Sadly that doesn’t surprise me given all the journalistic malpractice the Times has been guilty of over the years like the examples I listed above. What really boggles my mind is that because the Times has been given a pass over and over they are still so influential and trusted by millions of people, especially Democrats. Time and again I have watched people I know turn against Democratic candidates who are head and shoulders above their opponents because the Times peddled right wing smears about them. What the did to Ms. Winston-Walcott is despicable but what they did to Gore, Kerry and Clinton severely weakened their candidacies. The result has literally been deadly (Iraq, Covid) and has brought our democracy to the point of breaking.
I am not putting all the blame on the Times but most of the mainstream “liberal” media usually followed the Times’s lead and the effect has been disastrous. I strongly believe that had the media reported fairly instead of playing their destructive games neither Bush nor Trump would have won.
I think that is too simplistic an explanation. A lot of what drives our top political pundits and journalists is the same thing that drives the Cool Kids Clique in high school. If the Cool Kids deem you unacceptable they will have no qualms about viciously trashing you anyway they can.
When the Clintons first arrived in DC they offended the Queen of the DC Cool Kids Club, Sally Quinn, wife of Ben Bradlee. Queen Sally ruled over the group, hosting soirées that. The DC players were desperate to be included. David Ignatius wrote about how excited he and his wife were to get their first invite, describing Quinn and Bradlee as DC’s “Bogie and Bacall”. Sally’s club included lCarl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, Tim Russert, Tom Brokaw, Andrea Mitchell, Maureen Dowd, Martha Raddatz, David Ignatius, David Broder, Chris Matthews, etc. along with powerful politicians and players like Ken Starr. Mika Brzezinski is a close friend.
When Clinton’s dalliance with Monica became public the Club, led by Queen Sally, was absolutely appalled which was deeply hypocritical given that Bradlee had been one of JFK’s closest friends who covered up his numerous adulteries. Many of these people worshipped the ground the much more promiscuous JFK walked on and still do. But the ultimate hypocrisy was Queen Quinn whose husband’s recently published memoir described how she, as a twenty-something cub reporter, had set out to seduce her married boss by sending him anonymous flirty memos. The two began an affair. Bradlee eventually divorced his wife and married Quinn. Basically she was a successful Monica but she publicly excoriated Clinton for his trashy behavior as did the rest of her club who also knew about the Bradlee’s history. And now we know that several of those men were at least as guilty as Clinton.
Sally Quinn wrote an infamous column describing how her club felt about the Clinton’s. The highly respected David Broder, the “Dean of Washington Journalists”, complained that the Clintons had come into DC and trashed it, complaining it wasnt’ “their town” as if they, not the American people, are the ones supposed to be in charge.
The same kind of behavior drove a lot of the coverage of the Bush-Gore campaign. The mainstream media clearly preferred Bush because he was “more fun to have a beer with”. David Broder actually complained that Gore spoke so much about what he wanted to do if elected that Broder was so bored he almost fell asleep!
The NY Times’s Frank Bruni was a huge fan when he covered Bush’s campaign, impressed that Bush gave reporters (stupid, demeaning) nicknames. Bruni’s was the cutesy “Panchito” clearly showing how much respect Bush had for him and other journalists (Bush hated the media). At one point Bruni even told Bush he loved him — just what a professional journalist covering a candidate does, right? In contrast Bruni criticized Gore for being so focused on big issues that he didn’t take time to attend to the little niceties. The fact that Bruni later turned on Bush and became one of his harshest critics is strong evidence that corporate influence wasn’t the reason for his fawning coverage of Bush. If that were the case he never would have become a harsh critic.
Another factor that Eric points to is how intimidated the mainstream media is by the bullying from the right. I was struck recently when I heard Andrew Weissmann say that fear of right wing media attacks played a part in the timidity of the Mueller investigation as well as their willingness to be tough in their final report. If a man like Mueller can be intimidated by right wing bullying you can bet that most journalists and pundits are and that makes them tone down their criticism Republicans.
Sorry that this post is so long but I strongly believe if we don’t understand the factors behind the mainstream media’s willingness to downplay Republican’s outrages we won’t stand a chance of changing it or at least of making people aware of the bias and be less easily manipulated.
Sadly that doesn’t surprise me given all the journalistic malpractice the Times has been guilty of over the years like the examples I listed above. What really boggles my mind is that because the Times has been given a pass over and over they are still so influential and trusted by millions of people, especially Democrats. Time and again I have watched people I know turn against Democratic candidates who are head and shoulders above their opponents because the Times peddled right wing smears about them. What the did to Ms. Winston-Walcott is despicable but what they did to Gore, Kerry and Clinton severely weakened their candidacies. The result has literally been deadly (Iraq, Covid) and has brought our democracy to the point of breaking.
I am not putting all the blame on the Times but most of the mainstream “liberal” media usually followed the Times’s lead and the effect has been disastrous. I strongly believe that had the media reported fairly instead of playing their destructive games neither Bush nor Trump would have won.
I think that is too simplistic an explanation. A lot of what drives our top political pundits and journalists is the same thing that drives the Cool Kids Clique in high school. If the Cool Kids deem you unacceptable they will have no qualms about viciously trashing you anyway they can.
When the Clintons first arrived in DC they offended the Queen of the DC Cool Kids Club, Sally Quinn, wife of Ben Bradlee. Queen Sally ruled over the group, hosting soirées that. The DC players were desperate to be included. David Ignatius wrote about how excited he and his wife were to get their first invite, describing Quinn and Bradlee as DC’s “Bogie and Bacall”. Sally’s club included lCarl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, Tim Russert, Tom Brokaw, Andrea Mitchell, Maureen Dowd, Martha Raddatz, David Ignatius, David Broder, Chris Matthews, etc. along with powerful politicians and players like Ken Starr. Mika Brzezinski is a close friend.
When Clinton’s dalliance with Monica became public the Club, led by Queen Sally, was absolutely appalled which was deeply hypocritical given that Bradlee had been one of JFK’s closest friends who covered up his numerous adulteries. Many of these people worshipped the ground the much more promiscuous JFK walked on and still do. But the ultimate hypocrisy was Queen Quinn whose husband’s recently published memoir described how she, as a twenty-something cub reporter, had set out to seduce her married boss by sending him anonymous flirty memos. The two began an affair. Bradlee eventually divorced his wife and married Quinn. Basically she was a successful Monica but she publicly excoriated Clinton for his trashy behavior as did the rest of her club who also knew about the Bradlee’s history. And now we know that several of those men were at least as guilty as Clinton.
Sally Quinn wrote an infamous column describing how her club felt about the Clinton’s. The highly respected David Broder, the “Dean of Washington Journalists”, complained that the Clintons had come into DC and trashed it, complaining it wasnt’ “their town” as if they, not the American people, are the ones supposed to be in charge.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/quinn110298.htm
The same kind of behavior drove a lot of the coverage of the Bush-Gore campaign. The mainstream media clearly preferred Bush because he was “more fun to have a beer with”. David Broder actually complained that Gore spoke so much about what he wanted to do if elected that Broder was so bored he almost fell asleep!
The NY Times’s Frank Bruni was a huge fan when he covered Bush’s campaign, impressed that Bush gave reporters (stupid, demeaning) nicknames. Bruni’s was the cutesy “Panchito” clearly showing how much respect Bush had for him and other journalists (Bush hated the media). At one point Bruni even told Bush he loved him — just what a professional journalist covering a candidate does, right? In contrast Bruni criticized Gore for being so focused on big issues that he didn’t take time to attend to the little niceties. The fact that Bruni later turned on Bush and became one of his harshest critics is strong evidence that corporate influence wasn’t the reason for his fawning coverage of Bush. If that were the case he never would have become a harsh critic.
Another factor that Eric points to is how intimidated the mainstream media is by the bullying from the right. I was struck recently when I heard Andrew Weissmann say that fear of right wing media attacks played a part in the timidity of the Mueller investigation as well as their willingness to be tough in their final report. If a man like Mueller can be intimidated by right wing bullying you can bet that most journalists and pundits are and that makes them tone down their criticism Republicans.
Sorry that this post is so long but I strongly believe if we don’t understand the factors behind the mainstream media’s willingness to downplay Republican’s outrages we won’t stand a chance of changing it or at least of making people aware of the bias and be less easily manipulated.