Killing the Messenger

December 30, 2008

by Larry Sakin

In a colleagues’ recent editorial, the mainstream media was taken to task. According to the writer, corporate-owned news outlets are attempting to tie the albatross of the Blagojevich scandal around the neck of the incoming Obama administration. The writer further asserts that big media favors attacking left-leaning administrations for their so-called new ideas over investigating the spurious activities of the right.

This is not a new opinion among the liberal oriented side of the blogosphere. Everyone from “911-Truth” seekers to stolen elections and Bush impeachment advocates have condemned the major news outlets because these outlets don’t investigate what advocates think they should. But what these progressively minded opinion swillers fail to mention is how often big media does critique those on the right.

Anyone who has read this column knows there is no love lost between the mainstream media and me. Corporate news tends to reflect the opinions of its ownership from time to time, but it’s certainly not a consistent pose. One only has to look at how the media gushed over Presidential candidate Barack Obama and the unflattering light it shed on Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin to know which candidate the media overlords stood with. It also didn’t hurt that Obama is an extremely telegenic, personable politician who, like his democratic predecessor Bill Clinton, scored high “Q” ratings with news consumers.

Progressive columnists rarely point out it was the CBS News that offered the world an interview with Palin showing her to be somewhat dimwitted about the world. NBC allowed Saturday Night Live alum Tina Fey to do her frighteningly accurate impersonation of Palin on Saturday Night Live, and Time Warner let HBO talk fest comedian Bill Maher to carry on ad nauseum about Palin. At the same time, Maher spoke of Obama as if he were the second coming of Franklin D. Roosevelt, as did numerous commentators on CNN who all accepted the notion of ‘change’ Obama was presenting as his platform. Newspapers across the country praised Obama and the promise of change he promoted while regularly drubbing Senator John McCain for his age, his dull speeches and for promoting policies tied to George W. Bush.

No doubt Palin did this damage to herself as she was completely unprepared for either the questions she was presented, the way she presents herself, or not knowing how easily the media can edit a piece to sound or read as something completely different than what was said.

But that was then. Now that Obama has gotten the job, the media is taking a slightly more critical stance on Obama and progressives are frothing. Apparently they wish the media to carry on the hope Obama represents for them.

To be fair, Obama has been vague about the Blagojevich situation, and vagueness from a politician is always an opening for media to probe deeper into a scandal. Perhaps Obama hasn’t learned in his short political career why specifics are important to deter the media from a hot story.

No doubt the media was late in analyzing some of the decisions of the Bush Administration and even carried water for them through the first few years of the Iraq War. However, there wasn’t a liberal Matt Drudge on the internet that started looking critically at statements made by Bush on the war. That began with an editorial by Ambassador Joseph Wilson in the New York Times. This was the case over and over again. It was the mainstream media that helped uncover the doings in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office when Valerie Plame was fired from the CIA. And progressives cannot deny that the corporate media was all over the criminal probe of Patrick Fitzgerald into the same affair.

So the mainstream media is just fine with progressives as long as it sets it’s investigative eye on the other guys.

To believe the media should be uncritical of some politicians and constantly critical of others undercuts the Constitutionally mandated watchdog role of the media. Beyond this, its vital that corporate news goes about its reporting with known facts in evidence rather than innuendo about alleged illegal activity. No one is going to sue my colleague if he writes something irresponsible nor will his reputation suffer. Such is not the case if the mainstream media doesn’t do their job.

The lesson here is young politicians need to become more media savvy before they enter the fray of national politics, and the media will fill any hole left available by politicians. Corporate news doesn’t always get it right, but given the correct amount of evidence, they have the resources to follow an investigative lead to the end. No politician should be spared the rod of media scrutiny no matter who they represent. Anything less would be undemocratic.

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Written by Larry Sakin · Filed Under A Moment of Clarity

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Letter to the Editor: Good Cars need Good Teams - by R. A. Letcher, PhD

Good cars need good teams -- designers, engineers, line workers… and learning-oriented managers by Robert A. Letcher, PhD [Author’s note: I submitted the following as a letter to the editor of The New York Times, after that paper carried an article under the headline, "To Fix Detroit, Obama Is Said to Drop Plan for ‘Car Czar’", 02/15/2009.] It is widely accepted that you can't win a horse race without a good horse. Of course, it helps to have a lot of money and a good plan for spending it. But, you still need a good horse. The authors reminded me of this when they wrote: “The companies’ plans are required to show progress in cutting long-term costs as a condition for keeping their loans.” I doubt GM and Chrysler can win this most important "automobile race" merely by having better accountants and more muscular negotiators: they still need a good "horse". That means the companies will have to show that their teams can still design and build cars that people are drawn to buy and willing to pay for: winners. I doubt they can. The problem isn't that they didn't know how to; it's that they don't know how to break out of the group-think that ensnarled them, their managers, their whole organizations, decades ago. I would be more optimistic, had the government also required the companies to include plans for transforming themselves into learning organizations. Aye, there’s the rub: learning entails risk-taking, not “yes people”.
Bob's Bail Out Plan by bobl-tlm
Fiscal Therapy - Getting the economy back on its feet, giving taxpayers a break, saving your retirement fund and your kid's college tuition? Done. And it won't cost you a penny.

For years now, whenever I've been invited to lecture students on how our tax system works, I have asked a simple question: What is the purpose of the United States of America? The most common answer, be it at prestigious universities, elite prep schools, rural community colleges, or crowded urban high schools, is this: To make people rich. This should come as no great surprise. For anyone born after, say, 1970, the world has been shaped by Ronald Reagan's remaking of government's relationship with private interests—a vision of lower taxes, less regulation, and maximum economic leeway for those at the top. In this view, the pursuit of wealth is the warp and weft of America; everything else will follow. By contrast, the preamble to the Constitution tells us the nation's reason for being in 52 words that can be reduced to six principles: society, justice, peace, security, commonwealth, and freedom. Individual riches don't make the list. They are a product of American society, not its guiding purpose. Progress, then, must begin with a return to the best of the values that created this Second American Republic—one born, it's worth remembering, from the failure of the Articles of Confederation, whose principles (weak government, unfettered capitalism) found their resurrection in the economic policies of the past three decades.
read more at Mother Jones
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