For the record, I believe Froomkin does not consider his work to be opinion pieces. He seems pretty scrupulous about calling his work simply a digest of reporting about the White House and issues related to the White House. There's a huge difference.
If Froomkin writes opinion, then getting putative "balance" by hiring a conservative might arguably make sense. But if Froomkin is simply chronicling what is being reported, and noting consistencies and inconsistencies over time, then "balance" is not called for, just accuracy. One of the remarkable things about Froomkin's column is its consistent balance on almost every issue month after month. I suspect that is no accident.
Posted by Tim at December 13, 2005 04:45 PMI happen to agree with Digby, but the real question is how this 'scandal' is playing in the real world outside The Beltway. The fact that the story is getting so many column-inches indicates that the wrong-wing media control of the mass mind has been slipping and is in need of reinforcement.
Posted by pessimist at December 13, 2005 05:20 PMThe whole idea of 'balance' presupposes that there are only two takes on any given issue: the hard core right wing and the right wing of the Democratic Party. This is bullshit.
Posted by James E. Powell at December 13, 2005 05:22 PM"...the Beltway was likely to go easy on Bush because of years of scandal fatigue in covering Clinton.".
"Scandal Fatigue...The Beltway". Beltway this!! you pompous idiot... (use your imagination).
I'm a native San Franciscan, and have seen a great many changes in my hometown and the Bay Area during my lifetime. Among the most striking has been the influx of gays from around the USA, fleeing persecution. That's a fact that all bigots conveinently, invariably, choose to ignore.
Those pilgrims who flood the "Beltway", however, are as sluts flocking to the Best Damn Whorehouse on the face of the earth. It is a city full of tit-sucking Cotton Mathers', with one hand stroking the stroked, while the other massages their owned stained underwear.
If a Big Lie is best believed, then who better to deliver it than the Hypocrites? If it's true the best way to look on politicians is down, how then is one to view the lickspittles who spread the politicians manure?
That members of that "tribe" are the only ones objecting to Froomkin's meagre, meagre two bits worth of opinion. Them, and the GOP Scream Machine. They fear the rock under which they labor being lifted outright. As innordinately timid as he is, Froomkin makes them nervous. Not war, not deficit, not class warfare as practiced on the weak and helpless.
It's Froomkin who gives them the jitters.
Posted by at December 13, 2005 05:27 PM
Hey, a senior editor of the WaPo admitted a year or more ago that the WaPo Editorial staff were simply a mouthpiece for the Administration.......that's it. They are in on it, even with a few decent reporters excepted, they are the prime example, with the NYT of the rot in Corporate Media that has become the propaganda arm of the GOP.
Posted by T2 at December 13, 2005 06:07 PMGawd, what a pathetic group of highly "full of themselves" individuals...can't stand the heat...get out of the profession. Oh no....we can't lose our precious "access".
Since when over the past 5 has access to this WH gotten them anything except burned credibility(hello Iraq War run-up)or looking like willing aider and abetter dupes with lost careers and credibility(hello Plamegate- Bob Woodward, Judith Miller, and Viveca Novak).
Don't they realize (or care) that the best and most accurate reporting over the past 5 years is being done by journalists (hello Knight Ridder, Sy Hersh) that don't have/want/ or need direct access to Karl Rove or Ken Mehlman. But that's right it's not the accuracy that counts for this job, it's the A-list Holiday party invites and luncheon gossip that really matters to these people... I mean really....who needs credibility when KKKarl Rove has your number.
Posted by emal at December 13, 2005 06:30 PMSteve Soto writes: But perhaps, as Digby says, Harris should just admit he and the rest of the Washington Post management are Karl Rove’s bitches and stop this pretense that a newspaper exists.
I don't know. It's pretty easy to just keep on keeping on with the polite fiction. They pretend there is a newspaper that people read. I pretend that the newspaper I read is theirs. It will all work out in the end.
Posted by s9 at December 13, 2005 07:31 PMI Just sent to wolf at CNN. I watch Amy Goodman at FSTV than if I saw that one move on to CNN. What a contrast of what I saw before.
“Will we hear form you about: Leon County Dumps Diebold after Security Is Hacked! Or about Diebold CEO resigns after reports of fraud litigation, internal woes.
“The chief executive officer of electronic voting company Diebold who once famously declared that he would "deliver" Ohio for President Bush has resigned effective immediately, RAW STORY has learned. “
Do check because his info was in an article of The Rolling Stone. We the bloggers get the news first because we do search the news all over the world and finds inconsistency with what we hear from all of you. Faux fox is a known Neocons joke but do not say you are fair and balance unless you are ready to question every move that this worst administration has done to us and are continuing doing! We have 3 more years to go under this administration unless we can get rid of all the crooks in congress and impeach this phony?
So what does this mean for the 2000 election? They were stolen and the Supreme Court elected a fake President.
We want you all to get a spine when questioning this administration. It seems that you prefer the cozy relationship with all those crooks as they are 28 elected officials under investigation????”
I cannot wait to here if it will make the News?????????
This raises a couple of issues for me. First, there is the obvious question of access. There is no question that the bloodlust for access amongst Washington journalists will lead them to self-censor. But that is relatively benign.
There is also getting too cozy with being inside the beltway, and Woodward's court stenography may represent the most brilliant exploitation of that tendency by BushCo.
HOwever, there is far too much behavior which to me looks like hired hacks beyond loss-of-access-fearing newsies or inside-the-beltway clubbiness. I flatly wonder if there was not an effort to plant right wing journalists in the US media, and this is not something to be lost on any administration or movement willing to do this in Iraq or with Armstrong Williams here. Williams was easy because he was already a conservative hack who was well known. But what about Harris here? His discussion with DeLong is bizarre--``I am not supposed to say ...'' What about Judy Miller? What about CNN's execrable Kyra Phillips and Dana Bash? What about the NPR religion reporter and the various NPR fixtures at FOX?
My point here is that I can handle those who by self identification with Fox or the Washington Times are clearly partisan to the core. I am more concerned and wonder out loud about the coverts who may have been bought off years and years ago by the Scaifes and Coors who knew that to be REALLY effective they needed to not only put forward the obvious (Novak, Barnes, ....) but infiltrate the less obvious (NYT, WaPo, CNN....)
Does anyone else share my concern?
Posted by calguy at December 14, 2005 12:36 PMOh what the hell!
Let the Washington Post bring in a conservative blogger so he can link to what...? Fox News.
As everyone knows, progressives own cyberspace and any conservative blog will pale in viewership. The post will henceforth be cancelled or watered down to cover innocuous missing white women ALA Joe Scarborough and that will be that!
Posted by Mimi Schaeffer at December 15, 2005 03:26 PM