The U.S. Attorney Story: By the Numbers

Posted by Tobias Funke
March 27, 2007

Point taken. But that doesn't mean the Chris Matthews clip doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean that your boss at Time didn't make shameful comments that betray his loyalty more to Karl Rove than a legitimate scandal. Or that Norah O'Donnell is nothing more than a Court Stenographer who is quite adept at simply repeating White House talking points.

Posted by flounder
March 27, 2007

I was just watching Imus and he was talking with someone from ABC (Brian Williams I believe), and the reporters tone was that this story was no big deal, it is about a simple foul up of info between Gonzo and his staff, and people don't understand it nor do they want to. So you can chalk up some more evidence the media is covering it, and I can chalk up more evidence they are making it into a story of whether someone told Congress something wrong and this one inconsequential event happened in a vacuum.
It is really simple, people who were too hard on Republicans and soft on Democrats were fired and (thanks to Arlen Specter) they tried to put 'good Bushies' into the vacant positions.
Why don't they press love this story? It involves secret extra government e-mail systems, a Justice Dept trying to submarine their own investigations into Tobacco, Abramoff, and Duke Cunningham (and his buddies, some of whom like Jerry Lewis still sit uncomfortably in Congress). It is the perfect storm of scandals and every rug that gets turned up has another mothhball in it.

Posted by JoyousMN
March 27, 2007

Karen,

We're not saying that journalists aren't reporting on this. After Talking Points Memo pushed and pushed it hit the papers. Once the story "got legs" journalists have covered it.

But what troubles us is when journalist have difficulty getting past the White House talking points. Also all coverage is not equal: when people in high places (like Rick Stengel) talk about the story and minimize it. When they and make it about horse-race _tactics_ rather than about the issues involved.

Posted by dratty
March 27, 2007

Karen -
Well yeah the pew poll is fine...except that it's a week old and the story has grown significantly since then. As you are well aware, a new USA Today/Gallup poll is now showing that 46% of Americans are following the story either very closely or somewhat closely, a significant jump in a week. This will only grow after the 'DoJ Aide Takes the Fifth' headlines today and possibly even more after Sampson's testimony tomorrow.
What is even more revealing is that, by close to a 3-1 margin, Americans are saying that Rove and Co. should testify openly and under oath and that, if they refuse, they should be subpoenaed.

Now I know that you're going to spout the line that the same poll says that a majority of Americans say that the Dems are doing this for political reasons. You're right, but you know what these findings say to me? THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT THE MOTIVES!!!! So long as it gets these guys under oath, Americans aren't worried about the purity of the motives of Congress on this.

So yeah, as an gentleman of a certain age who remembers Watergate (I am proud to say that I camped out on the steps of SCOTUS the night before oral arguments in US v Nixon and got in for the arguments), I think you better get your pencils sharpened. That is, of course, unless you have no problem with Josh Marshall becoming this generation's Bob Woodward

Posted by dratty
March 27, 2007

Sorry, yeah I know Sampson testifies on Thurs.
My bad.

Posted by Attaturk
March 27, 2007

The point is the manner in which PUNDITRY constantly acts as if they have a STAKE in determining what Americans are supposed to be interested in -- and how "we Americans" aren't interested in Congress investigating.

This is demolished by reality:

And then we have this USA Today poll, taken over the weekend (exactly when Stengel and his colleagues were warning Democrats that Americans would be angry if they pursued Karl Rove):

14. Do you think Congress should -- or should not -- investigate the involvement of White House officials in this matter?

Yes, should - 72%; No, should not - 21%

15. If Congress investigates these dismissals, in your view, should President Bush and his aides -- [ROTATED: invoke "executive privilege" to protect the White House decision making process (or should they) drop the claim of executive privilege and answer all questions being investigated]?

Invoke executive privilege - 26%; Answer all questions - 68%

16. In this matter, do you think Congress should or should not issue subpoenas to force White House officials to testify under oath about this matter?

Yes, should - 68%; No, should not - 24%

http://www.usatoday.com/news/polls/tables/live/2007-03-26-poll.htm

Posted by jayackroyd
March 27, 2007

Missing the point here, Karen.

The issue is not journalists on the news pages. There would be no story at all without those journalists. Josh noticed a couple of firings, sent out a notice to his readers, and gathered up the work done by local media around the country. Now, given lexis/nexis, it seems reasonable that a hardworking beltway news reported could have done this, but it would have been something of a fishing expedition, and hard to justify. And nobody could have done what Josh's readers did. So there's nothing to really fault the DC news gatherers here--and I don't think you'll find much.

The issue is the opinion makers--the people who write the editorials and the op-eds and the "news analyses", and who do the talk shows. The people who are chosen to do those shows very frequently seem to be delivering a pre-set collection of talking points. Rather than hearing a collection of different ways of looking at an issue you hear, at most, two. This last weekend, yesterday and today have shown an astounding attachment to a false, but strongly asserted claim--that the American people don't want investigations.

So, no, please don't change the subject. Please explain that egregious Chris Matthews segment--and Ignatius, Klein, Broder, Gibson, Brian Williams, Kinsey, Nagourney, Brooks and two more I don't remember. None of this commentary is news. It is all opinion. And across the spectrum, they all say the same things, things that are false or misleading.

That's what you need to explain.

Posted by James, Los Angeles
March 27, 2007

Thanks for that. Karen. However, a good portion of that 18% newshole, I imagine, consists of repeating of Republican talking points about how the Democrats are just being mean.

FWIW, here's what is on CNN's top story list right now:
# Dem presidential candidates talk Live
# Iran: Captured Britons in good health
# U.S. begins large show of force in Persian Gulf
# Pet projects tough to trim from Iraq spending bill
# As political battles rage, Bush steers to ethanol
# Australian admits helping al Qaeda | Video Video
# Justice official taking the Fifth on fired attorneys
# Senators question FBI's Patriot Act powers
# Striped inmates sing in 'Idle' to win Big Macs Video
# Poodle's barks save mom, 5 kids from fire Video
# Science examines unhittable Japanese pitch Video
# Comedian Eddie Griffin wrecks $1.5 million Ferrari

Take a quick look at your own website. Nothing about this until you scroll "way" down to US, at the bottom it is "Gonzales Aide to Take Fifth" after three Elizabeth Edwards stories.

If it is 18% of the news hole, Time Rag doesn't reflect that at all. Maybe that is because your head honcho is so uninterested....

Contrast that with the months of breathless coverage over which telephone Gore might have used to do fundraising, or not. And I mean breathless, screaming headlines every night. A special investigation, the whole nine yards.

Now we have a federal employee employed at the highest level at the White House, Karl Rove, who does nothing BUT political activities, including fundraising at openings of federal office buildings and coordinating Republican National Committee activities out of his White House office using RNC emails.

Media on Rove: "yawwwwwwwwwn."

Get it?

Posted by Jake Gittes
March 27, 2007

So Jay Carney says people who thought this would be a scandal were conspriacy theorists, and the managing editor of your magazine isn't interested in the scandal....."It's bad for Democrats". Why uncovering wrong doing by Republicans would be bad for Democrats has to be the dumbest leap of logic I've ever heard in my life.

It's nice you are carrying water for your boss, but Time initially drug its feet on the scandal, ridiculed those who investigated, and now is intent on downplaying the wrong doing. Your magazine and staff, on the whole, are administration apologists. That's the truth. Accept it. Just don't pretend to be something you are not, which is objective, or interested in finding out information that would harm the corporate party, the GOP.

Posted by Sean Brodrick
March 27, 2007

I believe the Daily Howler gets it just right in describing the Chris Matthews segment:

"Why bother having a five-member panel? In the discussion of this matter, all five pundits echo the current GOP talking-points. They picture the Democrats pursuing this matter for partisan reasons alone; no other possible motive is mentioned. And they all agree that the Dems should be careful about taking this witch-hunt too far.

"This is a nasty, criminal class. They’re determined to take apart your democracy. (Make no mistake: Jack Welch knew what he was getting when he hired his disordered boy.) And no, they don’t care about health care or warming. They already have excellent health care. Regarding warming, if their grandchildren die in the storm, they don’t care. In truth, their kind never will."

What's your response to that, Karen?

Posted by Charles
March 27, 2007

Oh my god.

Are we really so naive?

It seems to me you have started with a conclusion and then looked for facts to support it rather than taking a step back and looking at the real situation (have we seen this before? Like say, oh, the Bush rush to war?

The issue here is quality versus quantity of coverage. According to your - the case is gettin glots of coverage argument, the Chris Mathews segment would count as driving public debate and leading the interest of the general public. After all it was a major segment on a widely viewed program.

Problem is that the whole thing was dedicated to a smug "we're so sophisticated" dismissal of the whole affair as politics and not only that but as politics that work against the Democrats as if to urge them to stop the insanity.

The US Attorneys matter involves possible obstruction of justice (a serious and constitution threatening crime) and at the least efforts by The DOJ and most likely, if we ever get truthful testimony, The Bush Administration to use US Attorneys to prsue politically motivated prosecutions or investigations to influence the electoral process.

You're correct that your job description is not to play media defender. Why do you keep doing it?

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg
March 27, 2007

Karen-- this is a fair point.

If the data were from January rather than March, then the non-existent straw man MSM defender would win the argument altogether.

However, Josh Marshall had to do all of the early reporting on this himself (with his TPM staff) before people like Carney could roust themselves from their slumbers.

People are frustrated not because there's an active media cover-up of Bush scandals, but because (1) in DC, there is very little actual reporting done; (2) even when some other journalist has done the work of uncovering a story, some MSM types (see Greenwald's column) are slothful and dismissive of anything that would make the administration look really bad, because they view themselves as arbiters of politically correct topics rather than reporters who will work to find the truth.

It's great that the media is now, at last, relating what's going on in this story. But as long as there's some Rick Stengel spreading lies and sticking his head in the sand, there will be resentment from the reality-based community.

Thanks, again, for engaging your commentors.

Posted by todd b.
March 27, 2007

Karen:

The point here is that the news media apparently lacks the aptitude to discern news unitl it is smacked over the head with it. That the story garnered such coverage only last week is not to be lauded. Nor is the fact that the news media was so easily dissuaded from investigating months ago. If you are now turning to a study to reinvigorate confidence in your ability to do your job, well, perhaps that may evidence a larger problem.

Posted by jayackroyd
March 27, 2007

Oh, and, by the way, there is no reason feel defensive ("And before all our commenters jump on me"). I think you'll that the bulk of the comments, and all the good ones, focus on the issue we're talking about here, and not on you.

I (and many of us here, I'm sure) appreciate your opening up this discussion and paying attention to it. This not because we are upset with you, but because we feel like these, at this point, very elementary objections to Beltway opinion journalism are being ignored in ways that are completely out of keeping with the intelligence and education of the people who manage these opinion journalists.

In fact, these objections are directed more towards editors and management than towards the columnists. Yes, there are sardonic nicknames, and yes there is much sarcasm otherwise, but that's a reflection of frustration more than anything else. We're very glad you're here and reading this.

The next step is to recognize, as, in different ways, the liberal blogosphere does, is that your commenters are your friends. We're the friends who are kind enough to wade through your manuscript and make suggestions. We're the friends who want your work product to be something you can be proud of.

Now, it's gotta be kinda tough, because of course the "you" and "your" references above are to the entire beltway media establishment, and you're getting on point here with this post. But, believe me, our desire, unlike those on the right, is not to tear down these institutions, but to improve them, to encourage them to follow the journalistic ideals that we've heard about so often. Accuracy, fairness, objectivity and balance. We can help with this.

Posted by TomT
March 27, 2007

Karen, I think I speak for a lot of media critics when I say that I have no quibble with everyday working journalists. To the contrary, I consider many of the heroic (though there are some I would criticize).

The problem is media elites like Rick Stengel and Evan Thomas (as well as opinion writers like Maureen Dowd and David Broder). When a journalist trades in his shoe leather for Georgetown cocktail parties, he should retire.

Media elites like Rick Stengel do nothing but lower the level or our public discourse. They are truly enemies of democracy.

Posted by cfaller96
March 27, 2007

Karen, my problem is not with real journalists doing real work on this story. No, my problem is with "serious" pundits who could do some work on this story, but choose not to. I'm thinking specifically of Jay Carney, Richard Stengel, Joe Klein, and Mike Kinsley, who have all at different times blown off this story. Curious that they all work for TIME (except for Kinsley?), with one as the DC Bureau Chief, and another as the Managing Editor of the magazine. High ranking opinionmakers at TIME magazine are blowing this story off- repeatedly and consistently.

Also, my problem is not with McClatchy, Washington Post, or the various local papers moving the story forward by doing their own investigative work. My problem is with major media outlets who presumably have valuable sources that appear to not be used as of yet. Again, I'm thinking of TIME magazine, because aside from a handful of posts by you and Ana, not many resources at Swampland are devoted to this story, and from what I can tell from your Managing Editor's perspective, not many resources at the magazine are devoted to this story. No one in the TIME organization has called for Gonzales' resignation, and no one at TIME seems to be willing to call "bulls--t!" on the Administration's, well, bulls--t. This story keeps building, yet TIME does not seem to be building its resources with it.

Your DC Bureau Chief mocked this story as a "liberal conspiracy theory." Two of your fellow Swamplanders (Klein and Kinsley) are adamantly against investigations (with the dreaded subpoenas- lawdy lawdy!). And your magazine's Managing Editor is "so uninterested" in the Democrats investigating this.

That's why the commenters here are going nuts (myself included). To us dirty f'ing hippies out here, it looks like TIME is WILLFULLY IGNORING the story, in the hopes that it will go away.

The problem is TIME, not journalists.

Posted by Aaron
March 27, 2007

If you actually read the article, you can see that it includes "the view of CNN’s Lou Dobbs who, in a commentary posted on CNN.com, put a pox on everybody’s house."

So, point not maken. Frames matter, and certain members of the media are trying to push this under the rug. The study sited INCLUDES those cases where the media is blowing off this story as examples of talking about this story.

Bonus question: Does it matter that the Time managing editor lied about Al Gore? Bob Somerby says it best:

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh032607.shtml
"And it wasn’t the Clintons who “beat” Gore in Campaign 2000; it was them, the mainstream press corps, with their nasty, two-year War Against Gore—the war good careerists can never acknowledge."

Posted by annb
March 27, 2007

This is totally OT: News is reporting that Tony Snow's cancer has returned and spread to the liver.

God, Cancer SUCKS. Best wishes and prayers to Tony Snow and his family.

Posted by rmrd0000
March 27, 2007

Some of us believe that the press led by people like Judith Miller and the WaPo editorial pages cheerleded us into a war. Anyone who disagreed was dismissed as unpatriotic.
The Libby trial told us that there are very close relationships between DC pundits/reporters and the press. We are concerned that these pundits have a closer reltionship to those in power in DC than to the public. Robert Novak faced no pushback from the majority of the media for outing a covert CIA agent, and probably doing significant damage to the country's ability to limit the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
Swampland's initial days documented the air of superiority that DC reporters have towards their readers. Both Joe Klein and Jay Carney felt that they were uber--intelligent. The fact that many who were blogging at Swampland had superior knowledge on a multitude of topics being discussed by these gentemen made little impression. Carney had to finally admit his error in the USAG case. Michael Kinsley's posts were embarassing. In fact the Smithsonian director that Mr Kinsley supported had to resign in disgrace. Several bloggers rapidly posted data to refute Mr Kinsley's corporate CEO buddy as a good guy. These bloggers brought up job losses that were not mentioned by Mr Kinsley.
The Chris Mathews episode strikes us as something indicative of modern MSM. Arrogant, inept, shallow and cynical without a true nose for news. Style over substance. who is playing the political game the best.
Mr Mathews' hatred of the Clintons is obvious, yet he remains on a MSM TV show with no attempt to control or balance of his bias.
Many of us feel abandoned and betrayed by MSM. We sense a rightwing or at least a WH bias. There is no representation of the views of a significant portion of the US public in the punditry. We are dismissed as lefties, despite having the positions supported by the majority of the US population regarding the war, the USAGs and a host of other topics. We represent the majority of the population, and we are being ignored and dismissed by MSM. We are tired of the bias, and yes angry.

Posted by Jake Gittes
March 27, 2007

And the perfect example of what we are talking with Time...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/europe/

The Time cover story in the rest of the world is the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. In the US, where that would be a big criticism of this administration and their priorities, you run the cover of "Should the Bible be Taught in Public School".

TIME COVERS FOR, AND CARRIES WATER FOR, THE GOP.

It isn't an issue for serious debate. Your magazine offers no progressive voices (Joe Klein had a hissy fit when someone called him the most liberal columnist, god forbid), and is deliberately uninterested in any topic that would bring harm to the GOP.

Posted by flounder
March 27, 2007

ALthough I wish Tony Snow well, I hope he has to go before Katie Couric and explain whether he is keeping his job or going home to wait to die and then defend his decision.

Posted by RoMo
March 27, 2007

Karen,

Once again, thank you for your input and feedback.

Here are my thoughts. The “I’m bored” angle is unbelievably infuriating. The coverage reflects this attitude. The media cycle for most of this process is that a new bomb shell is revealed (generally through the investigation and the blogosphere), the RNC talking points are issued, the pundits not the new development then echo the talking points. What we are not seeing here is a full-blown MSM investigation like Walter Reed to determine if there is a story here.

Here are some questions that I want to hear the MSM investigate and not simply echo spin.

1) What is the breakdown between Democrat investigations and indictments and Republican ones. Paul Krugman cites a study by Donald Shields and John Cragen regarding investigations and indictments of candidates and elected officials by US attorneys since the Bush Administration took power. Krugman states, “of the 375 cases they identified, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans, and 298 involved Democrats. The main source of this partisan tilt was a huge disparity in investigations of local politicians, in which Democrats were seven times as likely as Republicans to face Justice Department scrutiny.” How valid was this study? Is it accurate? How come this is not asked of defenders of the purge? Is it ok to use the Justice Department as a partisan cudgel? By guess is the Americans would be alarmed by this, not bored.

2) What is the status of Lam’s investigation of the Dusty Foggo case in San Diego? Can the MSM investigate the case involving Rep. Jerry Lewis? I know I’ve said this before, but in the last six years Lewis held one of the most important positions in Washington. The Chair of the Appropriations Committee is responsible for spending the federal budget. This is a huge story. I barely hear it mentioned. More important than mentioning it is INVESTIGATING IT!

I have a million more questions, but can we get the ball rolling on some of these? America is interested in this story. It is fall more important than fundraising at a Buddhist temple.

Finally, can we drop the Schumer is a fundraiser line. Almost EVERYTHING this White House has done so far has been political.

Posted by Eric
March 27, 2007

Hi Karen -- I thought I would re-post my request from the comments to your earlier post. If you have a minute at some point today, I would love to hear your take on the substance of the US Attorneys issue. Here are some of the specific questions I'd be interested in getting your thoughts on, but anything substantive would be great. Many thanks.

1/ In your view, what is the significance of the facts that have come to light in the US Attorneys story? Why should people care about this (if indeed you think they should)?

2/ Based on what you have read so far, is the scandal here all about the communications surrounding the firings, or is there any reason to suspect that the firings may have been carried out for an improper purpose?

3/ Drawing on your training as a journalist, what is the best way to find out whether the Lam firing was intended to shut down her investigations of Duke Cunningham's associates and/or as retaliation for these investigations?

4/ Hypothetically, if Time wanted to get to the bottom of this, what investigative steps could it take to discover the truth as to whether any US Attorneys were fired to disrupt ongoing or potential investigations of influential Republicans? For the uninitiated (like me), how would a news gathering organization go about investigating this?

5/ What is your take as to the legitimacy of the "voter fraud" cases some of the fired US Attorneys were or are currently accused of having neglected?

6/ Does it trouble you that so many prominent national journalists are treating this story as a joke?

Posted by Enceladus
March 27, 2007

That Pew Study is just a content analysis. As such, it just measures the presence and frequency of topics.

As others have indicated here, it needs to be supplemented by an interpretive frame analysis.

Such an analysis could assess what proportion of this topic's coverage has the subtext of either "big scandal here," "nothing to see, move along," or "democrats are such investigative meanies, this could be bad for them." Etc.

Reporters like to think that they don't suggest such subtexts, but they do all the time--even in subtle ways like tone of voice (e.g., John Roberts this morning on CNN mockingly paraphrasing the democratic point of view that there is a big scandal here).

So in short, this Pew content analysis only answers a very narrow question about proportions of topical coverage.

Posted by squashua
March 27, 2007

Karen,

The important point is that these washington reporters, including your editor, reflected the "viewpoints of Americans" when in fact they were nothing but reflecting their personal opinions based upon nonexisting facts. This is unacceptable. I hope your comrades do better to check facts before spouting off.

-Squashua

Posted by brendan
March 27, 2007

Ms. Tumulty:

You say you're "going to wade into this..." as if it were some tremendouly daunting endeavor, then...don't wade into it. Citing polling that say the story is big but not that big advances no one's understanding of the story. I don't think I just speak for myself when I say that many of us commenters are appealing to you to treat this web of scandals as important because you have a prominent forum in the traditional media. Election tampering and obstruction of justice aren't tough ones for the public to grasp.

You're also ignoring the chief complaint many of us have: the punditry and influential editorial voices (notably the Washington Post) are broadly deprecating the significance of this story. That is a problem. They do much to advance the "narrative", even if they are, increasingly, thankfully, ignored by the public.

Lastly, let me say that I get my hard news from www.talkingpointsmemo.com. Whether I am part of a significant market trend remains to be seen, but it might behoove TIME, which has a woman excercising on a big ball on its front cover this week, to question its own relevance and worth the consumers.

Posted by bartkid
March 27, 2007

>I think the unfolding U.S. Attorneys story is a huge one, it deserves a massive commitment of journalistic resources

Ms. Tumulty,
If TIME could only spare a National Political Correspondent or a Washington bureau chief.

Please, please, please, start phone calls, start interviewing people, start making this a cover story.

>the public so far seems relatively uninterested
I am sure that when the facts come out, whoever's name is on the byline that cracks this story wide open will be shopping for a shelf for that new Pulitzer.

Posted by brendan
March 27, 2007

Elvis Elvisberg:

Carney has not "rousted himself from his slumbers". Nor has Tumulty. They're just trying to maintain a certain patina of professional legitimacy with acknowledgment to this story, but no investigatory participation. Then again, they don't make the editorial decisions here or on tv.

I posted above and I just realized that the tone I take there is that of an adult and parent to a vain and immature person who needs to be coaxed into doing homework or something. These pundits and access journalist don't yet get that most blog participants are professionals, parents, and, above all, active citizens.

Posted by The Rise of the Little People
March 27, 2007

Flounder,
It was Charlie Gibson, not Brian Williams.

Posted by Tom Betz
March 27, 2007

Karen, Duncan Black pretty much speaks my mind about your defense of the big media:

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_03_25_atrios_archive.html#117500722104877407

It's not the journalists (like you) we mind so much, it's the wanker pundits and the lazy-minded editor-wannabe-pundits who try to tell us little people what is and is not important and interesting, and who consistently get it wrong.

For the sake of nice, I won't name names this time around.

Posted by Had a republic
March 27, 2007

I think the press is doing a heckuva job!

Thanks for telling us about Al Gore's suit colors!

And missing white women!

And Governor Dean's scream!

You guys are the best press corps in history - just like Rumsfeld was the best Sec of D.

And John Edwards sold his house! For money!

Who cares about the Downing Street memo? Yesterdays news.

Or that $8billion or so that went astray in Iraq?

Who needs Winston Smith when we have the Post and Times editorial staff?

Posted by ama
March 27, 2007

***These pundits and access journalist don't yet get that most blog participants are professionals, parents, and, above all, active citizens.***

No! No! No!
We are all teenagers in our PJs posting from our bedrooms.
--or--
We are adults still hunkered in our parents basement because we don't want to get a job.
--or--
We are DFH still raging against the establishment.
--or--
We are anything negative the Broders of the MSM choose to say about us.

Posted by Hank Essay
March 27, 2007

But it needs to be stressed yet again, if guys like Jay Carney were setting the news agenda, this NEVER WOULD HAVE BEEN A STORY.

Remember that...

Posted by Kevster
March 27, 2007

Karen:

The very valid criticisms levied above at the MSM are indicative of a huge swath of opinion by the American people. You haven't been juimped on at all-the comments are polite and insightful. It is a disgrace that Chris Matthews, et al could find so much humor and irrelevance in what is developing into a major story.

BushCo is full of liars so they need to be placed under oath, especially Rove. We get really really tired of Drudge giving marching orders to the DC press corpse that come spilling from Rove's Blackberry.

In short we are as mad as hell but many of us still believe that good reporting is an essential asset to this democracy.

Bloggers are helping make this happen.

Posted by amberglow
March 27, 2007

As others have said, it's not the quantity, it's the quality--much of the coverage of this is purely pundits bloviating, along with actual reporters doing the same. It's not being "covered" so much as the latest development is reported in 20 seconds, then there's 20 minutes of back-and-forth about how partisan witchhunts are bad and why aren't the Democrats doing the country's business, etc?

The NYT has Nagourney on that beat too--"Are the Democrats overreaching? They have to tread carefully, etc" -- that's the predominant coverage, and the vast vast majority.

Posted by Septic Tank
March 27, 2007

Karen, if you're suggesting that the current level of public interest in a scandal that could possibly bring down an AG and maybe even his boss should dictate coverage... Well, then I think news orgs need to decide whether they serve the public interest or Wall Street.

Okay, kidding. Of course they serve Wall Street and only Wall Street. So, how about that Anna Nicole?

More seriously, public interest in a moderately complicated scandal made more complicated by the obfuscatory deftness of the Rove operation is bound to be low initially. But, you know, our democracy depends on reporters rooting it out (and, yes, in the absence of a strong ethos of public interest journalism among corporate media overlords, nettlesome bloggers egging them on).

That's not a dramatic statement. Our democracy depends on the integrity of our judicial system. That's not so complicated, is it?

Posted by JJ
March 27, 2007

Yes the official press script is that we're all twentysomething slacker offduty barristas (not that there's anything wrong with that). But as soon as a news story is forced to get specific, they find that the demographic is considerably older ...

So next, is Time going to come out and start making fun of Democrats for wanting to get to the bottom of this?:

****...Whether Ashcroft's, and later Gonzales', involvement was unusual or not, Democrats say that the need to check decisions with DoJ higher-ups routinely resulted in "inordinate delays" in the investigation. They also say that both AGs failed to recuse themselves, despite a conflict of interest: Ashcroft as a former senator, since Tobin was a high ranking official in the committee that helped Ashcroft get elected; and Gonzales as legal counsel for the White House, since the Democrats alleged White House involvement in the [phone] jamming scheme.

The Democrats' other grievances, which they lay out in the letter, are 1) that the Justice Department bogged the investigation down by assigning only one FBI agent to the case -- and that agent was part-time 2) that the DoJ's refusal to prosecute the organziations responsible for the jamming, the New Hampshire Republican Party and the Republican National Committee, violated Justice Department guidelines, and 3) the DoJ failed to follow leads that led to higher-level Republican involvement.****

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002839.php

Posted by linda
March 27, 2007

Karen, is this a test? is this another 'insider' joke? Excellence in Journalism weighed by the pound. A semi load of cow pies or one Baron of Beef? 10,000 shares of Enron or 5 shares of Berkshire Hathaway?

Posted by Anonymous
March 27, 2007

Gee Karen I agree with you.

Too bad your editor doesn't.

Posted by Alan
March 27, 2007

To repeat: Charles Gibson (Imus) pooh poohed the story about the US attorneys as inside the beltway stuff and lost my respect (for what its worth). Evans of Newsweek did that stuff on Imus last week and is now shown up for the goofball he has become. Too many side trips to Harvard.I had a good opinion of them, but they turn out to be peddlers of conventional wisdom. Bloody lazy journalism.

Karen: the point is that the MSM did not lead. If it was Bill why the rat pack would have been ahead of the game. But this is Bush country and rocking even such a leaky boat is not on the cards.

The thing is that journalists are being called out for their lazy, inside the beltway and inside the gang approach to their work; and their output has been subject to searing criticism. Now you, Ana and Joe have engaged and that is to your credit, and dare I say it, your professionalism. But you are in a minority.

Posted by QUESTION HILLARY
March 27, 2007

News Flash: ALL of the USA's are POLITICAL APPOINTEES. They serve at the discretion of the POTUS - and if they aren't pulling their legal weight, fairly? Adios.

Just ask any Clinton, their lawyers, or their judges (even the ones that had the nerve to convict the many FOB's that willingly aided & abetted perjury, pardons, and peckerwood for 8 appeasing slacker years of growing international terrorism and damp interns).

Next!

Posted by Jim
March 27, 2007

What Tom Betz said: Our beef is primarily, but not exclusively, with pundits rather than journalists.

The problem comes when the people who carry out these roles blur those lines. I guess Stengel, as a managing editor, would probably say that he is neither: So what was he doing on the Tweety Show doing punditry? Lazy, fact-free punditry at that? Norah O'Donnell.... well, let's be honest, she a face and nothing more. If she gained twenty pounds she'd be doing week-end showbiz reports. How would Gloria Borger, an opinion columnist and TeeVee talking head, define herself?

Sometimes, the problem is lazy, bigname journalists who are too caught up in their own reputation to do their jobs. Just look at the Washington Post's pre-war coverage: Superstar Bob Woodward's administration stenography was on page one, Walter Pincus's actual reporting was page A-17. NYT=Judith Miller + Tom Friedman=de facto war cheerleading. Politics is more or less a hobby of mine, but I can't name the Knight-Ridder/McClatchy journalists who got it right. Woodward and Friedman are still all over my TeeVee.

And Ms Tumulty, though I do like your work and think you're easily the best front-pager here: I saw you debunk the Al Gore Love Story canard, and I also saw you, more or less contemporaneously, laugh along with Tweety when he started hyperventilating his Mary Matalin crafted version of it. Do you really believe that and all the other Al Gore myths, constructed and repeated adnauseum by the same people we're talking about today, had no effect in the 2000 election and all it's lethal aftermath?
Which leads us back to the question: Where is the accountability in punditry and celebrity journalism?

Posted by Tom Paine's Ghost
March 27, 2007

Question Hillary:
Do you get paid by the Iranian secret service or do you just hate America because of psychological problems?

Posted by IncandenzaH
March 27, 2007

The blogs threaten Time and other traditional media, but it's their own doing. And this story expemplifies why that is the case. It's apparent that a majority of Americans DO think investigations are important (and more-so, that the Executive needs to be checked). For six long years, we've waited for the Fourth Estate to get its act together and hold the Bush Administration accountable for its crimes and outright lies, since the GOP-controlled congress would not do its job in that regard. Instead, we got "he-said-he-said" reports that didn't even attempt to divine the truth. Now the blogs are slowly forcing the media to become accountable for its misdeeds (and hopefully also applauding them when they strive for truth in reporting, rather than maintaining a fake sense of "balance" that leaves truth by the wayside). All we ask of the media is to focus on searching for the truth again... if you don't, we'll continue to find other avenues that do find the search for truth to be more important than stenography & echoing the talking points of either/both sides.

Posted by Memekiller
March 27, 2007

I have complained about the many ignored scandals that would have gotten months of coverage if Clinton had done something half as bad. Compare the coverage of the Lincoln bedrooms to Abramoff. But I have not read much complaint about current coverage of the attorney firing. Perhaps the media feels it needs a bone it can point to when the return to irresponsibly pumping swift boat horseshit.

I would, however, like to remind you that it was on this blog that this story was originally pooh-poohed as blog hyperventillation. Now that it's taken off, despite your best efforts to stamp it out, you're covering it.

Six years to late, and one exception does not make a rule, but you won't hear me whine about this story being ignored.

Posted by A Hermit
March 27, 2007

The run-up to the invasion of Iraq got lots of coverage too. It's quality, not quantity that's at issue here.

Posted by flounder
March 27, 2007

Rise of the Little People, thanks, I was multi-tasking when i wrote that I thought it was Brian Williams on Imus.

Posted by ama
March 27, 2007

Karen,
I have NOT taken the time to read all the comments on this thread, but I appreciate your interest in this story--if not your attempt to defend the media. I think you have probably received less criticism here in Swampland than the guys. The guys don't seem to have a nose for the news or an interest in pursuing leads. Most of us, I think, would consider that to be a serious flaw for a "journalist"--even one of from DC.

After the behavior of your Managing Editor this weekend, I think he should be installed in the David Broder Hall of Infamy.

James Wolcott says regarding David Broder
("Egbert the Unready"):

"David Broder’s career raises an interesting question: How can one reasonable man reliably get is so wrong for so long and remain at the topmast of his profession?"

This was in reference to Broder's article
"Investigation, not legislation in Congress"
"http://www.thestate.com/mld/state/news/opinion/16927508.htm

I believe Gene Lyons raised the same issue earlier. How do people who consistently get it wrong keep their jobs? Most people out here in the "wasteland" get fired when they don't do their jobs. Why is it in DC those who CAN'T do get promoted to speaking parts on TV?

Just wanting to know.

Posted by Anonymous
March 27, 2007

So, wait, is Stengel going to defend himself or what?

Posted by Dr. Wu
March 27, 2007

You and your colleagues have spent two decades cowering in fear at being called "liberal" to the point that you now appear to be incorrigible GOP apologists. No matter how incompetent or at odds with popular opinion the GOP may become, you and your media brethren still instinctively avoid reportage critical of the GOP, in the manner of a long-battered spouse--it appears that the GOP needs only to raise an eyebrow to send you scuttling from the front lines of journalism back to the cozy corners of stenography.

If Time devoted half as much coverage to GOP scandals as it devotes to fabulous claims that Americans don't care about GOP scandals, those of us in the reality-based 70%-and-growing might be more inclined to take Time seriously.

Posted by you know me
March 27, 2007

i still believe in the importance of the press -- always have, always will -- except that now its truest and best functions are happening on blogs

plame leak story:
> the best coverage award goes to firedoglake.com and talkingpointsmemo.com

USA firing / AG story:
> the best coverage award goes to firedoglake.com and talkingpointsmemo.com

and so on ...

the big newspapers -- washington post, ny times, have abandoned any effort to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, trading access for insight and cocktail party chatter for analysis

the ascendancy of the blogs as the keepers of the flame will either (a) smack the corporate press out of its stupor and encourage it to take up the responsibilities it has dropped or (b) kill it off until it becomes nothing but katie couric asking elizabeth edwards why she chose other than to stay home and die quietly

Posted by Mark
March 27, 2007

Karen, I agree with the prevailing sentiment that I would take 3% of the news coverage if it was devoted to whether or not Bush and co. are destroying the system of justice instead of the current 18% of "DEMS vs REPUBS II." The media seems to just dumb down the subject to the lowest common denominator for both themselves and the public. Obviously there are exceptions and Swampland has been progressive by MSM standards, it is just an issue that bothers people who are passionate about defending the constitution when their concerns are willfully trivialized by those that are supposed advocate them.

I think you will find that most bloggers have no economic incentive for caring about this story. Everyone in the blogosphere only wants to get to the truth of the story. Seemingly, everyone with an economic incentive doesn't care about the underlying stories. I don't know why that is, but it raises some questions.

There are a couple of questions that would mean a lot more if you raised them than if most bloggers raised them:

1. Where are the performance reviews for any of the USA's (excepting the incompetent Ryan) BEFORE the firings took place? A DOJ employee in an e-mail admits that he didn't look at Bogden's. Almost all of the Lam rationale means expecting each lawyer to handle over 1,000 cases a year to handle all of the 140,000 immigration arrests a year. Again, there is no evidence that this complaint was ever raised with Lam directly.

2. Why are the current investigations by the DOJ focusing on Democrats 80% of the time? Why this much investigation when the only convictions seem to involve Republicans?

3. Why were the investigations into illegal wiretapping and Valerie Plame leak shut down? These were unprecedented moves by Bush by most knowing observers.

4. Why is there a gap in the e-mails between November 15th and early December?

5. What happened to the investigation that Carol Lam was working on involving Foggio et. al?

My guess is that the answers all point in one direction.

Posted by david in norcal
March 27, 2007

Karen,

I think you need to make the distinction between journalism and punditry. Journalists did produce the stories that unvieled this story/scandal and bloggers like Marshall, investigated the larger story in journalistic fashion.

Pundits on the other hand, without actually knowing or doing investigations of their own, have consistently tried to explain this story away, either by saying it's not a scandal before all the facts or in, or discounting its legitimacy as a political issue. That's troubling.

There was a time when it seemed useful to have seasoned journalists would help "explain" in broad terms the significance of the news of the week, in Howard K. Smith fashion, I guess.

But something is wrong with the pundit model these days because the pundits are consistently either parroting each other's rather bland pronouncements and frequently they are just plain wrong (see War, Iraq).

Posted by Peter Principle
March 27, 2007

A classic example of the problem is the media coverage of Monica Goodling's decision to plead the fifth rather than testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Whatever the significance of the underlying story (i.e. the US Attorney firings) the fact remains that the counselor to the Attorney General -- the lawyer for America's lawyer -- just announced to the world that testifying truthfully under oath might tend to incriminate her, and refused to do it.

This is pretty remarkable. In fact I don't think a Justice Department official of her rank has ever done this before. It's either a.) an admission that something dirty HAS been going on in the Justice Department or b.) a breathtaking defiance of congressional authority.

And yet the story is buried in the back of the A sections today in both the Post and the Times. (Interestingly, the cable news organizations initially gave it much better play, but quickly backed off once they saw how the "quality" press was treating the story.)

It's hard to see this as anything other than willful myopia. As with the Valerie Plame story, the Beltway mavens continue to insist the USA firings are no big deal -- even though the facts and the official investigations (Pat Fitzgerald then, a Democratic Congress now) increasingly suggest otherwise.

This hasn't stopped the feeding frenzy (the media elite isn't that powerful) but it has given the administration a lot of breathing room it otherwise wouldn't have -- a hell of a lot more than the punditburo ever was willing to give the Clinton administration.

And it's hard to see THAT as anything other than as craven cowardness, conservative bias, or both.

Posted by Terrapin
March 27, 2007

Karen - Please go here:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/26/195345/058

This diary, despite its colorful rhetoric, sums it up pretty well. It is not the amount of reporting it is the dismissive attitude, it is the assuming of what 'the voters' want, it is the cynical coverage that the Dems always get.

The link above discusses a poll of Americans that want the Dems to continue to ask questions of this administration. I have seen no poll which indicates otherwise and yet it seems that the Washington pundits think the Dems are just play revenge games. They seem to be suffering from Bush Fatigue and they just want the Dems to come quietly in, get government to function once again and then sit quietly by as Bush does, well, whatever he wants. The Washington media seemed quite happy that the Dems did not push further into the illegal wiretapping story. How did that one end again? Oh yeah, Bush got to agree to obey FISA without having to suffer any consequences for breaking the law for three years.

What does one do if one finds all of these issues important? And I have already discussed how all of these scandals are intimately related. They all outline the incompetence, cronyism, criminality and dishonesty of the Bush administration and its unitary executive theory of government.

And, again, I ask for somebody here at Time to address the issue of the other US Attorneys. The ones who were not fired because they apparently obeyed the administration and investigated Dems at a rate of nearly five times that of Republicans at a time of strong Republican majorities. The administration should take heat for 'mishandling' the firing of the few, but they should also take heat for the misuse of the rest.

Posted by zota
March 27, 2007

This is a quote from the article you link to, Karen:

> CNN’s Lou Dobbs who, in a commentary posted on
> CNN.com, put a pox on everybody’s house.
>
>“And this is what passes for a big-time, dramatic,
> historical constitutional crisis in 21st century
>America?” Dobbs wrote. “You’ve got to be kidding…

Do contemptuous insulting dismissals of the entire topic count as "news coverage"? If so, then Jay Carney has been dedicating "news coverage" to this story for months.

Posted by jawbone
March 27, 2007

The role of the Mainstream Corporate Media is to shape the public's perception of reality. It is not, seemingly, to bring news of reality to the public. In which case, reporters find they must serve the corporate/political powers that be, not the public.

I am so impressed by the comments here, saying what I would say were I a better writer.

I watched Chris Matthews show on Sunday morning, and I was nearly sickened by how the guests and host found very serious matters to be so wonderfully funny. They were nearly giddy with delight at their repartee and put-downs of both important issues and the people interested in them. The giggling seldom stopped. It did strike me that Patrick Healy at one point seemed to not want to go along with the group, but he also didn't want to get on the wrong side of the In Crowd. Or Heathers, as Ive thought of them for years now.

Also, Eric who posted the 5 or 6 great questions should be teaching reporter/journalist refresher courses.

(Uh, why are there no time or number designations so that references could be made more effectively?)

Posted by amberglow
March 27, 2007

"And, again, I ask for somebody here at Time to address the issue of the other US Attorneys. The ones who were not fired because they apparently obeyed the administration and investigated Dems at a rate of nearly five times that of Republicans at a time of strong Republican majorities."

Yup--it's like there is fear at even looking into all those "loyal Bushies" who got to keep their jobs. Why? What were they doing "right"?

Posted by amberglow
March 27, 2007

Wasn't it a DC journalist/pundit who said "they came in here and trashed the place" (except they were talking about the Clintons)?

Should we hold our breath waiting for the same sentiment about the current trashing of the government? When it's actually been happening since 00?

Posted by Morris Sheppard
March 27, 2007

Wow! Aren't the commenters (with the obvious exception of QH) on this blog great? My only beef is that by the time I get to read most of the posts the responses have said just about everything I wanted to say myself. OTH, it saves me a lot of typing.

I applaud your understanding of the importance of this story, in that it goes directly to the undermining of the fundamentals of our democracy by the crass, unethical and borderline, if not actually criminal, elements that are now in control of the Executive. The question remains - when will the media, as exemplified by your boss, the execrable Mr. Stengel, actually start to explain the implications of this story, rather than telling us they are "so uninterested?"

The fact that without the intrepid reporting of Josh Marshall and the TPM crew this story would have disappeared into the swamp of all the other underreported Bush scandals is nearly as big as the story itself.

Posted by CoT
March 27, 2007

"which, by the way, is not in my job description here at TIME"

It's a hobby. Like, tennis, or philately.

Posted by cfaller96
March 27, 2007

Karen said:
"the news coverage has been intense, despite the fact that the public so far seems relatively uninterested"

I just realized that you pulled a Stengel. That is, you attributed characteristics to the American people that are factually, empirically, evidently false. The American people, BY A VAST MARGIN, want Congress to investigate the White House's role in the US Attorney Purge.

USA Today Poll, from this past weekend:
http://tinyurl.com/3b3vd7

72%(!) of Americans want Congressional investigations- Karen, if that's not the public showing "interest" in this, then what is? Just because DC journalists aren't interested in this story, doesn't mean America isn't. You need to accept the fact that you and your colleagues are waaaay out of the mainstream on this. Only then can you do any real work on this story.

Let's also note that with this poll we can put to bed the idea that Joke Line and Kinsley have any kind of political "wisdom" WRT what Dems should and should not do. We all knew at the time of posting that they were pulling crap out of their butts to justify their prior beliefs, but it's good to see evidence of that.

But let's get back to you, Karen- please put your personal feelings on this story aside, make some phone calls, start quizzing your sources, and STOP DOING STENOGRAPHY! With your (presumably) knowledgeable sources, maybe you could start with the most basic question- why was Carol Lam fired?

Posted by Fred Mertz
March 27, 2007

The media is not "covering" it, they're busy spinning it by reciting republican talking points. That's not journalism, that's propaganda.

Posted by JoJo
March 27, 2007

I have to say that I am very impressed with the tone and content of virtually all of the responses I have seen related to Karen Tumulty's post today.

I am reluctantly coming to the opinion that the world will survive the demise of the MSM and that it won't be that big a loss.

As the US Attorney story has demonstrated a story can be investigated, pushed, and maintained in the absence of serious reporting by "serious" reporters and/or commentators.

If we only read the major newspapers, or watched the networks for our information the quality of the posts on this blog would be much lower than I have seen. Also, the polls would not show that the vast majority of American do want this mess investigated in a serious manner.

The king is dead, long live Josh Micah Marshall.

Posted by Richard
March 27, 2007

David Broder is the source of "they trashed the place".

Posted by Phil
March 27, 2007

Just because it's being talked about doesn't mean the pundits are talking about it in any intelligent manner. By the study you quote the Chris Mathews laugh fast would count as coverage. Can they make a pie chart of what percentage of said coverage was factual? For all we know this simply means that the spindoctors are trying extra hard with this one.

Posted by The Fool
March 27, 2007

You gotta be kidding me. Yeah, they're covering it NOW!!!

This still leaves several questions unanswered:

1) Would they have covered it like this without Josh Marshall and a Democratic congress?

2) HOW are they covering it? Are they pushing the investigation or being pulled along? Are they demanding answers or scolding Sen. Leahy for not trusting Karl Rove? Are they demanding a special prosecutor like the Washington Post did with Whitewater or are they universally warning the Democrats that this will backfire on them instead?

Posted by The Fool
March 27, 2007

Karen: your argument is so weak -- just like many of Joe Klein's and Jay Carney's. Don't you all get embarrassed posting up weak crap like that?

Posted by The Fool
March 27, 2007

Karen: Your argument is so obviously weak. Don't you all get embarrassed by posting such weak material?

Posted by Richard
March 27, 2007

According to many pundits and editorialists...

Firing US Attorneys for pursuing Republicans and high level government officials who have violated the law is "just politics".

Illegally outing an undercover CIA operative and jeopardizing the lives and operations of her fellow agents is "just politics".

Part of what makes what has been going in the media so disturbing is the tacit approval of these actions. The Bush administration has been doing things that would make Nixon blush, yet Time's managing editor seems to be perfectly fine with it. That is just beyond the pale.

The media is corrupt.

Posted by James, Los Angeles
March 27, 2007

I am pessimistic about the ability of the established press to recover from the 20-odd years of corruption (by corruption I mean in the *not working* sense rather than the *bribery* sense.) Karen, you may dismiss that three-minute clip as insignificant, but I see it as actually representative of what is wrong with the big time media. We see that same three minute atrocity with a different cast in many venues many times per day.

When Managing Editors like your big boss are uninterested in news but are interested in yukking it up publicly with a panel of superficial airheads while spouting beltway conventional narrative and erroneously, without basis, attributing it to the "American people" I don't see much hope in the people that he employs having much incentive to do a good job journalistically.

I used to be an absolutist on freedom of the press, but now I am not so sure. When beltway journalists believe that it is their duty to assist high level government officials in covering up actual crimes, perhaps it is time to revisit whether corporate media can be entrusted to uphold the first amendment rather than abuse it for reasons of maintaining their own status.

I don't see the conventional media imploding, but rather slowly withering on the vine, while the people move on to new models of information gathering that is more in the democratic model than the elitist gateway that exists today. For one, I'll say good riddance.

Posted by The Fool
March 27, 2007

Sorry for the double post. When it didn't appear the first time after a longish delay I assumed it was because of the inclusion of the word "crap" and rewrote it.

Posted by The Fool
March 27, 2007

Karen:

You're a media insider, so please answer this. Why is it Republican scandals are always downplayed while Democratic ones are inflated?

How do you personally explain the obvious difference in coverage of Clinton versus George W. Bush?

Posted by copithorne
March 27, 2007

I offer a free focus group: I am a passionate consumer of news and opinion and journalism. I'm a target audience for this product. IBut I would rarely come to Swampland or Time Magazine because I would expect to be find cynical empty spin. I wouldn't expect to find truth, facts, argument, insight.

I am nauseated by the culture of contemporary American journalism. Glenn Greenwald's treatment of the Chris Matthews' segment expresses my disgust. The contemporary media is largely incapable or uninterested in treating substantive issues substantively. They traffic in cynical gossip and empty opinions about the horse race and call it the news. The failure of contemporary journalism is one of the key toxins sickening our political discourse.

It is hard for me as an outsider to see into how contemporary journalism became so comprehensively corrupt. I have studied the matter deeply and yet I still don't feel that I have a true understanding of the forces that keep our political discourse and culture so sick.

Karen's post seems to open the door to the possibility that my experience of contemporary American journalism could be acknowledged. If anyone in the Washington Press corps comes to self awareness, if anyone finally gets the joke that Stephen Colbert told about them at the White House Correspondent's dinner, please, please, please share this insight with us. I want to know why journalism failed us.

Posted by aimai
March 27, 2007

You know, Karen, I could care less whether a lot of journalists cover a story or not--its how they cover it that matters to me. By sheer numbers you'd think the most important stories in this country are stories that involve minor blonde beauty queens who get murdered in their parents house, or shark attacks, or brittany spears hair cut. In fact, by the numbers or by the intensity of the reportage you'd be *sure* that those were the most important stories. But they aren't. Boring stories like health care policy (your waterloo, I understand) or the US Attorney scandal matter much more not to politics as horserace, or determining who your paymasters are going to have dinner with for the next six years but TO THE COUNTRY as a democracy.

Journalists need to start asking themselves why they do what they do. If they do what they do for a paycheck, they've got no one to answer to but their bank manager and their boss. But if they do what they do to *inform the public* of important political and criminal events that are fundamentally shaping our civil and political society--well, they are doing a damned bad job. Most people either don't see the coverage or can't understand it or see only the botched coverage (like the matthews show) that are placed out there deliberately to obfuscate the issues. Regardless of the number of the stories "out there" if your role is to inform the public of the facts and link the facts into a coherent narrative you guys are either screwing it up, or your definition of facts, truth, and the main story is not in accordance with reality.

aimai

Posted by Bluelady
March 27, 2007

Again, it's all due to the MSM given in to Fox News and trying to be "fair and balanced".

Most talking heads are so afraid of being called biased or, even worse, liberal, they are reluctant to cover every mistake/crime/mess Bushco have done to the American people.

So, they either choose to downplay a certain scandla, or, search for something negative they can discuss about Democrats.

Overall, the MSM gets, at best, a C- on their coverage of this latest revelation of the amorality of Bushco.

Posted by the dryyyyyyy cracker
March 27, 2007

Karen, compare the thread you've inspired to one of Klein's or Kinsley's. You're getting hit pretty hard, but in New-Media-Land, you are LOVED.

To you blog triumphalists:

Yes, you're smarter (for all intents & purposes; I don't know from native intelligence) than the professional opinion class. Yes, you will eventually bury them. But as far as replacing "journalists," well, that's tricky, because "journalist" is a bullshit word that clouds distinctions. Jill Carroll and Maureen Dowd are both "journalists." What the world needs now are reporters, sweet reporters.

Bloggers, I beg of you--DO SOME DAMN REPORTING. If you've got time to photoshop Jonah Goldberg and talk about your pets, you've got time to call a local official. Of course the MSM deserves your derision, but at this point it's like watching a bunch of really talented knitters of wool sweaters mocking sheep for their irrelevance.

Posted by brendan
March 27, 2007

All these entreaties written to Messrs. Carney and Tumulty are pretty futile. To paraphrase a quote of Upton Sinclair's I've seen on the web: It's impossible to make a man understand something when his livelihood depends on him not understanding it.

Posted by gyrfalcon
March 27, 2007

Contrast the "I'm bored" attitude so prevalent towards the USA story (move along, nothign to see here) and the intense excitement I'm seeing on my teevee about the fact that a Jim Webb staffer got caught heading into the Capitol with Webb's gun and ammunition.

What on earth is the possible driver for that story?

Posted by Steve in Sacto
March 27, 2007

Karen,

During the period Pew studies I did a "Who will hold them responsible" looking at the numerous "reports" Wolf Blitzer and the CNN team did in three hours hosting "The Situation Room" that, in fact, told their viewers *absolutly nothing* about the actual facts of this story. Does that entirely fact-free "news" content count in Pew's study?

Posted by jim
March 27, 2007

Stengel says "most people" when an actual poll refutes it. Where did he pull that from and why did he say it?
Andrea Mitchell says "most people" want Libby pardoned and when a poll refutes that statement. Where did she pull that from and why did she say it? It's not like she just fell off an apple cart or is just bullshitting. She and he state as fact something that is plain wrong (to be nice)or lie (to be accurate). It's not that they don't have the resources. They say what they say because they favor certain interests.
Now the "meme" is the Democrats would rather investigate than legislate and "most people" would rather have then legislate. Wrong.
Look, Imus is a very rich, apparently influential talk jock with a big audience. That's all. But influence counts. Why else go on his show? But Stengel and Mitchell supposedly are trained, experienced, intelligent people. They really don't work for you and me. They are trained and experienced and use their intelligence to support the entrenched political forces which for the last 27 except for Clinton have been Republican. Reagan's policies (cut taxes for the rich, anti-union, we made it, Americans are too soft, universal health care will cost too much and will especially dip into our rich pockets, pro excess military spending, pro overseas military engagement)favored their and their bosses (Welch's conservative [GE and its role military indutrial complex] and his successors) positions. But, of course, they would deny it [maybe not Welch, Summner Redstone wouldn't and hasn't)and say we are too crass, that what they say is based on their experience. No, what they say is generally, not always, based on their position, who pays them, and the circles they run in.