Gregory: …Because it- it's the Internet, and the blogs, that have really used this White House press conference to somehow support positions out in America- political views- and they- and they- uh- they will clip, and digitize portions of these briefings to fit into their particular argument and I think people try to divine motives of the questioners and- and certainly draw conclusions about, uh, the answers, or- or non-answers, uh, based on their, their, their own political views.
Or maybe people get frustrated at all the softballs thrown, at the giddiness you all have at getting a nickname, and how credulous YOU became right when this nation needed true incredulity. You failed us.
Now Gregory has shown some incredulity ans willingness to take on Snow, but it is only temporary.
Snow: I'll- I'll occasionally punch it up and it's amazing, you get this wonderful imaginative hateful stuff that comes flying out, and, I think one of the, the, the, maybe one of the, the most important takeaways is, it's the classic old line "not only should you not believe your own press you probably shouldn't believe your opposition blogs either". What do you think, Richard?
If the media is only going to print and quote the government's press releases, without much of any analysis, maybe we have a good...great reason to be dubious. Hmm?
Wolffe: …I think the press here does a fantastic job of adhering to journalistic standards in covering politics in general. And the, um, the interesting thing in, in looking at the political coverage as people try to guess what we do is, is that they want us to play a role that really isn't our role. Our- our role is to ask questions and get information. But it- the press briefing isn't Prime Minister's question time.
And Wolffe, I love your recent reporting and showings on Countdown, but where were you when this country needed to get to the truth of allegations of WMD those years back. Were you on the job, and getting it done? Or did you have your head down, and doing your utmost to laugh at the jokes being thrown you from the lectern?
I do like Wolffe and Gregory, they seem nice. But the press corp, especially at the White House (they are the royalty) have a certain peerage mentality. They hang with their stories. They wine then and get dined by them.
That has always been the case, but the expectations on this generation are more serious. Maybe it is the change in the noise machines, like from Rove. They are built to use the system. They feed and tame the media nicely.
And that is the problem. The media, isn't entirely biased to a wing. That is not the problem. The trouble is that the media is freaking lazy. If you feed it, it will follow you, lead by the nose.
This leads to the other aspect of the laziness. They want a simple story. They want an archetype or stereotype. Bush = Stupid, Kerry = Flip Flop, Gore = Stiff, etc. They love the simple story, and once on it, it is damn near impossible to pull them from the trough. They focus on anything that supports the point, any aspect, any tale, they just eat it up. So when the noise machine makes claims to build a stereotype, or support it, the stories, claims, and exaggerations are just mana. And when enough media types buy in, it is all the truer.
And, yes, they go look passed, sometimes, break from the archetype, occasionally. But how comfortable can we feel hoping the story they are covering really has their full attention? Maybe their late for a cocktail party.
And more thoughts.
The reality, of course, is that most media-criticizing bloggers do not want journalists to be "political advocates." They want them to do what journalists are supposed to do – which is not, contrary to Wolffe's belief, sit around with their good, trustworthy, nice-guy friends in the White House and simply "ask questions" and "get information," but instead to scrutinize that information, treat it with doubt, investigate it before passing it along to determine whether it's true….read on
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