They are like slugs. They leave a trail of slime...
Posted on 04/14/2009 11:56:29 AM PDT by abb
It's not news that newspapers are in huge trouble — victims of technological change and a mini-depression. What is news is the unadorned glee that is greeting the demise of newsprint.
When auto or city workers lose their jobs, there's talk of bailouts and extra measures to cushion the trauma, and even mournful country songs written in tribute. And when newspapers close? The blogs are full of self-congratulations at the demise of the journalistic establishment.
"Seeing newspapers fall apart brings me joy," writes an anonymous essayist in a broadside reprinted on the blog Reflections of a Newsosaur. Then there was the throng of commentators on boston.com that rejoiced over news the Boston Globe might close.
Part of this sour reaction is due to the traditional American love of any new futuristic innovation or technology. The past be damned! But a large part of it can be traced back more than 30 years to Richard Nixon. It was he who made hatred of the mainstream press fashionable, and his administration's cultural legacy continues to this day.
Of course, Nixon and his aides weren't the first Oval Office denizens to complain about the press; nor was he the first to accuse journalists of bias. Abraham Lincoln beat him to that punch when he closed border newspapers during the Civil War on the grounds they were too pro-Southern.
And, as it turns out, Nixon later had good reason to loathe the press, since he was eventually dislodged from office in the Watergate scandal in large part because of the solid investigative work of the fourth estate.
But it was Vice-President Spiro Agnew who actually delivered the tirade in 1969 (and who also later left office in disgrace) that launched millions of press haters. In a speech supposedly written by Pat Buchanan, Agnew attacked a "small band of network commentators" who, he charged, were a "tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one." Because of what he called their dedication to the "endless pursuit of controversy," he called on the networks to be "more responsive to the views of the nation and more responsible to the people they serve."
Note that Agnew was specifically attacking the networks — whose licenses come from the government — and not the press as a whole, at least in that speech. Nevertheless, his remarks struck a chord — as did the Nixon administration's continual campaign against "the media" — a term it popularized because it felt "the media" sounded far colder and more distant than "the press."
It wasn't long before the whole conservative movement had taken up the cry that the media establishment was biased against its cause and, by implication, the concerns of Middle America. Whereas liberal populism had once railed against financial titans, conservative populism now targeted editors, publishers, and reporters (among others) as the new dangerous elite.
Entire organizations were formed to document liberal media bias. A book on the "liberal slant" of news coverage was often an instant ticket to the bestseller list. And, in the subsequent decades, whether in the hands of Rush Limbaugh (who, without any trace of irony, relentlessly attacked the "drive-by media") or with the rise of Fox News — which claimed to be objective in comparison to virtually everyone else — the movement grew. By 2004, the conservative Club for Growth could attack Democratic candidate (and later party head) Howard Dean by telling him to take his "tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont, where it belongs." (emphasis added) And everyone knew what the reference to the Times meant.
One of the great "successes" of the modern conservative movement has been the extent to which it has discredited and delegitimized mainstream journalism. So, the next time a reporter loses his or her job, you can go ahead and credit (or blame) the Internet and the economy. But without the legacy of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, the history and future of American journalism might be very different.
ping
How about we get someone in Congress to propose a TAX!
A TAX on NEWSPRINT!
Whereas the production of newspapers causes trees to be cut down, hauled by polluting trucks to polluting paper mills, and hauled from paper mills to publishers and
Whereas the production of newspapers requires toxic ink and solvents and energy wasting machinery and
Whereas the distribution of newspapers requires the use of dirty internal combustion engines and
Whereas a large portion of every landfill is used for discarded newspapers,
Therefore:
Be it resolved that a Newsprint tax, of $1,000.00 per pound, be charged to EVERY newspaper with a daily subscription, within the United States!
________________________________________
We should get some Republican to propose THIS as an amendment to any “cap and trade” or “carbon tax” proposal that comes up!
Maybe we can make it like “Cap and Trade” and use the revenue generated, from this tax on dirty dinosaur newspapers, to subsidize a tax credit for home computers and digital devices?
Or, we could use the money to subsidize talk radio! Well, those guys really don’t need any help!
Excellent, this could start a 1,000 post long CW thread!
lol.
thats gonna save them?
You’re dead wrong. It was not Nixon who made famous the hatred of the press. It IS the newsmedia themselves.
De Nile is a river, dude, get over it, and get a real job.
BULLSTALIN.
There was massive outrage at how the MSM handled themselves in covering the 1968 DNC riots (the media sided with the dissenters inside the convention and outside in the streets).
And LBJ wasn’t on good terms with them toward the end of his Presidency. They turned on him like a pack of dogs.
OR, Steven, it could be that “mainstream journalism” hates and denigrates everything that I love:
God, family and country.
They cry a lot when you poke them, don’t they?
The Houston Chronicle probably went easy on him, even then. Johnson held a blackmail letter. He’d secured an agreement for positive press in exchange for permitting a bank merger to go through.
It was revealed in the 1990s when people finally got to go over LBJ’s tapes (Kennedy installed the White House taping sysem, LBJ expanded it, and the press did not discuss it until Nixon got caught on tape...).
Grasping at straws instead of looking at the real cause and effects. The vast majority of daily publications endorse the vast majority of Democrat candidates each election cycle. This was not always the case. The media have shited so far to the left in the last 30 years, while the average citizen has not. I'm reminded of the David Copperfield magic stunt: making the Statue of Liberty “disappear" before the camera and live audience. Of course what really happened was the stage and audience revolved 180 degrees, out of view of the statue. Everyone’s perception was that the statue disappeared , but the reality was their perspective had shifted.
In a way, they’re right. The downward spiral of the MSM began when they decided to use the power of the media to pursue a political agenda. It’s the same problem politicians have; how do mere mortals wield power in a fair and equitable manner and resist the temptation of exploiting it for personal gain or the promotion of personal beliefs. If history teaches us anything, it’s that the less power is concentrated in one place, the better off we all are.
The most obnoxious SOBs in these United States are print reporters.
They are snakes, and would sell relatives into slavery for a scoop.
The reporters made the nation loathe them, not Mr. Nixon.
I find it ironic that this piece is found in “The Boston Phoenix.” If ever there was a rag, it’s “The Phoenix.”
They are like slugs. They leave a trail of slime...
They went after McCarthy and those who pursued stateside Communists.
They went after Tammany Hall corruption.
And we know that Yellow Journalists have sometimes engaged in their trade strictly to sell more papers.
A lot of what happened to the Drive-By Media can be traced to Henry Luce (co-founder of Time magazine) leaving the scene in the mid-60s. While he wasn’t conservative to the degree us FReepers are, he was nevertheless a moderating force on the national media scene.
And his influence was vast while he was active.
Well, no question, Watergate was a transforming event. But not quite like this jerk describes it.
It was the great age of the “investigative reporter.” Ambitious wannabees went into the journalism schools in great numbers, determined to be famous investigative reporters.
But what did they mean by that? Nothing about facts, I’m afraid, because there weren’t a whole lot of facts in the Watergate propaganda campaign. Just headline after headline screaming that Nixon was guilty. Guilty of what? well, that’s never been entirely clear. Guilty of being Nixon, apparently.
What it showed was that political propaganda could beat down even powerful politicians, even bring down a president. No facts necessary, just big headlines and loud talking heads, week after week.
Nixon didn’t start the Vietnam War, he tried to fix it and then end it, after JFK and LBJ screwed it up and left him with a mess. But they managed to pin it on him, and anyone these days who still resents the Vietnam War only remembers that it was Nixon’s fault.
Watergate didn’t give conservatives a political tool. It gave leftists and the media a severe case of hubris or overweaning pride. They thought that nothing could stop them, that they could do anything they wanted, that facts no longer mattered, that they could impose their political visions on the country like it or not. The Columbia School of Journalism was King.
Well, in many ways they were right. They won victories with Carter and Clinton, and now again with Obama. But in the process, they have managed to destroy their own credibility. The right didn’t destroy them; they destroyed themselves.
And they still don’t get it.
I saw another crap story the other day blaming Nixon for our current problems. Must be a DNC talking point.
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