MSM Tensions Erupt

By erica

I could go on for at least another piece, maybe two, about all the nonsense surrounding Hillary Hype '08--from Fox News's immediate, persistent commentary after the speech that she didn't mean it, didn't do nearly enough, and the whole party is screwed, to CBS News bringing on a body language expert to testify to the same.

But let's just agree they're all nuts and move on, shall we?

The media news-du-jour here is that the tensions at MSNBC--both political and personal--erupted, leading to several on-air fights between the talent. While Fox News stays ruthlessly on message, as I wrote yesterday , MSNBC has been looking increasingly like The Real World. (What happens when overpaid media personalities stop being polite--and start getting real....)

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August 27, 2008

Blind Punditry in Denver

By erica

In June, I wrote (with George Zornick) in Loving John McCain about the media's maddening blindness towards the extremism and/or crass political expediency of Senator John McCain:

On issue after issue, and from every side of the journalistic political spectrum, a campaign of deception and distortion has helped to ensure that McCain's extreme positions and politically inspired flip-flops remain far from the consciousness of the average voter. Just as the media-promoted notion that George W. Bush was the kind of guy with whom one might enjoy a few beers managed to obscure the predictable catastrophes that lay in store for this nation once he became President, so too can the deep-seated media denial of McCain's extremist policies and addiction to political expediency mask the fact that his victory in November would result in a continuation--and even, in some instances, an expansion--of the very policies that have brought the nation to the brink of irreversible disaster.

I hope that, 7,000 words later, we proved our case. A few months later, we've seen many more examples of the media's transgressions in this regard--although perhaps none better than what Tom Brokaw offered up yesterday in Denver. (Halperin was a close second, also yesterday.

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August 25, 2008