Everything that's wrong with elite media

This Washington Post article is the most infuriating thing I've read in weeks:

McCain-Obama So Far: Positively Negative
By Dan Balz

A campaign between Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain once offered enormous possibilities for something new. Instead, the two presumptive nominees have opened their campaigns for the White House with what looks and sounds like a repeat of the kind of politics both have promised to leave behind.

Since Obama (D-Ill.) wrapped up the Democratic nomination a few weeks ago, he and McCain (R-Ariz.) have served up a series of indignant exchanges over foreign policy, terrorism, the economy, energy and campaign money. Their aides have gone further, with snarling put-downs in conference calls and taunting e-mails that flow constantly out of the Chicago and Crystal City headquarters... On a host of issues, the differences between the candidates are profound and should provoke a vigorous debate. Both candidates once promised that such a debate would be civil and respectful. But right now the presidential campaign appears to be more a rerun of the kind of polarized battles of the recent past than something that heralds something new.

Think this through for a minute. The candidates are having intense, passionate, public arguments over ISSUES -- not shallow bullshit like flag lapels and hotheaded preachers and however many wives John McCain's had, but ISSUES -- and Dan Balz is upset because they're not being "civil and respectful." Apparently foreign policy, terrorism, the economy, energy, and campaign finance are just not relevant to the Washington Post unless they come dressed up in fancy clothes. This is how our media thinks: politics as nothing more than a debutante ball. It makes me sick.

These people should not have any role in our national discourse. They just shouldn't.

Liberalization of Society

In today's NY Times there is a piece of op-art with a bunch of charts showing the progression of certain thoughts and feelings over the past 30 years. It is interesting to note which ones have changed the most. See them all here.

1) This bodes well for Hillary, although 23% is still sizable and it seems to have stagnated/increased since the early 90s...

2) Maybe Old Media is, indeed, dead. Interestingly enough, this also corresponds with public confidence in the press, which is below Congress!

3) Less fundamental aversion to the "homosexual agenda"

"I Don't Know Anyone Who Voted For Nixon"

MyDD's Matt Stoller posted a quick thought today that grabbed my attention:

It's so interesting to watch the DLC struggle aggressively against the mainstream of American opinion while furiously thinking of themselves as representative of it. Boomer pundits like to reminisce about their days in the left, saying that in 1972 their elitist liberal friends were shocked Nixon won because they didn't 'know anyone who voted for Nixon'. It was evidence to them how out of touch the liberals were. It's interesting how the DLC just can't fathom an America that is against this war, they just can't believe it. They are as out of step with the mainstream as the left was in 1972.

I think when Matt writes "DLC" he means more the centrist DC establishment in general -- the "punditocracy" or whatever you want to call it -- Team Lieberman, basically. Or at least he's hinting at it. And this follows a general trend that's come out lately in the blogosphere, prompted by the "surge" debate: the overwhelming sense that much of our media and political establishment is absurdly out of touch.

I'll look closer at this notion and its implications for the party, after the jump.

Read more »

Tough times on Newsprint Row

In another sign that the newspaper industry is headed for a "forced realignment of expectations", the Boston Herald recently muscled a 26-month salary freeze out of its news union. This comes is part of a very bad decade for newspaper balance sheets across the country, with readership in decline and advertising revenues squirting blood.

Of course, this comes in contrast to the continually-profitable online arms of both newspapers (and the ballooning readership of the cutthroat, satire-drenched Dig). It's easy to see this as a Big Win for blogs and for sarcasm, and, as much as I would like to trumpet that line, I don't think it's so simple, and I don't think it's time for shit-eating grins from the armchair editors. Instead, I think it warrants some serious thought into what exactly media's going to look like in a few years—and how the citizen media will start to replace good ol' temperate media in the years to come.

I do worry, though, that Harvard hasn't caught on to this yet. I think the Crimson is starting to realize it, and there's certainly no shortage of campus would-be entrepreneurs looking to capitalize on this whole In-tar-net confab. But there's still a lot of people here who believe that journalism is going to look like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal from here to eternity. Fact is, it's not—and that's regardless of what normative assessment you place on that change. Newspapers are in serious trouble, and we need to figure out how we're going to account for their decline.