Matt Taibbi: Campaign Journalism Is Back, More Evil Than '04

[marmar]

from Rolling Stone, via AlterNet:


Campaign Journalism Is Back, More Evil Than '04

By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com. Posted April 10, 2007.



You'll hear a lot in the next 20 months about which candidate has bony hands, who looks good in a parka -- but you won't hear anything about who voted for the bankruptcy bill and who didn't.

God help us, the 2008 presidential election is already here; they are already murdering huge forests in South America so that Jonathan Alter and Karen Tumulty can tell us what the latest Scripps/Howard poll says "voters believe the next president's haircut should look like." Hell is much too good for all of us ...

Mainly in an attempt to preserve my own tenuous grip on sanity, I made it through this past weekend without reading much coverage of the campaign. The election, after all, is nearly a full Martian year away, with a Super Bowl and two World Series still to play out in between -- which means that the "urgency" of breaking campaign news is now and will remain for at least a year an almost 100% media concoction.

Like Seinfeld, the presidential campaign is essentially a "show about nothing," a prolonged prime-time character-driven drama crafted around a series of fake conflicts that always get resolved by the end of the program, in this case November, 2008. Marcia and Greg make driving-test bet in segment one; Marcia imagines instructor in underwear in middle segments; Marcia and Greg's bet ends in a tie, family loves each other again. In the old days the presidential show's writers tended to use actual political issues (Georgie and Hube argue about Vietnam!) as the starting points for their dramatic conflicts -- a natural artistic strategy, given that the subject matter was a real election in a giant country teeming with ugly social and economic problems -- but in the last few cycles the networks seem to have figured out that you can shoot even a whole season of a presidential race without including any of the boring political shit.

Instead, you can cover the whole race using the time-tested Aaron Spelling method of creating TV dramas: you pack a rich and magical dream-landscape with a group of easily-recognizable psychological archetypes and spend a dozen episodes or so letting them smash into each other in bikinis and sports cars (if the show is set in California) or spurs and hoop-dresses (if it's a Western).
...(snip)...

There was a classic example of this stuff this past weekend in the New York Times, in a piece by Adam Nagourney called "2 Years After Big Speech, A Lower Key for Obama." The Times, incidentally, is one of the chief producers of this brand of campaign journalism. In every presidential election, the paper manufactures its own story lines around fictional candidate struggles to conquer certain adjectives. They will show candidates fighting for the title of the most "nuanced," wriggling away from tags like "prickly," and racing to great final showdowns of adjectives in the general election -- "brainy" versus "folksy," "emotional" versus "plodding," and so on.

And make no mistake about it, they invent these controversies out of thin air. One of the most conspicuous instances I can recall was December of 2003, when reporter Rick Lyman ran a piece called "From Patrician Roots, Dean Set Path of Prickly Independence" and then ran a piece just a few weeks later in which Dean had to defend himself against Lyman's charges that he was prickly ("I can be prickly with the press corps... I'm not usually prickly with other people."). Reporter calls candidate "prickly," then asks candidate to answer charges of prickliness. Now that's journalism! The campaign press will follow the same formula over and over again, just changing the word -- a candidate will be accused of being too liberal (Kerry), too cold (Hillary), too "lightweight" (Edwards), too "unserious" (Sharpton), etc., until he either cries uncle or drops out. Using this technique the press can basically bludgeon any candidate into whatever shape it likes. When a candidate fails to comply -- when, say, a Kerry fails to demonstrate that he's not too "patrician" for middle America -- he is summarily punished and usually ends up a loser. ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/50403/

[wyldwolf]

1. Taibbi - One of the Great Pretenders

... the other two being Huffington and Sirota.

Oh-oh, yes I’m the great pretender
Pretending that I’m doing well
My need is such I pretend too much
I’m lonely but no one can tell

Oh-oh, yes I’m the great pretender
Adrift in a world of my own
I’ve played the game but to my real shame
You’ve left me to grieve all alone

Yes I’m the great pretender
Just laughin’ and gay like a clown
I seem to be what I’m not, you see
I’m wearing my heart like a crown

— The Platters, 1955

Matt Taibbi. Think David Sirota off his meds. In 2005, he wrote the utterly disgusting The 52 Funniest Things About The Upcoming Death of the Pope. He was an editor of the Moscow-based eXile newspaper (think Jackass with a radical political perspective) where he once bragged about being immune to libel laws. In other words, he knows how to pull sophmoric stunts and write the revolution-ladened prose those on the far left like to read, but he’s hardly a reputable source or a responsible journalist and certainly not someone the left should desire as a spokesperson.

--------------

[KoKo]

3. Are you hinting that Taibbi just might be a Pinko Communist?

:eyes:

He was an editor of the Moscow-based eXile newspaper (think Jackass with a radical political perspective) where he once bragged about being immune to libel laws. In other words, he knows how to pull sophmoric stunts and write the revolution-ladened prose those on the far left like to read, but he’s hardly a reputable source or a responsible journalist and certainly not someone the left should desire as a spokesperson.

[wyldwolf]

4. Is stating the facts about him somehow... discouraged?

[KoKo]

5. Your comments seemed a bit McCarthyish......that's what I was saying..

:shrug: Kind of finger pointing something that seemed to smear the "messenger."

[wyldwolf]

7. It isn't a bit McCarthyish to point out someone worked for a Russian newspaper and believed...

...he was immune from libel. :shrug:

FURTHER, speaking as a Democrat, it wouldn't be bit McCarthyish to point out someone who constantly criticizes Democrats is a communist if, in fact, he is.

I would point out a Dem criticizer is a Republican, Libertarian, Socialist, Green, too.

[KoKo]

8. Wyldwolf...do you hear yourself? Did you read your post after you posted?

Do you know what Senator Joe McCarthy represents in American History? :eyes:

[wyldwolf]

9. uh, yeah. He undertook a witch hunt. Be that as it may...

... this country and this political party is not a communist one, nor a Socialist one, nor a Green one, etc. Anyone who is critical of the Democratic party from the position of something other than a Democrat is not immune from criticism themselves even if it offends "progressives"

It is not unethical or immoral to call a spade a spade.

Despite the travesty of McCarthyism, Democrats continued to oppose Soviet communism up until the fall of the Soviet Union - that includes Roosevelt, Truman, the Kennedys, Johnson, and Carter. :eyes:

[KoKo]

10. But, you independently say (based on what) that Taibbi is a Communist?

And, you think the careers ruined and those who suffered because of Joe McCarthy and his right hand man J. Edgar Hoover fall under just a "travesty" blip of time and that McCarthy might have just been calling "a spade, a spade?"

Sheesh....What have you been reading. Or, maybe you are too young to have known what Joe McCarthy and his partner Hoover were doing! :eyes:

[wyldwolf]

11. I have not at any time called Taibbi a communist

And, you think the careers ruined and those who suffered because of Joe McCarthy and his right hand man J. Edgar Hoover fall under just a "travesty"

KoKo01, perhaps you have a different definition of "travesty" than I do.


that McCarthy might have just been calling "a spade, a spade?"

ANOTHER item that I have never said or implied. Like I said, anyone who is critical of the Democratic party from the position of something other than a Democrat is not immune from criticism themselves even if it offends "progressives."

All of your fake outrage aside, it is not unethical or immoral to call a spade a spade.

Sheesh....What have you been reading.

For starters, this:

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/0375507426.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIlitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_SCLZZZZZZZ_AA240_SH20_.jpg

and this...

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/0974000930.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_SCLZZZZZZZ_AA240_SH20_.jpg

The following factoids might help you, too:

Under simultaneous and opposing pressures from the Allies and the Soviets, Germany was divided. The Berlin Wall separated West and East Berlin, the latter being under the control of the Soviets. On June 26, 1963, Kennedy visited West Berlin and gave a public speech criticizing communism. Kennedy used the construction of the Berlin Wall as an example of the failures of communism: "Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in."

-----

Communism is based on the belief that man is so weak and inadequate that he is able to govern himself, and therefore requires the rule of strong masters.

Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice. - Harry Truman, 1949

-----

But what is most interesting, KoKo01 is you skipped right over the part where Taibbi bragged he was immune from libel, which means he was happy to be able to write anything about anyone even it it was not true.

So, you MUST think that is ok.

But, you chose to zero in on the fact the paper he worked for was in Moscow and that I pointed it out.

[KoKo]

12. After your comment

that I had "fake outrage" it was kind of hard to take you seriously. I am always "outraged" ...it's my personality. I was born with an overly sensitive sense of outrage.

I think what you read has heavily influenced you. Just as what I've read has heavily influenced me.

I'm sure we've overlapped in our reading somewhere since we are both Democrats but I sense that you think that "Progressives" are not Democrats but something else...from your comments in your post.

I'm done with you... Can't discuss much with you and you tend to go for the persona attack to answer a a question at the first jump. It's kind of hard to get over the personal attack from you to dig deeper when you go further to explain because you seem to feel a question or point of query is an attack on what you are saying. And you suggest many times that the person engaging in discussion with you might not be very well read. So...I'm leaving it.

Peace!

[wyldwolf]

13. of course you're always outraged

I think what you read has heavily influenced you. Just as what I've read has heavily influenced me.

Yes, reading multiple accounts of the history of the Democratic party and bios on Truman and Kennedy have influenced me, yes.

but I sense that you think that "Progressives" are not Democrats but something else...from your comments in your post.

Drawing from the same source materials I have mentioned, among others, the modern progressive movement has it's roots in failed third parties and electoral presidential campaign disasters. But you are wrong - they have been absorbed into the Democratic party.

I'm done with you... Can't discuss much with you and you tend to go for the persona attack to answer a a question at the first jump.

There have been no personal attacks - just inconvenient facts that make you uncomfortable.

[Amused Musings]

6. I think he is a pretty funny journalist

His book Spanking the Donkey was a hilarious collection of his reporting from the campaign trail. I thought he was a bit too mean when talking about Dean and Kerry but I could not help myself but laugh. While he was at eXile, he went under cover at an Orthodox monastery doing labor. The mosquitos were so bad they had to wear hankerchiefs just to keep from breathing them in (Russia has a surprisingly bad mosquito problem- a malaria epidemic in Archangel during the 20's killed something like 500000 people). His eviceration of the "9/11 Truth Movement" was spot on.

[BeyondGeography]

2. The media sucks, but so does this article

It dissects one favorable piece on Obama (who spent two weeks prior being a media punching bag, including a blast from the same Karen Tumulty, who turned his performance in a forgettable health care forum into a major statement on his supposed lack of substance)and criticizes another that is unfavorable to Hillary. If he wanted to write something really interesting, he could have talked about how the media suddenly gives Obama more respect now that his fundraising numbers are out. They are overly impressed with money, which is why so many of them bought into Her Inevitabilityness in the first place.

Media frames do have an impact on how candidates are perceived, but they still have every chance to overcome them, especially in the up-close and personal environments of Iowa and New Hampshire. Dean didn't lose in 2004 because the New York Times used "prickly" in a headline once; as if Iowans give a flying fuck about the NYT. Pure navel gazing by Taibbi.