The mainstream media as Obama’s Praetorian Guard
A new Pew Research Poll confirms the continuing erosion of the mainstream media’s credibility in the eyes of the public.
While this particular finding made no distinction between news gathered from all sources (internet as well as print and broadcast media), its finding are consistent with many similar polls conducted over the past five years — none of which bodes well for the traditional outlets of journalism.
The Pew Poll is also coeval with two recent events that clearly demonstrate that the mainstream media has chosen, in the Age of Obama, not to inform the citizenry, but rather, to function as his Praetorian Guard: the abrogation of their duty to report the Van Jones story and their continuing disinterest in the ongoing exposure of the criminal activities of ACORN.
The mainstream media was not interested in pursuing the Van Jones story for the same reasons they did not assiduously inquire into the past radical associations of Barack Obama when he was a candidate. Disclosure of these unpleasant facts would have been inconsistent with the Obama narrative they carefully created and fostered. Having shamelessly debased themselves, and squandered what was left or their eroding credibility, by unabashedly acting as an advocate for his election, now that he is president, they have a vested interest in the success of his Administration.
The Van Jones story was uncovered and revealed to the public largely through the work of bloggers, FOX News’ Glenn Beck, and other groups unaffiliated with the mainstream media. Indeed, if one’s exclusive source for news was the New York Times, you would have first learned of Van Jones only after he had resigned.
Jill Abramson, managing editor of the New York Times, recently acknowledged that the Times indeed was “a beat behind” on the story, but she laughably attributed it to a lack of resources in that paper’s Washington D.C. bureau. She further added that the Times had caught up with the story on September 7th — long after the episode was over. As Kyle Smith of the New York Post notes, The EMS equivalent of this statement would be, “Sorry I didn’t take your 911 call for four days. At least I was in time for the funeral.”
ACORN is an organization that has been ripe for the application of precisely the kind of investigative journalism, for which, as their industries face extinction, the media never tires of telling us they are indispensable. Many states have ongoing investigations into alleged voter registration fraud conducted by ACORN during the previous election cycle.
Yet, in terms of investigating ACORN, where were the tenacious reporters of 60 minutes, those legions of New York Times’ journalists of Pentagon Papers fame? The investigative spotlight teams from the big city dailies? All missing in action.
Uncovering the illicit and sordid activities of ACORN was a job that was conducted by two young, non-descript journalists. The intrepid duo of James O’Keefe, and Hannah Giles continue their undercover work exposing the nefarious activities of ACORN branch offices — the latest occurring in New York City — while the story induces nothing more than a collective yawn on the part of the former institutional titans of print and broadcast journalism.
Perhaps this is because Obama’s days as a community organizer in Chicago were somewhat romanticized during the campaign. Perhaps too, an objective analysis of ACORN by the media might reveal that this type of activity has a dark side, and is not always so benign and altruistic.
By their continuing failure to report stories that may be harmful or inimical to the interests of the Obama Administration, the bias of the mainstream media is no longer subtle or implicit, it is overt and glaringly obvious. Not surprisingly, news consumers have taken notice.
The rise of the internet has not only leveled the playing field, it has forever eradicated the mainstream media’s long-cherished role as gatekeeper of news dissemination to the public. And clearly, many prominent members of old media are not happy with this new reality.
During a recent appearance on “Meet The Press”, Tom Brokaw and Thomas Friedman both seemed to lament the rise of the internet and the role it now plays in news gathering and dissemination: it’s an “open sewer” decried Friedman; Brokaw said information needs “filtering”, “vetting”. All true, but how does this exonerate the media’s failure to report the Van Jones story? Van Jones was brought down by an “unfiltered” rebroadcast/republication of his own controversial statements.
How can an industry that is staffed by such Luddites as Brokaw and Friedman expect to survive, never mind flourish, in the 21st century? The sad truth is that today, for the duration of the Obama Administration, many journalists have traded in their “speaking truth to power” press badges for the pom-poms of cheerleaders.
Yes, the rise of the internet has been a major factor in the decline of traditional media, but there is another reason for its demise, and it has to do with the enormous gulf in values and ideological world-view between those who manage these outlets and the consumers they ostensibly serve.
Circulation numbers for many prominent dailies continues to plummet, while FOX News dominates the ratings amongst the Cable TV news outlets. The sins of omission in news coverage on the part of the mainstream media are simply too numerous for news consumers not to take notice. The bottom line? No business can survive, much less thrive or operate profitably, when it treats its customers with such contempt.
In short, consumers interested in news and tired of the glaring left wing bias and abuse of the gatekeeper function, have learned to search elsewhere beyond the pages of newspapers and the network evening news broadcasts to be informed.
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Are you serious with all of these Obama references? Not one reference to the medias failure to extensively report on the past trials and tribulations of one President George W. Bush? Not to mention the the vast underreporting of his administrations blatant disregard of the laws of the United States. If the media has a love affair with Obama then they must have been having an affair Bush! Congratulations right wing crazy! You have successfully perpetuated everything that is wrong with conservatism today. Find a platform that doesn’t hinge on whatever Obama is for I’m against. This article just makes you sound stupid.
The Van Jones story was uncovered and revealed to the public exclusively through the work of bloggers and FOX News’ Glenn Beck.
I disagree. A thinktank with connections to industry and major conservative political thinkers, Americans for Prosperity, was involved in the effort to bring down Van Jones. I’ve known Phil Kerpen for years and he describes his effort here. AFP is a 501c4 group that opposes Obama’s policy agenda, and taking Jones’s scalp is part of their battle to keep cap and trade from passing. Blogs certainly took the story deeper, but someone paid to be a public advocate for conservative interests kick started the effort.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that: groups on the left used the online medium to scupper the government careers of John Bolton and others in the Bush administration. It’s part of our political system now. I just don’t think it’s fair to say that this was some completely organic effort from the ground up.
Your point is a good one and I stand corrected; “exclusively” was a bad choice of words on my part to describe the players involved in reporting the story…
In response to another comment. See in context »The questions need to be revealed to show what people really think. The AP story you link to says, “The poll didn’t distinguish between Internet bloggers and reporters employed by newspapers and broadcasters, leaving the definition of ‘news media’ up to each individual who was questioned.”
That means that if I trust newspapers but consider Fox News part of the mainstream, which it is, then I might say I distrust mainstream media, because it includes Fox News. Likewise, if I only watch Fox News, which regularly berates mainstream newspapers, I might also say I distrust mainstream outlets.
On top of that, when people are asked if they trust the media or if they think the press gets its facts right before reporting, they immediately think how their favored candidates fared in print or on TV. What about stories from Iran? Reporters there in the election fallout were mostly from newspapers, and their stories were, for the most part, comfortingly accurate. Whereas less reliable sources, like Twitter and the Huffington Post, which are not mainstream, printed unverifiable information that proved to be wrong. ( See Jack Shafer’s story: http://www.slate.com/id/2220736/ and Joshua Kucera’s T/S post: http://trueslant.com/joshuakucera/2009/06/15/what-if-we-are-all-wrong-about-iran/ )
Ever think how much the public would really know if there were no mainstream outlets to report actual news?
Good points. I would only add: Ever think how much more the public now knows since the mainstream outlets can no longer filter and exercise de facto censorship over stories they have unilaterally deemed not to be news?
In response to another comment. See in context »I don’t really have dog in this fight, but I am always interested in this subject and I am always looking for a fresh, well-reported and written article on this subject. I am still searching for it. I was intrigued when you wrote: “… conducted by two young, non-descript journalists. The intrepid duo of James O’Keefe, and Hannah Giles…” Having no idea what a so-called non-descript person looks like (Who are these creatures?) I clicked on the link you provided. Of course! Two people dressed up like a pimp and a prostitute. Can’t get more non-descript than that, and their intrepid, so-called undercover work is getting published in…The New York Post, a Murdoch paper! Hate to break it to you, but Murdoch and Fox IS part of the mainstream. You can not rationally argue that it is not, and in fact it was part of the Pew study! You actually missed the story. I looked at the research and the growth pattern in distrusting the media comes from Democrats. According to the report, “…much of the growth in negative attitudes toward the news media over the last two years is driven by increasingly unfavorable evaluations by Democrats.”
And one more point. You write:
“Yet, in terms of investigating ACORN, where were the tenacious reporters of 60 minutes, those legions of New York Times’ journalists of Pentagon Papers fame?”
You have composed a sentence that makes it sound like the tenacious reporters of 60 minutes [sic] were legions of New York Times journalists. I am assuming you forgot to put an “and” in the sentence.
One thing I do like about the mainstream media: proper English usage.
“One thing I do like about the mainstream media: proper English usage.”
Touché Garry!
In response to another comment. See in context »The mainstream press and the internet press or bloggers are working under different rules.
Bloggers are not bound by the ethics or rules of journalism and increasingly the mainstream press is falling under the freedom of this new undefined unfiltered news. The biggest problem is the absence of the rule of avoiding conflict of interest. Consider CNBC in the run up to the meltdown. Consider a major news organization run by an operative of a major party. The quoting of supposed think tanks whose mission is completely partisan and hires writers to just write editorials under fancy titles that suggest some knowledge in a field that they have never been trained or studied. Consider the idea of interviewing reporters or quoting from industry lobbying fronts. Internet news has killed investigative reporting because journalists need time and money to support an investigation and things such as Rathergate have gun shy corporate lawyers killing anything controversial such as the 60 minutes tobacco expose. Truth suffers and that is supposed to be the mission of journalism to get at the truth…now we have some distorted idea that everything, facts and crazy notions are debatable. They are not.
So I ask all those out there against main stream press…what have we learned? We bought the military public relations of the Tilman killing and Jessica Lynch and wait for the truth. Yet out there is the blog world we can be assured that the America you think you know can be supported by misquotes, no fact checking, no sources and no truth.
This is an improvement to our democracy? I think not…long live newsprint and shoe leather reporters. Lastly I have to commend John’s use of the Pew center for his jumping off point…a non partisan organization but jumping from there to calling Brokow and Friedman as Luddites is just a bit nuts, both can be read on the most technological advanced means out there.
You raise some good points about conflict of interest issues…
I referred to both Brokaw and Friedman as Luddites by virtue of the fact that Brokaw wants to preserve his (and the mainstream media’s) role as gatekeeper by filtering and disseminating news he exclusively deems worthy for our viewing; in the internet age, those days are clearly over, in the same sense that those who tried to halt the industrial revolution were swimming against the tide. Friedman’s statement that the internet is an “open sewer”, is similarly reflective of one whose one-time prominence as a columnist with Old Media is diminishing.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] Kinsellagh blogged yesterday about the media being the Obama administratoin’s praetorian guard. He’s right: the [...]
[...] titans of Old Media, the same dinosaurs who bemoan the loss of their role as gatekeepers, still have their heads in the sand in terms of reporting on the criminal activity of ACORN. It is [...]
Mr. Kinsellagh,
I am not going to comment on the substance of this particular posting, others have done that here. I have read many of your postings and commented on a few. I would like to suggest that your readers would greatly benefit if you would focus your postings more, they tend to wander about and ramble. In this case, the title would suggest that the MSM is ideologically committed to the success of the Obama presidency. However that is not actually the topic of your blog. Rather you start out with a Pew indicating that the general public is dissatisfied with the MSM. You wrote: “A new Pew Research Poll confirms the continuing erosion of the mainstream media’s credibility in the eyes of the public.” You then suggest that this because the MSM is ignoring stories that are critical of Mr. Obama. You appear to conclude that the medium of the internet is providing an alternative to the MSM, where these other stories can be brought, by-passing the traditional news media gate keepers.
I would begin by noting that you did not appear to actually read the Boston Globe story that you linked. It says…”The poll didn’t distinguish between Internet bloggers and reporters employed by newspapers and broadcasters, leaving the definition of ‘news media’ up to each individual who was questioned. The survey polled 1,506 adults on the phone in late July.” The poll actually contradicts your conclusion, that the news medium of the internet is viewed with more regard by the general public than the traditional news media.
Additionally, you make the case that the story of the ACORN staffers who advised a man posing as a pimp that he should file tax returns and send his fictional Guatemalan sex slaves to school was ignored by the MSM but broke through to the general public via the internet. However there is no indication that this story actually has broken through to the general public at all, through any medium much less the internet. Nor is it clear from your writing that there is any connection between this story not getting a lot of publicity and the poll results that begin the blog. Nor did you provide any evidence or even argument showing that the this story did not “get legs” because of any ideological biases of the MSM.
One of the big differences between the dissemination of the news through the medium of the internet and more traditional media is that of liability. “Hidden camera” investigations can constitute, if not conducted careful, invasion of privacy which is against both federal and state laws. There have been many lawsuits successfully brought against traditional news outlets who have done exactly what James O’Keefe did (here are but two examples (Pearson v. Dodd, 410 F.2d 701 (D.C. Cir. 1969) and Dietemann v. Time, Inc., 449 F.2d 245 (9th Cir. 1971)). There is a huge history of case on this topic, a quick search on Google will bring up lots of citations. I personally know someone who was a juror in just such a case. ABC sent an employee in undercover into a “psychic” network call center and exposed the psychics as frauds. ABC lost because the employees of this call center had a reasonable expectation of privacy in their work place and ABC’s actions violated that their right to privacy. MSM companies have a lot of experience with these matters and would naturally stay far away from a story like this. So rather than ideology, it is legal liability that keeps most news outlets away from a story like this. This does not even touch on the related topics of slander or defamation of character.
After all, the MSM is all about making a profit, which means viewer traffic which translates into advertising dollars. A story like the ACORN “pimp” would be a huge traffic / revenue generator. They would naturally love to run with a story like this but this desire for profits has to be balanced against their fear of lawsuits.
You blogs would be a lot better if you provided a clearer, more direct story line from beginning to end. When you link a story, especially that link is the lead to your story, read it first and then connect what the link says to the conclusion of your story.
[...] In the wake of Scott Brown’s stunning upset Senate victory in Massachusetts, Blow penned a column wherein he characterized those who strenuously opposed Obamacare as an angry, fickle mob. Yet, Blow’s bread and circus metaphors are misplaced. The more appropriate classical Roman analogy would be that ever since the last presidential campaign, Blow and his ilk have been functioning as Barack Obama’s Praetorian Guard. [...]