It seems clear to me that the blogosphere grew as a result of the capitulation of the larger media. They committed suicide. The air went out of the balloon. Those now writing the scripts have reduced the intelligence level on the tele every year for the past maybe twenty years until there is no content left. There is no "there there". This is a fact.
I would say that some of the stretching today on dailykos to be fair to the MSM players is off the mark.
Actually, believe it or not, once upon a time the media was filled with intelligent comments and intelligent commentators. You watched it to add to your knowledge of public affairs. There were some liars of course, but there were many who challenged them and told the truth. Now the talking heads and their guests repeat the same platitudes year after year. And year after year the intelligence level drops. The producers hire beautiful women to act stupid (they can't really be that stupid) and read lines that reduce to a third grade level the press releases put out by right wing kooks, including, indeed featuring, those in power in Washington. Trust me, it didn't used to be this way. There is no need to try so hard to be "fair" to these people. They are old enough to remember-- the Russerts and the rest of them. It was a world in which Bill Moyers was very much at home. They deserve all of the criticism we give them, these Joe Kleins, and Broder and the rest of them, if they claim they don't remember. They are corrupt: they are maintaining highly partisan positions and pretending not to. They are misrepresenting politics and opinion in America, and trying their hardest to keep new ideas and new thinking from getting an audience. They are representing the vested interests who are destroying the foundations of our democracy, our constitution. And if they don't know it, they are truly in denial, or they are stupid. Or they are simply partisan and they think we are the stupid ones and will continue to let them shut out the truth.
The final descent of the media in my lifetime took place during the Clinton mess. The august and "liberal" New York Times led the attack about "Whitewater" every day for up to a year. It was always about nothing. The bogus Whitewater charges led to a deluge of attacks that carried the veneer of always about being about something. In retrospect we see that it was a partisan massive media driven action. Kind of a putsch. Media figures and pols acted then as if they were upholding the sexual morality of Ozzie and Harriet in America. And it never was that way anyway. And now the same team defends a gay porn prostitute Gannon-Geckert because he is one of theirs -- and that allows us to see Republican morality in action.
Watching the Republican moralists, watching FOX, we understand that the action against Clinton was not an issue about morality, nor was it about publishers allowing sensationalism to make front page decisions. Today there is all kinds of sensationalism that the MSM easily ignores-- from sex to corporate crime to government malfeasance to voter manipulation. We see to what extent the smear against Clinton was partisan from start to finish. We can all see that now. But, although it made a mess, the putsch didn't work because for all the components of the smear against Clinton, it did not gather enough support. In retrospect I would think that The New York Times has to search it's soul for their history on this, as it does on the march to Iraq. But it was in that period that the power in the media shifted to the right wing smear machine. They own it. They have to sign it.
On consolidation of power in the media: In the years I have observed it, consolidation in an industry always seems to have a paradoxical effect. They just get it all sewed up at the top, they get all the screws in place, all of the controls are there, and somehow, magically, that control at the top always seems to open up a lot of room at the bottom. It's amazing. Over the years I have seen it happen in book publishing, in movie making. The companies get too big. Then individual entrepreneurs start putting product together and the bigger corporations loose their ability to function creatively. They become distributors for the products of independents -- filmmakers, designers, editor-publishers, whoever.
The news business is the same. The consolidation and control from the top resulted in their ceasing to fulfill their function. They stopped doing their job. Why they thought no one would notice is another matter. And the space opened up for the Vinnys of this world. Josh Marshall and Jane Hamsher are doing their jobs now. Thank God.
And a few old pols in media land are still carrying on an argument that says they are being unfairly attacked by the uncouth. Don't fall for it for a minute. They stopped doing their job a long time ago. The brilliant, intelligent, resourceful American writers on the blogs started doing it for them. And that is the truth.
by syolles on Sat May 12, 2007 at 06:15:31 PM PDT
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older folks remember a different journalism by syolles, Sat May 12, 2007 at 06:15:31 PM PDT (0 / 0)