The Flimflam Strategy
By Eugene Robinson
Washington Post
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Let's see: The financial system is still in grave peril, despite Congress's approval of an unprecedented $700 billion bailout. Unemployment is rising, the economy is slowing, and the question isn't whether we're in for a recession but how long and how deep the recession will be. Meanwhile, U.S. troops are still fighting in two places -- Iraq and Afghanistan -- where, as a rule, foreign occupations end badly. The terrorists who struck us on Sept. 11, 2001, have been allowed to regroup within the borders of nuclear-armed Pakistan and are busy plotting new attacks. Rarely have there been bigger or more urgent issues to talk about in a presidential campaign.
But John McCain wants us to talk about Barack Obama's acquaintances. He and Sarah Palin are going to try their best to make us talk about anything but the big issues facing our country, because most Americans think Obama's solutions are better than McCain's.
Knowing that, are we in the media going to aid and abet the McCain campaign's obvious ploy?
We journalists like to think we're too smart to be used by one side or the other in a political campaign. In a sense, we're followers of Adam Smith: We believe in an omniscient free marketplace of news in which myriad individual decisions by reporters, editors, photographers, columnists, commentators and media barons -- decisions about what to cover and how to cover it -- somehow miraculously end up maximizing the truth. We claim not to be ideological, but this is our ideology.
At the same time, though, we think of ourselves as working in the public interest. We repeatedly remind everyone that our right to do our jobs however we see fit is enshrined in the First Amendment. We love to quote Thomas Jefferson about how he would rather have newspapers without a government than a government without newspapers.
(Continued here.)
Washington Post
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Let's see: The financial system is still in grave peril, despite Congress's approval of an unprecedented $700 billion bailout. Unemployment is rising, the economy is slowing, and the question isn't whether we're in for a recession but how long and how deep the recession will be. Meanwhile, U.S. troops are still fighting in two places -- Iraq and Afghanistan -- where, as a rule, foreign occupations end badly. The terrorists who struck us on Sept. 11, 2001, have been allowed to regroup within the borders of nuclear-armed Pakistan and are busy plotting new attacks. Rarely have there been bigger or more urgent issues to talk about in a presidential campaign.
But John McCain wants us to talk about Barack Obama's acquaintances. He and Sarah Palin are going to try their best to make us talk about anything but the big issues facing our country, because most Americans think Obama's solutions are better than McCain's.
Knowing that, are we in the media going to aid and abet the McCain campaign's obvious ploy?
We journalists like to think we're too smart to be used by one side or the other in a political campaign. In a sense, we're followers of Adam Smith: We believe in an omniscient free marketplace of news in which myriad individual decisions by reporters, editors, photographers, columnists, commentators and media barons -- decisions about what to cover and how to cover it -- somehow miraculously end up maximizing the truth. We claim not to be ideological, but this is our ideology.
At the same time, though, we think of ourselves as working in the public interest. We repeatedly remind everyone that our right to do our jobs however we see fit is enshrined in the First Amendment. We love to quote Thomas Jefferson about how he would rather have newspapers without a government than a government without newspapers.
(Continued here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home