the report and carried on as if nothing at all were amiss…
Now, one possible defense of Allen is that what appears to be simple payola is actually a more sociologically complex phenomenon. Allen, as Wemple reports, has personal friendships with many of his sponsors, uses them as sources, and generally shares their point of view on most issues even while failing to acknowledge he has a point of view at all. This is less a defense than a concession that Allen is so hopelessly embedded within the Establishment that he can’t cover it in a remotely fair way. (This is exactly the argument I made.)…
And now Kos has gotten into a full-scale twit-war with Ron Fournier on “Failing Beltway 101“:
You might remember Ron Fournier for such hits as “failed Beltway political startup HotSoup.com”, almost quitting his reporter job to go work for John McCain’s presidential campaign, and “sending email to Karl Rove encouraging him to ‘keep up the fight'”…
… Hacks are a dime a dozen in the media world. But what makes Fournier particularly interesting is that he’s the editorial director of the National Journal, a respected Beltway publication with a subscription price of over a grand a year. So, you know, you’d expect the person running its newsroom to know a thing or two about politics. But what he lacks in basic political knowledge, he more than makes up in love and affection for Third Way and, not coincidentally, hatred of me…
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Apart from rooting for injuries, what’s on the agenda this evening?
Open Thread: Media Villagers Demand We Stop Mocking ThemPost + Comments (111)