Whoa. This is kind of scary. At a forum on the press at a college in Maryland, Karl Rove said of the press, "I think it's less liberal than it is oppositional."
"Reporters now see their role less as discovering facts and fair-mindedly reporting the truth and more as being put on the earth to afflict the comfortable, to be a constant thorn of those in power, whether they are Republican or Democrat," Rove said.
His indictment of the media -- delivered as part of Washington College's Harwood Lecture Series, named for the late Washington Post editor and writer Richard Harwood -- had four parts: that there's been an explosion in the number of media outlets; that these outlets have an insatiable demand for content; that these changes create enormous competitive pressure; and that journalists have increasingly adopted an antagonistic attitude toward public officials. Beyond that, Rove argued that the press pays too much attention to polls and "horse-race" politics, and covers governing as if it were a campaign.
I would not, however, say journalists are increasingly antagonistic towards anything. The "horse-race" coverage of politics, is decidedly un-antagonistic. During the election coverage this year, NPR and the NYT, the outlets from which I get most of my news, were just spin machines: "Kerry said this. Bush said this. Blah blah blah."
Nevertheless, I gotta give Rove credit for actually being honest about the media, instead of taking the standard Republican line.
Via Washington Post
Whoa. This is kind of scary. At a forum on the press at a college in Maryland, Karl Rove said of the press, "I think it's less liberal than it is oppositional."
"Reporters now see their role less as discovering facts and fair-mindedly reporting the truth and more as being put on the earth to afflict the comfortable, to be a constant thorn of those in power, whether they are Republican or Democrat," Rove said.
His indictment of the media -- delivered as part of Washington College's Harwood Lecture Series, named for the late Washington Post editor and writer Richard Harwood -- had four parts: that there's been an explosion in the number of media outlets; that these outlets have an insatiable demand for content; that these changes create enormous competitive pressure; and that journalists have increasingly adopted an antagonistic attitude toward public officials. Beyond that, Rove argued that the press pays too much attention to polls and "horse-race" politics, and covers governing as if it were a campaign.
I would not, however, say journalists are increasingly antagonistic towards anything. The "horse-race" coverage of politics, is decidedly un-antagonistic. During the election coverage this year, NPR and the NYT, the outlets from which I get most of my news, were just spin machines: "Kerry said this. Bush said this. Blah blah blah."
Nevertheless, I gotta give Rove credit for actually being honest about the media, instead of taking the standard Republican line.
Via Washington Post
