It’s A Theory…

So why is the media so very, very in the bag for The One?

Theories, as they say, are like, um, toes.  Everyone has one.

But Michael Malone – a career journalist and columnist – has a theory of his own.

It’s the editors (managing editors, executive producers, etc), and it’s about self-preservation (I’ve added some emphasis):

Picture yourself in your 50s in a job where you’ve spent 30 years working your way to the top, to the cockpit of power … only to discover that you’re presiding over a dying industry. The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent. Many of your peers shrewdly took golden parachutes and disappeared. Your job doesn’t have anywhere near the power and influence it did when your started your climb. The Newspaper Guild is too weak to protect you any more, and there is a very good chance you’ll lose your job before you cross that finish line, 10 years hence, of retirement and a pension.

In other words, you are facing career catastrophe — and desperate times call for desperate measures. Even if you have to risk everything on a single Hail Mary play. Even if you have to compromise the principles that got you here. After all, newspapers and network news are doomed anyway — all that counts is keeping them on life support until you can retire.

And then the opportunity presents itself — an attractive young candidate whose politics likely matches yours, but more important, he offers the prospect of a transformed Washington with the power to fix everything that has gone wrong in your career.

With luck, this monolithic, single-party government will crush the alternative media via a revived fairness doctrine, re-invigorate unions by getting rid of secret votes, and just maybe be beholden to people like you in the traditional media for getting it there.

And besides, you tell yourself, it’s all for the good of the country …

Self-preservation has driven people do do stranger things…

Read the whole thing, by the way.

27 thoughts on “It’s A Theory…

  1. Oh yes, it’s the fault of the media. And the voters who are following the media’s siren song in large numbers (52-40% in Pennsylvania, for example). You just can’t trust Americans to do the right thing, can you, wingnuts?

    Thankfully there’s one group in this country that doesn’t listen to the media. Or scientists. Or people who actually know what they’re talking about on any particular subject (elitists!). And I think you know who you are.

    So don’t go changin’, wingnuts. Angryclown wants to mock you just the way you are.

  2. “”So why is the media so very, very in the bag for Sen. Barack Obama?””

    Maybe its because they aren’t, and it is just the general populace that is sick of beating their head against the wall expecting a different result. But you knew that!

    Flash

  3. This would be the same media that pushed the Iraq War in 2002. This would be the same public that gave Bush a couple of million more votes than they gave to Kerry in 2004. This would be the same elite that put a confessed terrorist in charge of educating children.
    Hey, AC, is that illiterate governor of yours still diddling the help?

  4. AC – you have to understand, Mitch can’t openly blame the American electorate, even though he wants to, and secretly does every day. If he did that, his true hate for the good side of America would show, you know, the compassionate nature that says we can do collectively what we could never do individually.

    So instead, just like Vietnam, he has to blame the press which simply either is providing new forms of data (like photos in Vietnam) or REACTING to the public’s interests (like now), for the change of the public’s mood. It CAN’T be getting screwed by the rich for 30 years has done it, for the rich CAN’T have screwed anyone, they are who Mitch desires so desparately to be that he blithely ignores their flaws in hopes someday he’ll reach that final wrung.

    “Why is the media so in the…” Yes Mitch, everyone has theories – that one is your whopper – the above is mine. As ludicrous as you think mine is, most of the country think’s yours is – and many respected people, including people like Thomas Franks, think mine is pretty well on.

    Thanks for playin “Unprovably vapid theories” for 1000.

  5. Hard to read when you’re blind, Terry. Not sure why you think it’s such a burn on New Yorkers to make fun of Paterson. But I guess that’s all you wingnuts can come up with these days.

  6. BTW Mitch, in response to your laughably ignorant theory, you may want to read up a bit on what occured at NBC and CBS News. The editors tried to preserve journalistic distance and objectivity, while their corporate masters demanded otherwise. That’s why we get folks like Nancy Grace, Glenn Blech, and Stone Phillips. The editors are overruled, obviated, and eventually replaced if they don’t play ball.

    Vapid lunacy.

  7. the compassionate nature that says we can do collectively what we could never do individually.
    Build prison camps and fill them with people we don’t like, enslave whole populations because of their race, steal the belongings of smaller groups of people, etc. Your problem, peev, is that you see virtue in collective action.
    Virtue is an individual trait. If 60% of Americans vote themselves the wealth of the remaining 40% this does not make the US a virtuous nation. The 60% have taken what is not theirs by force. The 40% have had their goods taken without consent.
    And Franks is an idiot. If working people are foolish for not voting in their economic interests, how can wealthy liberals be considered smart when they vote against their economic interests? Are only the wealthy allowed the privilege of voting on moral principle instead of their pocketbooks?

  8. Mitch:
    As the resident expert on the Fairness doctrine, surely you know that it would have no effect on “the Internet and alternative media”. Talk radio is hardly a competitor to newspapers.

    In addition, why would the threatened journalists side with the candidate most favored by “the Internet and alternative media’. If anything the fear of an Obama Administration more concerned with the Daily Show, Maddow, Daily Kos than with Meet the Press and the Wa Po editorial board, would drive them towards McCain.

  9. Pingback: Truth v. The Machine » Archives » In the end, we shall all be bloggers

  10. “If 60% of Americans vote themselves the wealth of the remaining 40% this does not make the US a virtuous nation. The 60% have taken what is not theirs by force. The 40% have had their goods taken without consent.”

    Agreed. That is why we want to keep Republicans from taking our money and giving it to the richest 1% of America. We want to stop insurance companies from shaking us down for a 50% surcharge on our health insurance. We want employers to pay a wage that reflects the productivity or our labor, instead of fattening the shareholders dividends or the CEOs salary. The wealth distribution pattern you favor is no less a product of government policy than the one I favor.

  11. Lessee….perhaps AC and Penigma can come up for a good explanation of why Biden’s gaffes and Obama’s close association with Yasser Arafat’s former PR guy never seem to be released, but Sarah Palin’s wardrobe gets to the front page.

    Sorry, guys, but in a sane world, anybody that lets Arafat’s former PR man babysit his kids gets that on the front page, and the video of him praising that PR man goes at #1 on every newscast in the country.

  12. “Agreed. That is why we want to keep Republicans from taking our money and giving it to the richest 1% of America.”
    A statement ludicrously stupid.

    “We want to stop insurance companies from shaking us down for a 50% surcharge on our health insurance.”
    Start an insurance company. Don’t charge people this “50% surcharge”. You’ll make billions and put all the other insurance companies out of business. I wonder why none of these rapacious capitalists has thought of doing this? Oh. Because insurance companies don’t “shake us down for a 50% surcharge on our health insurance”.

    “We want employers to pay a wage that reflects the productivity or our labor, instead of fattening the shareholders dividends or the CEOs salary.”
    Not what the employer agrees to pay and the employee agrees to take. Your hatred of freedom is noted, RickDFL.

    “The wealth distribution pattern you favor is no less a product of government policy than the one I favor.”

    The slavery you favor would be no less a product of government policy than the freedom I favor.
    My labor belongs to me. Whose does your belong to, RickDFL?

  13. RickDFL said:

    “That is why we want to keep Republicans from taking our money and giving it to the richest 1% of America.”

    And when did this reversal of the progressive U.S. tax code take place? Oh, that’s right: never. It’s just RickDFL, making stuff up and believing it.

  14. “”“Agreed. That is why we want to keep Republicans from taking our money and giving it to the richest 1% of America.”
    A statement ludicrously stupid.

    “We want to stop insurance companies from shaking us down for a 50% surcharge on our health insurance.”
    Start an insurance company. Don’t charge people this “50% surcharge”. You’ll make billions and put all the other insurance companies out of business. I wonder why none of these rapacious capitalists has thought of doing this? Oh. Because insurance companies don’t “shake us down for a 50% surcharge on our health insurance”.

    “We want employers to pay a wage that reflects the productivity or our labor, instead of fattening the shareholders dividends or the CEOs salary.”
    Not what the employer agrees to pay and the employee agrees to take. Your hatred of freedom is noted, RickDFL.

    “The wealth distribution pattern you favor is no less a product of government policy than the one I favor.”

    The slavery you favor would be no less a product of government policy than the freedom I favor.
    My labor belongs to me. Whose does your belong to, RickDFL?””

    Nice fisk, Terry.

    Amazing how people make statements and never think anybody will actually read them.

  15. As the resident expert on the Fairness doctrine, surely you know that it would have no effect on “the Internet and alternative media”.

    True AND obtuse.

    The pre-’87 Doctrine would be irrelevant to the Internet.

    The Dems, however, have expressed interest in further regulating Internet content – mostly notable proposals to consider political blogging an in-kind campaign contribution.

    Talk radio is hardly a competitor to newspapers.

    Yes, it most certainly is.

    Question, Rick: How do you think both media pay their bills?
    Answer: Through selling “Adv________g”.

    Fill in the blank.

    Then revisit your statement.

    Every dollar spent on one medium is a dollar not being spent on yours. When one is rising, and yours is falling, that’s serious business.

  16. Rick,
    If anything the fear of an Obama Administration more concerned with the Daily Show, Maddow, Daily Kos than with Meet the Press and the Wa Po editorial board, would drive them towards McCain.

    Jon Stewart is on cable; he has nothing to fear from a “Fairness” Doctrine.

    Likewise Maddow, except for her “Air America” show. She has little to fear; Air America stations are small potatoes, and if the Doctrine is reinstated it’d potentially give her a new market of stations that would be forced to try her (and her like) out, if only briefly.

    Kos? Not sure about that. Markos Moulitsas is covered for life, of course; with talk radio shut down, the need for DailyKos would diminish.

    The WaPo, and all print media, would be unaffected. Indeed, anything that can call itself established “journalism” will probably get a pass, since everyone knows journalists are non-partisan, right? Of course, we know who the gatekeepers are to that designation.

  17. Mitch:

    So, if the Fairness Doctrine only affects Talk Radio, how does backing a candidate who (might) go back to it, help newspaper journalists maintain their position.

    Your conspiracy is silly because it involves TV and print journos backing the candidate most favored by and most favorable to their most direct competitors.

    Does anyone think that TV and Print numbers are down due to competition from talk radio? More than from the Internet?

    “The Dems, however, have expressed interest in further regulating Internet content – mostly notable proposals to consider political blogging an in-kind campaign contribution.”

    Who? Given the left leaning tilt of the blogosphere such restrictions would be in the interest of the GOP.

  18. RickDFL-“Keep republicans from taking our money and giving it to the richest 1%.” Rick, did you ever get by junior high civics class? Professor, the Republicans don`t take your money, the government does. Give us one instance where Republicans ‘take your money’. It`s all our money to begin with, remember? Oh, and I`m sure it`s not in the Dem`s talking points, but the percentage of the total tax bill paid by the ‘rich’ has gone up since the Bush tax cuts.

  19. jimf:
    “the Republicans don`t take your money, the government does”
    Ever read a newspaper. Republicans have controlled most of the government for the last 8 years.

    “Give us one instance where Republicans ‘take your money’.”
    How about the trillion dollars blown in Iraq.

  20. How about the trillion dollars blown in Iraq.
    RickDFL, that’s spending money, not taking it. Try to keep up, will you?

  21. “Republicans have controlled most of the government for the past 8 years.” Yes Rick, they have. That`s why you`ve been allowed to keep more of your money than you would have during the Clinton Years. Even using your strange illogic, that means Republicans ‘took’ less of your money than the would have under the Democrats. Thanks for proving my point, Rick. “Spending money.” As i said ,Terry, Rick most likely never made it past Junior high civics. But i think he`s much smarter than Obama.

  22. Terry reasoned: “RickDFL, that’s spending money, not taking it. Try to keep up, will you?”

    In Terry’s book it’s more virtuous to spend money you don’t have.

  23. “In Terry’s book it’s more virtuous to spend money you don’t have. ”
    Not so, AC. That’s why I bought a house four years ago and despite the market turmoil I have a hundred grand in equity.
    It’s your side that wants to bail out people who spent beyond their means.

  24. “In Terry`s book it`s more virtuous to spend money you don`t have.” So in other words, Terry was right, obviously, on the ‘spending’ theme. Another post from the clown that can`t re-buff the opposition`s assertion.

  25. Can you tell me why Biden’s mistakes and gaffes and Obama’s associations with the likes of Ayers and Wright never reach the front page, but anything negative from left-wing illuminati liberals regarding Palin’s family or wardrobe takes front and center?

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