Did you see this New York Times article about Clinton trying to reverse the original war vote?
Here’s paragraph 7:
Mostly, Mrs. Clinton appeared to be trying to claim a new leadership position among the Democratic presidential candidates against the war in Iraq.
..and from there it spends the next several paragraphs talking about the politics of her propsal.
It nicely demonstrates many of the liberal criticisms of the MSM:
1) There is zero evidence this was done for political reasons, and none is presented. It never seems to occur to the authors that it could possible be a sincere belief.
2) It reinforces the horse-race of politics over the substance. What happens in Iraq is important. It affects millions of lives. Once again, that is ignored to leave room for foolish speculations on the motivations of obviously power-mad cretins intent on controlling our country.
3) It reinforces the double-standard that Clinton faces, where particularly everything she does is because she’s an unprincipled weasel. You will have a hard time finding any coverage about her, particularly in the “liberal” New York Times that doesn’t paint her in this way, examining everything in terms of calculated political motives. This is what builds the bigger narrative. Not coincidentally, it is how the last two leading Democratic candidates, Gore and Kerry, were both painted; flip-floppers of no true convictions.
(MSM is blog shorthand for the MainStream Media. Now you’re in the know.)
So are you officially a Hillary fanboy? Haven’t kept up here for some time, but I believe you were of the “She can’t win, so why bother” persuasion when last we talked. I still don’t think she can win the general election; Obama, Edwards and Gore all have a shot. Hillary would do more to excite the GOP base than any of their own candidates. BTW, I think the Times, while perhaps annoying for their lack of evidence, probably interprets this correctly. She’s positioning herself for every situation….she’s CLEARLY against the war because of this bit of legislative theater, yet she’s clearly a hawk because, well….that’s how the MSM typically portrays her. It’s her own proprietary blend of Doublethink–she probably believes them both.
Yeah, I was reading that as well.
One of them put forth the idea that the authoritarian structure of the conservative movement doesn’t fit with the bottom-up nature of blogs.
In traditional media, you have to ‘be someone’ to get a voice, but any moron with a PC and a connection can write a blog.
This, of course, is why the Democratic party always seems to be a bunch of people without a unifiying theme or goal, and the Republicans always seem to speak with one voice.
And this lack of unity, I think, spills over into why the Dem leadership seems to be made up of, well, cowards.
Good points Moleboy. Talking Points Memo and a bunch of other blogs were talking about this a couple months ago. I agree with their assessment. Liberals think the MSM is fundamentally a good thing, and just want better reporting. Not so much about bias, though that’s always there, just to give actual facts, context, you know, do some actual reporting. Conservatives don’t want the MSM at all, they want it out of the way so their alternative reality can be out there. Generally, authoritarians don’t like independent voices and free press.
THIS, however, is a bit different than bias…
http://mediamatters.org/items/200706050001
btw, the conservatives hate the MSM too.
I think that, ultimately, this comes down to a couple issues:
1) every reporter brings a bias. When the bias leans in your direction, you tend not to notice it because you see that as truth. When it goes in the other direction, it stands out.
Hence, both right and left see screaming bias in the MSM
2) the MSM is pathetic. They simply do a bad job
3) The MSM is inhereantly limited. You can only write so many words, and show so much news on TV.
This leaves the way open for blogs.
And, on the plus side, liberal blogs are much more powerful than conservative blogs, for a number of reasons.
WSame sort of thing is reversed on talk radio.