Does anyone out there have links for any good progressive media criticism web sites? I am looking for something like Media Matters for America dedicated to deconstructing the MSM in California.
This is the largest and one of the most influential states in the Union. And yet, the depredations of the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Jose Mercury News get relatively short shrift from the usual Lefty critics of the MSM.
Why?
First, I do think there is the traditional Eastern focus, i.e., Washington and New York. Criticism of the Washington Post and The New York Times is practically a cottage industry.
Second, these West Coast papers do tend to be liberal on national issues. Particularly now when everybody is understandably focused on the Iraq War and the 2008 presidential election, a lot of liberals probably think these papers are okay (for many people on the Left, the San Jose Mercury News is still coasting on their explosive 1996 story about C.I.A. involvement with drug trafficking in South America even though the Merc caved in to Establishment, repudiated their own story and hung their investigative reporter, Gary Webb, out to dry).
Nevertheless, these half liberal - half California Reagan cowboys embody almost everything that's wrong with the MSM. Thus, for example, the Mercury News, the Times, and the Chronicle all endorsed Barack Obama in California's "Super Tuesday" Primary on the name of "change." But day after day, they undermine every decent thing Barack and Hillary stand by echoing classic Republican conservative clichés.
Thus, for example, on Sunday the San Jose Mercury News published a big story on "Culture Race and Ethnicity in Silicon Valley Schools." The whole thing was nothing but a very superficial recapitulation of the "Acting White" myth.
Published by the San Jose Mercury News, Sunday, April 6, 2008
Smart vs. cool: Culture, race and ethnicity in Silicon Valley schools
by Sharon Noguchi and Jessie Mangaliman
Sandra Romero and Bibiana Vega do their best to shrug off taunts from fellow Latino classmates at Del Mar High School in San Jose.
The 17-year-old seniors are called "whitewashed." Mataditas - dorks. Cerebritas - brainiacs. They're told they're "losing their culture" - just because Sandra has a 4.0 grade-point average and Bibiana has a 3.5.
The put-downs are clear: Smart is not cool.
And too many Latino students are choosing cool over school.
. . .
Using surveys of 90,000 secondary-school students, Harvard University researchers found that white students were more popular when they had higher grade-point averages.
. . .
Critiquing culture, however, is a potentially explosive endeavor. Comedian Bill Cosby has lambasted patterns in the African-American community that undermine success - in particular, single parenthood and undervaluing education - and provoked a firestorm.
. . .
Yeah, right. The "tribe" that was the most wildly enthusiastic for the likes of George W. Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger represents a "culture" that loves academic excellence.
Gimme a break.
The truth is this is a very complex issue. Nobody really "knows" why, all things equal, some kids do better than others. The problem is our degraded MSM is incapable of dealing with complexity and our know-it-all media blowhards never admit they do not "know" what the answer is. And so, after nearly thirty years of Reagan-Bush "conservative" domination the default position for any complex issue is the regurgitation of Reagan-Bush "conservative" clichés.
Maybe it would be a little better if they knew somebody was looking over their shoulders.