Lapdog, meet watchdog. What’s gotten into the political press?

[Ian David]

By ADAM REILLY
March 21, 2007 3:51:48 PM



Hating the media has long been a popular pastime. But after the invasion of Iraq four years ago, anti-press animus reached a new level of intensity on the left. As weapons of mass destruction failed to materialize and the country began disintegrating, a widespread conviction developed that the press had failed to do its due pre-war diligence. Here’s how Michael Massing put it in the February 26, 2004, New York Review of Books:

In recent months, US news organizations have rushed to expose the Bush Administration’s pre-war failings on Iraq. . . . ne is tempted to ask, where were you all before the war? Why didn’t we learn about these deceptions and concealments in the months when the administration was pressing its case for regime change — when, in short, it might have made a difference?

Two years on, Eric Boehlert, a former senior writer for Salon, made a similar argument in even harsher terms in Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush (Free Press). Spooked by charges of liberal bias, Boehlert argued, the press before the war — “timid, deferential, unsure, cautious, and often intentionally unthinking — came as close as possible to abdicating its reason for existing in the first place, which is to accurately inform citizens, particularly during times of great national interest.”

Damning stuff, that — but it may be time to ask whether the lapdog critique still applies. (Some insist it never did, or at least that things weren’t that simple) Think back to last year’s Pulitzer Prizes. Winners included the Washington Post, for its coverage of secret US prisons overseas; the New York Times, for reporting on domestic eavesdropping; and Rocky Mountain News photographer Todd Heisler’s images of caskets carrying deceased Marines home to Colorado. This year, meanwhile, the Boston Globe is reportedly a finalist in the National Reporting category for coverage of President George W. Bush’s unprecedented use of presidential signing statements, which allow him to ignore laws he’d rather not follow. The Los Angeles Times’ fine Iraq coverage is up for a Pulitzer as well. And thus far, the two biggest stories of 2007 are the debacle at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the still-unfolding mess at the Department of Justice, where eight US attorneys were fired last year for what appear to have been purely political reasons.

The press’s pre-Iraq failings stemmed from reluctance to question authority (see Miller, Judy). But right now, doesn’t the political media deserve credit for doing exactly that?

[ixion]

1. I wouldn't remove the 'lapdog' moniker just yet

the press still fails to ask the tough questions, and I will not absolve them of their culpability for the mess we're in right now.

[Old and In the Way]

2. They've graduated from lapdog to ankle biting poodles.

Perhaps the next evolutionary stage is beagle.

[Loge23]

3. Since when?

Judging by the tone of the reporting about the most recent scandals: The Plame Affair and the AG scandal - I don't see any significant evidence of a revitalized press corp. Frankly, in the case of David Gregory for one, I've seen him actually regress.
I appreciate the NYT editorials, but the site of pundits and AM talk show hosts debating whether or not the WH should be accountable to the public is just nuts. Why does this administration - in the obvious fog of a blizzard of lies - still rate the benefit of the doubt amongst the media?

[Cosmocat]

8. YEP ...

it is not better ... You still have them parroting the quips "GOOD conservative," "left wing" ... ect ...

As well as the fact that after six years they have been DUMBED down to near retarded levels ...

[Atman]

4. Ppfffffffft

Bullshit. Self-congratulatory media masturbation. Until I can turn on the news and NOT hear about puppies in wells, little lost blondes or "Where In The World is Matt Lauer," I'm not buyin' it. Mainstream media outlets have become Entertainment rags. Real news comes from the internet anymore. These guys are just desperate to think they're relevant anymore.

.

[fasttense]

5. Until Fox is forced to admit they are a propaganda tool,

the corporate media will remain a lapdog of republic criminals.

[grasswire]

6. there's a difference between...

...investigative reporters housed at the newspaper offices and those who serve as members of the White House Correspondents Association, who become afflicted with some sort of inside the Beltway virus that makes them think they can become part of that sky-high Washington society. It's a heady, heady spell they fall under.

[Cosmocat]

7. BINGO ...

BINGO, BINGO, BINGO ...

Sell outs, flat and simple ...

Add in the fact that they are CORPORATE (thereby conservative) owned and they know their very job (their income, lifestyle ego) hinges on their "reporting" in a manner that allows them to keep their jobs - seeing Phil Donanahue's head rolling by them for good measure ...

[blm]

9. And the INVESTIGATIVE reporters don't get even 1% of the TV time the lapdog WH correspondents get

on a DAILY basis.