oneampfuse

Will noone stop this rampage?

Good article from Atrios, comparing press reaction to various journalistic lapses and that of the right to the CBS ‘memogate’ incident.

Little Green Footballs is an excellent example of right wing foaming. They still talk about it daily: “It’s worse than you thought” is today’s shocka). You can also remind yourself of the original story there. . erm.. in some detail, it seems. In essence, CBS negligently used fake documents to embellish a true story, ie, that Bush did not properly fulfil his National Guard duty. This was a boon to Bush, as the fact of a media organisation screwing up became a bigger issue than his own behaviour. Read more at MediaMatters.

Without going as far as Coulter, we can take "non-liberal"/ "non-MSM" (ie, not radical right) media to be typified by Rush and Drudge. Look at their output:

Drudge: Kerry and the intern: Matt just made it up to mirror the Clinton scandal. The intern was real, but no cigar.

Rush: I’ve mentioned some previously, such "Fort marcy park", No 71 & 72 in this list.

Or anything he says about climate change.

Or his overt racism, as primitive and vile as when those Spanish football fans made monkey noises whenever a black player touched the ball.

Clearly, there are no standards on the right. Certainly nothing like those expected of CBS. If challenged, they will say that the comparison is unfair somehow: "How can you expect the little guy to face up to the networks? This is an entertainment business! Rush broadcasts every day; maybe some little errors slip out. Of course he says cheeky things to irritate liberals, and anyway we need some partisanship for balance.

All of these arguments amount to a rejection of the idea of journalistic integrity or our ability to make judgements about it. Like creationists, the right cannot seriously uphold the validity of their alternative. So their policy, screeching aside, is to claim that the 'liberal' media, with its claim to 'objectivity', is no less biased and no better.

The response is:
'Should it be more like Rush?'
'What should it be like then?'

The right hate the networks, objectivity, and journalistic ethics because their aim is total media ghettoization. They want every outlet to be like one of those shonky cable preaching channels, wallowing in ignorance & snake oil rhetoric, wailing that everyone else is corrupt, and uniting against their common enemy at election time.