A Case of Bad Ink: Portrait of Media Is Not So Flattering

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post

The parade of high-profile Washington journalists who took the stand in the Lewis "Scooter" Libby perjury case were not on trial. But few would dispute that the proceedings, which ended with Libby's conviction on four of five counts yesterday, gave their profession a black eye.

When Vice President Cheney's chief of staff and other top administration officials wanted to neutralize a critic by disclosing his wife's role at the CIA, they turned to some of the capital's most prominent chroniclers, who -- under longstanding local custom -- promised the leakers anonymity.

"There is an all-too-unsettling nexus between the political and media elite," says Jim Warren, a Chicago Tribune managing editor. "This was a nice little window into the mutual obsession with one another. There's the infatuation with power which we all have and which was vividly underscored, especially those of us at elite institutions."

(More here.)