Eric Alterman: The crimes of the MSM
I've written a few books about the limitations of the MSM and expect to write a few more before my number's up, but I rarely criticize the netroots in large measure because I think most of the problems manifested in their work are trivial compared to the corrective balance they offer and because the MSM narrative remains so much more powerful and so profoundly flawed that it seems simultaneously small-minded and tendentious to pick on minor mistakes by unfamous people with next-to-no influence while Bigfoot pundit poohbahs were helping Bush and company to lie us into ruinous wars and the like. (Boy, that was a long sentence.)
Even as the netroots have grown in power and influence, I still believe all of the above, which was the primary point I tried to make in response to Jon Chait here last week. It'll be a long time before Atrios is as influential as Joe Klein and an even longer time -- think infinity -- before Klein is as honest and accurate about the world as Atrios. Still, even apart from the fact that most reporting necessarily occurs in newspapers and newsweeklies, the netroots are not always right and the MSM is not always wrong. And the netroots needs to get better about recognizing these instances and correcting them, methinks. A few months ago I wrote about a case where netroots bloggers were up in arms about a Washington Post story that had allegedly been changed in order to remove the charge that Bush had lied about removing Rumsfeld right after the election. In fact, a single phone call to the author of the story demonstrated that no story had been changed; two separate stories had been confused. And yet the netroots-enabled myth proved impossible to disarm. (I don't recall any of the bloggers who expressed their outrage printing corrections in the aftermath, though I may not have seen them.)
Recently, the netroots have been up in arms over an alleged comment by Tom Edsall that David Broder represents the"voice of the people." Here again, we see a weakness of the netroots at work, which is that many bloggers lack much experience upon which to base their judgments and tend to jump on anything and everything that confirms their beliefs. Alas, anyone who knows Tom at all well knows that it is nearly impossible to determine by either his voice or his mien when he is joking. Part of his charm is the ability to make exactly this kind of joke in a perfectly deadpan manner. And I would hope that anyone who is familiar with his work would know better than to believe that he could say something so patently silly without joking. I don't doubt that the young Radar reporter who set forth the ongoing storm was honestly confused. And it is no less clear to me that it has become such a big deal on the net because it is consistent with the toxic combination of arrogance and ignorance that characterizes so much MSM punditry and, to a degree, helped cause this war. (I see, for instance, that Jim Lehrer, who is supposed to be the gold standard for high-minded accuracy, still has no idea how much opposition there was to the Iraq war at the time of the vote -- or else is really, really bad at math -- and does not think it proper for journalists to question the veracity of the president's statements. That's here and here. Let's not even mention Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs.)
But believe me, I play poker with this guy. It is impossible to tell when he's bluffing and impossible to tell when he's kidding. This time he was kidding. The fact that Edsall has jumped from the Post by way of TNR and National Journal to the Huffington Post is actually an enormous endorsement of the blogosphere as the source of serious and sophisticated newsgathering and analysis -- one that the David Broders of the world will find it increasingly impossible to kiss off. All of this mishigas over a missed joke is both misplaced and just plain silly.
But let's be clear. It's a wrong-headed misunderstanding of the kind that happens almost every day between people of good will. Compared to, say, the self-conscious crimes against both truth and democracy commonly committed by, say, William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Joe Klein, most of the casts of the Sunday shows, and yes, David Broder, it is minor-league stuff indeed. And while MSM reporters and pundits are supposed to have a higher standard of verification to what they print, I find all this means in practice, frequently, is a CYA attitude toward sourcing. In other words, so long as someone, anywhere, says anything, that makes it"true" enough to be reported, no matter how frequently that source has proven to be an unreliable liar or fantasist. At least in the case of the netroots, people are generally trying to figure out what's true, not that that always helps. (Academia's standards of truth, by the way, are far higher than that of either the average reporter or blogger; unfortunately, there are significant barriers regarding both relevance and 'communication skills.' ...