January 12, 2005
Bingo
Howard Fineman scores a bingo on CBS and the mainstream media...
Howard Fineman of Newsweek/MSNBC has a fine article on the imminent demise of what one might call the big media mafia.
The big media mafia behaved in a similar manner to a traditional one - it controlled it's market, attempted to shut down the competition, and exacted a price from those who found themselves in it's territory. News became something not journaled or reported, but rather lensed. And by the time the media that grew up in the 60's and 70's came of age, they considered themselves part of the story, with a responsibility to correctively lens not only how news was covered, but what was considered news at all.
This culminated in a press that clearly removed any mask of non-partisanship. CBS was the worst, as we've documented here - using 60 Minutes as a launching platform for endless attacks on the Bush administration. The NY Times no longer was content to be a liberal paper on the editorial page, it is now front to back a paper of record for the left - the result is nearly a month of breathless Abu Ghraib stories on the front page.
Fineman saw this... and more:
"...the last thing the [media] needed was to aim wildly at the President ? and not only miss, but be seen as having a political motivation in attacking in the first place. Were Dan Rather and Mary Mapes after the truth or victory when they broadcast their egregiously sloppy story about Bush's National Guard Service?"
Bingo. Truth or victory? As concise a statement about the movitations of the CBS News organization as I've read.
Posted by MEC2 at January 12, 2005 09:36 AM