I Cogitate

"...History will record that both of them saw the threat to the West posed by terrorism and responded courageously. The wisdom of their policy and the conduct of their governments are not likely to be judged as highly. "

McClatchy's D.C. Bureau Claims It's Barred From Defense Secretary Plane
Joe Strupp
Editor and Publisher
May 23, 2007

NEW YORK - Staffers at McClatchy's Washington, D.C., Bureau -- one of the few major news outlets skeptical of intelligence reports during the run-up to the war in Iraq -- claims it is now being punished for that coverage.

Bureau Chief John Walcott and current and former McClatchy Pentagon correspondents say they have not been allowed on the Defense Secretary's plane for at least three years, claiming the news company is being retaliated against for its reporting.

"It is because our coverage of Iraq policy has been quite critical," Walcott told E&P. He added, "I think the idea of public officials barring coverage by people they've decided they don't like is at best unprofessional, at worst undemocratic and petty..."

...Jonathan Landay, a former Pentagon correspondent and one of the co-authors of McClatchy's pre-war coverage, said he last traveled on the plane with then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2004 to Istanbul, Turkey, for a NATO economic summit. Since then, he says, none of McClatchy's people have flown. "It is unusual because we get aboard about two out of three trips [Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice makes," Landay said. "They have a different policy at the Pentagon. We are definitely being discriminated against."

Wash. Post still blind to liberal blogger successes
Eric Boehlert
Media Matters
May 15, 2007

The scandal surrounding the purge of United States attorneys under President Bush shows no signs of abating. "I think there will be a criminal case that will come out of this," John McKay, a dismissed U.S. attorney, told reporters last week. "This is going to get worse, not better."

The White House's sloppy, heavy-handed attempt to fire federal prosecutors in order to make way for administration cronies has morphed into arguably the most important Beltway news story of the year. Thanks to his shifting and illogical explanations, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has become consumed by the story, and now Bush aide Karl Rove also finds himself implicated.

The media man at the middle of the story is clearly Josh Marshall, owner and founder of Talking Points Memo and its offshoot, TPMmuckraker. Collecting string, working the phones, and relying on the collective wisdom of his dedicated readers, Marshall and his small staff helped piece together the scandal long before most mainstream media outlets were even paying attention. Together, the two online sites have unearthed scoop after scoop on the Gonzales saga. Marshall has posted literally hundreds of items on the story he has become synonymous with in recent months.

What the Mainstream Media Can Learn from Jon Stewart  
June/July Preview » No, not to be funny and snarky, but to be bold and to do a better job of cutting through the fog
Rachel Smolkin
AJR Managing Editor      

When Hub Brown's students first told him they loved "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and sometimes even relied on it for news, he was, as any responsible journalism professor would be, appalled.

Now he's a "Daily Show" convert.

"There are days when I watch 'The Daily Show,' and I kind of chuckle. There are days when I laugh out loud. There are days when I stand up and point to the TV and say, 'You're damn right!'" says Brown, chair of the communications department at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and an associate professor of broadcast journalism.

Brown, who had dismissed the faux news show as silly riffing, got hooked during the early days of the war in Iraq, when he felt most of the mainstream media were swallowing the administration's spin rather than challenging it. Not "The Daily Show," which had no qualms about second-guessing the nation's leaders. "The stock-in-trade of 'The Daily Show' is hypocrisy, exposing hypocrisy. And nobody else has the guts to do it," Brown says. "They really know how to crystallize an issue on all sides, see the silliness everywhere."

Whether lampooning President Bush's disastrous Iraq policies or mocking "real" reporters for their credulity, Stewart and his team often seem to steer closer to the truth than traditional journalists. The "Daily Show" satirizes spin, punctures pretense and belittles bombast. When a video clip reveals a politician's backpedaling, verbal contortions or mindless prattle, Stewart can state the obvious--ridiculing such blather as it deserves to be ridiculed--or remain silent but speak volumes merely by arching an eyebrow.

Stewart and his fake correspondents are freed from the media's preoccupation with balance, the fixation with fairness. They have no obligation to deliver the day's most important news, if that news is too depressing, too complicated or too boring. Their sole allegiance is to comedy.

Or, as "The Daily's Show's" Web site puts it: "One anchor, five correspondents, zero credibility. If you're tired of the stodginess of the evening newscasts, if you can't bear to sit through the spinmeisters and shills on the 24-hour cable news networks, don't miss The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, a nightly half-hour series unburdened by objectivity, journalistic integrity or even accuracy."

That's funny. And obvious. But does that simple, facetious statement capture a larger truth--one that may contain some lessons for newspapers and networks struggling to hold on to fleeing readers, viewers and advertisers in a tumultuous era of transition for old media?

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