PressThink: De-Certifying the Press, Continued

De-Certifying the Press, Continued

The whole idea of the White House press corps is that the reporters in it represent the public's common interest in seeing executive power questioned, monitored, examined, explained. The President needs an interlocutor, it was once thought. No more.

When PressThink undergoes its first re-design, I plan to install on the right rail a “live” list of my top ten press puzzles of the day, which would change with the events that present those puzzles. Or not change, if the puzzle persisted.

Right now, tops on my list would be: “de-certifying the press,” which I have written about since September of 2003. Last week’s installment was In the Press Room of the White House that is Post Press (Feb. 25). It was about putting “Jeff Gannon” into a larger context, the “post-press” philosophy of the Bush Administration.

Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post wouldn’t think much of my rankings, if I had them up. Yesterday he said that my Number One story—which is not really “a” story but a situation made of many stories—is mostly bunk.

“Are the Bushies at ‘war’ with the Fourth Estate?” Kurtz asks. “I wouldn’t go that far,” he answers. The evidence he alllowed into beat reporter’s court was this:

Bush says he prefers “unfiltered” news from his staff. He holds few news conferences (though he’s picked up the pace a bit after winning a second term). He doesn’t like “preening” television correspondents. Cheney’s plane bars New York Times reporters. Top officials all seem to be reading off the same set of talking points. Ari, and now Scott, toe the company line. Prepackaged videos are sent out as real news with fake reporters.

But the problems of the press are not these things, Kurtz said; they’re self-driven scandals. “Nothing the White House has done has damaged the media’s credibility more than what the profession has done to itself.” And he lists all the recent goings-on from Jayson Blair and Eason Jordan to declining ratings, in order to ask: are any of these Bush’s fault? (He left out excessive credulity on the Weapons of Mass Destruction story, which is on most people’s list of recent press failures. That, of course, was Bush’s fault.)

In my view Kurtz’s judgment on this is wrong— very wrong for a beat reporter with his experience. His attempt to de-excite us about de-certification deserves to fail. But at least he links to the arguments made by Eric Boehlert of Salon (March 2). He’s been following the de-certification story:

Recent headlines about paid-off pundits, video press releases disguised as news telecasts, and the remarkable press access granted to a right-wing pseudo-journalist working under a phony name, have led many observers to conclude that the White House is not simply aggressively managing the news, but is out to sabotage journalism from within, to undermine the integrity and reputation of the press corps.

Ex-Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind, who reported on the White House communication shop in the first term and interviewed some key people there, told Boehlert that the strategy to “diminish the mainstream press” was the “same as how to handle the federal government; you starve the beast.” Then in its weakened state it can be attacked and subverted, which is where Armstrong Williams and Jeff Gannon come in.

De-certifying the press is a means to a much larger and scarier end. Boehlert’s formulation of it: “If the press loses its credibility, that eliminates agreed-upon facts — the commonly accepted information that is central to public debate.” I’m with Eric Boehlert and Ron Suskind (I’m quoted in the same article) as they try to discern the situation before us. And here are a few of the reasons I think Howard Kurtz is wrong to dismiss their ideas.

“People forget that every administration tries to neutralize the press,” he writes. For an example, he points to Bill Clinton stonewalling during scandals and circumventing the press corps when he started going on Larry King and other talk shows.

But Mike Allen of the Washington Post, Kurtz’s colleague, did not forget what every administration tries to do. On October 8 he wrote: “Although all presidents are kept somewhat removed from reality because of security concerns and their staffs’ impulse for burnishing their image, Bush’s campaign has taken unprecedented steps to shield him from dissenters and even from curious, undecided voters.” Did Kurtz catch that word “unprecedented?”

Kurtz says people forget what presidents do. But I didn’t forget (and I’m people, Howard.) Last week I went out of my way to address his doubts from this week.

It is true that all Administrations want to speak to the nation in an unfiltered way; there’s nothing notable about that. All at one time or another see the press as “against” them. All cry foul— and in the name of the facts! Hating the press is normal behavior in the White House. So is favoring the sympathetic correspondent.

But we can recognize these facts, and still discern something going on with the Bush team:

There’s a difference between going around the press in an effort to avoid troublesome questions, and trying to unseat the idea that these people, professional journalists assigned to cover politics, have a legitimate role to play in our politics.

Which is what de-certification is about: attacking that idea on as many fronts as possible. Kurtz should understand the thesis he is rejecting, and not rely on the entirely superficial approach of picking out two or three things Bush is accused of that Clinton was also accused of.

“It’s been apparent since the day he took office… that George Bush has little love for the press,” Kurtz writes. But what wasn’t apparent, at first, was the different philosophy of press relations the Bush White House held, and advertised that it held. Why have a different theory, and why talk openly about it, if you intend no changes in practice? (See Ken Auletta: Fortress Bush.)

There is no Fourth Estate, says the Bush Thesis. The White House press has no check and balance function. As for journalists, “they don’t represent the public any more than other people do,” according to Chief of Staff Andrew Card. “In our democracy, the people who represent the public stood for election.”

Of course the whole idea of having a White House press corps is that the reporters in it do represent the American public’s common interest in seeing executive power questioned, monitored, examined, explained. The President needs an interlocutor, it was once thought.

Keep in mind how often it has been observed that the British have the ritual of Question Time in Parliament—where the Prime Minister must answer the opposition— while the U.S. has the White House press conference to serve a roughly similar goal. Maybe it doesn’t serve very well, but on the other hand if the press does not have an accepted right to question time with the President, who does?

This is the most disturbing part of the entire pattern: To answer questions from informed people who might doubt him is not an essential responsibility that Bush, as President, feels he even has.

Dan Froomkin, who writes the White House Briefing column for the Washington Post, sees this as part of “Bush’s bubble,” which

first emerged as a serious news story during the campaign — in particular when he seemed unprepared for his first debate. It reemerged after the election, as Bush opted against new blood for his second term and instead gave increased power to loyalty-tested aides. And now, the protective bubble appears to have become standard practice wherever he goes — even when he’s abroad.

Consider what happened on the President’s recent trip to Germany: Reuters, looking ahead, reported on Feb. 14 that White House “organizers are still taking all necessary measures to ensure the German public’s dislike of Bush does not mar his kiss-and-make-up session with Schroeder.”

Initial plans for a “town hall” style meeting attended by local students, businessmen and Americans have been scrapped — to the relief of German government officials, who feared privately that such an open forum could backfire.

Elizabeth Bumiller had a more intriguing account Feb. 21 in the New York Times:

The proposed town-hall meeting raised the inevitable issue, said Wolfgang Ischinger, the German ambassador to Washington, of “Do you know what kinds of folks you are going to have at that meeting and what kinds of questions they might ask?” Ischinger said the Germans told the Americans that the guests could not be screened, as White House officials do at similar events in the United States, and so “don’t be mad at us if some nasty question comes up.”

That was enough to sink the plan. So not only does Bush fail to accept any responsibility to be vigorously questioned, he now expects that others will supply the conditions in which he can appear to have an interlocutor but actually face no challenge at all. The Germans refused to play along.

Then on Feb. 23 the German weekly Der Spiegel added some additional facts:

As an ersatz for the town hall meeting on Wednesday, Bush will now meet with a well-heeled group of so-called “young leaders”… The chat is being held under the slogan: “A new chapter for trans-Atlantic relations.” The aim of the meeting is to give these “young leaders” a totally different impression of George W. Bush. In order to guarantee an open exchange, the round has been closed to journalists — ensuring that any embarrassments will be confined to a small group.

The ultimate solution, then, was to exclude the press after the Germans could not guarantee friendly questioning. To exclude in this way is closely related to the de-certifying I have talked about. But what is the result? No public interlocutor for Bush. From the standpoint of a de-certification move, that’s a solid win.

Here are some developments in the de-certification story:

The New York Times has had many media reporters (it’s Kit Seeyle’s beat now) but it has never had a real press critic— until Frank Rich began his Arts and Leisure page column. It’s printed on Sunday but released to the Web on Thursday. This week Rich is at it again as a presser of the press, reminding the Times Washington bureau that the “Gannon” story isn’t finished: “We still don’t know how this Zelig, using a false name, was given a daily White House pass every day for two years. Last weekend, Jim Pinkerton, a former official in the Reagan and Bush I White Houses, said on ‘Fox News Watch,’ no less, that such a feat ‘takes an incredible amount of intervention from somebody high up in the White House,’ that it had to be ‘conscious’ and that “some investigation should proceed and they should find that out. Given an all-Republican government, the only investigation possible will have to come from the press.” But don’t count on it, he says. I see Rich’s column as a fairly open challenge to the Washington Bureau.

The blog Fishbowl DC, with Garrett Graff—a part of the Media Bistro empire—has been trying to obtain one of those day passes that Jeff Gannon received so easily. It’s an interesting experiment. You can follow along in his progress— which was zero, until USA Today began asking questions. Here is Graff’s “Open Letter to the White House Media Affairs Office.” UPDATE: Fishbowl granted bloggers pass.

Michael Crowley in the New Republic has a fascinating report on the South Dakota senate race, which featured bloggers attacking the Sioux Falls Argus Leader as biased for Tom Daschle. They were fed information by Jeff Gannon: “In late January, Republican members of Congress convened at a rural West Virginia resort to plot strategy for the new congressional session and the 2006 midterm elections. They held meetings, on issues like Social Security and tax reform, led by committee chairmen and even the president himself. But no session generated as much interest as the one led by a mere freshman, John Thune of South Dakota. It’s rare for such a junior senator to lecture his wizened colleagues. But Thune’s elders listened with rapt attention as he explained how bloggers and partisan Internet ‘journalism’ helped him defeat former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle last fall… Even senators who missed out on the session have been asking for details of Thune’s story. ‘Other senators have asked him in private how he worked with the bloggers,’ says Thune spokesman Alex Conant.”

Don’t miss this related account by Jan Frel at Personal Democracy Forum, focused on the same race, which shows that some of the bloggers attacking the newspaper for its bias were being paid: “Nine bloggers — two of whom were paid $35,000 by Thune’s campaign — formed an alliance that constantly attacked the election coverage of South Dakota’s principal newspaper, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. More specifically, their postings were not primarily aimed at dissuading the general public from trusting the Argus’ coverage. Rather, the work of these bloggers was focused on getting into the heads of the three journalists at the Argus who were primarily responsible for covering the Daschle/Thune race: chief political reporter David Kranz, state editor Patrick Lalley, and executive editor Randell Beck. Led by law student Jason van Beek and University of South Dakota history professor Jon Lauck, the Thune bloggers tormented and rattled the Argus staff for the duration of the 2004 election, clearly influencing the Argus’ coverage.”

Oh, yeah… Taking note of my In the Press Room, “Jeff Gannon” at his blog says I am “spouting another conspiracy theory about how the White House created Jeff Gannon,” which “puts Rosen onto the Divorced From Reality™ Express.”

To which I say: watch the closing doors.

After Matter: Notes, reactions and links…

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit (March 4): “Jay Rosen writes about de-certifying the press. But my question is, who ‘certified’ them to begin with?”

Good question. I may give it a longer answer later. Short one for now:

“Certified” in this case does not mean legally so, as with a Certified Public Accountant. That would be unconstitutional. Rather, what the Bush team is doing is like de-certification (though not literally so) because it’s a sudden change in accepted status and a rejection of a commonly recognized role.
One answer to “who granted this status?” is “tradition did.” Previous Administrations, Republican and Democrat, established some common and accepted practices without codifying them. Glenn’s a law professor; he should understand why you don’t overthrow precedent lightly (and you don’t deny that you’re doing it when you are.) I have also used the term de-legitimize to describe what the Bush forces are doing. Prefer that? Fine.

Reynolds replies: “Hmm. ‘Tradition’ formed by whom? Not me, and not the large number of Americans who have shouted back at their televisions over the years. It’s just that now people can hear it. As for ‘precedent’ — well, to be ‘precedent’ a decision has to come from an authoritative body. And, again, which body legitimized the press? It seems to me that the press did. For a while, when it played ball with politicians (e.g., by not mentioning FDR’s polio or JFK’s infidelities) the politicians were happy to treat it as a quasi-government. I’m not sure that was an improvement, really, though I can see why journalists regard it as a golden age.”

Stephen Waters: De-certifying ‘De-Certifying the Press.’

Reading A1: The press and the new order, again. (March 4)

The interlocutory function of the White House press is, obviously, unspecified and unimagined in the text of the Constitution: but the White House press conference represents an enactment, a practical interpretation (one of the most visible and significant of the past era), of the meaning of the First Amendment guarantee of press freedom—and its association of the freedoms of conscience with the right to seek redress from the government. Understanding this aspect of the issue is crucial if you’re going to form theory about it.
What Jay Rosen isn’t seeing—what isn’t being seen generally yet, which is why I’m repeating myself here—is that one constitutional order doesn’t pass away without another taking its place.

Well, I appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night (March 3), in a taped “report” about the new journalism with funny man, actor and correspondent Rob Corddry. His background is in Second City style improv, I learned. It was fun and a little unnerving. Bill Doskoch has a blow-by-blow, and Crooks and Liars has the video, if you want to see. I didn’t see the whole show (traveling) but I am told Stewart asked Ari Fleischer straight out if the administration saw the news media as just another special interest group. Fleischer apparently dodged the question.

Wonkette has a brief review.

Read this incredible tale of a blogger, Crooks and Liars, getting an apology from CNN and (sort of) from Robert Novak for Novak’s misuse of a Howard Dean quote. And the blogger spake: columnist, you must remain reality based. In this case, CNN agreed with the blogger. Interesting. And way more important than getting Novak to admit X, Y and Z.

Dotty Lynch of CBS News, Fear & Loathing In The Blogosphere (March 3). She read my essay, Bloggers vs. Journalists is Over, and summarized its key points. She then made her own. Hers is a rational, rather than a reflex view of why blogging counts for newsroom types. She isolates it pretty well, and her tone is non-hysterical.

Political research I’ve done via the blogs during the 2004 campaign and for the Gannon column has convinced me of the validity of a lot of these points. There is information on the blogs that is extremely helpful to advancing a story and journalists who ignore blogs are overlooking a huge resource. Media Matters, Americablog, Kos and their contributors plucked information about Gannon, Eberle, Rove, et al, quickly and disseminated it before Talon News and GOPUSA decided to remove it from their sites. The guerilla warfare continued last week when a conservative site, The American Spectator, put up a controversial ad attacking the AARP, which was then captured and circulated on the liberal sites, eventually making it to the MSM. By the time the MSM discovered the story, the Spectator had taken down the ad.

The italics are mine.

Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, interviewed by Brian Lamb on C-SPAN. Background: The Maryland Governor Robert L. Ehrlich, in a written memo, ordered government staff not to speak with the Baltimore Sun’s State House Bureau Chief David Nitkin or columnist Michael Olesker. (See this archive of articles on the issue.)

I love the press in America. I think it’s great. I love freedom of the press.
But that freedom does not require me to answer every question you ask or to respond to every issue you raise. I’m not obligated— because I’m an elected official doesn’t obligate me to do that.

Now, you come to me as a constituent, now that’s a different story. But as a newspaper reporter trying to write a story, it’s my option.

I wonder if Steele will be having public and on-the-record sessions where constituents get to ask him questions and, you know… be an interlocutor. After all, it’s his option. Lt. Gov. Michael Steele: If you or your office are listening, PressThink asks: are you planning to have citizens question you after journalists no longer do?

An important essay: Robert Cox at The National Debate, Why “Blogging” Sucks. Among other insights, he explains why the term “blogger” is empty and will eventually become meaningless.

John Robinson, blogging editor of the News & Record in Greensboro: “The Houston Chronicle, WRAL-TV, The Oregonian, The News & Observer and USA Today have called me over the past week to talk about blogging. Not for a story but to pick my brain — what little crumbs are left — about our experiences online. All of the interviewers seem to be trying to figure out how to make the case to introduce blogging to their sites.” Does anyone remember when I said that Greensboro was national news?

From In the Press Room of the White House that is Post Press (Pressthink, Feb. 25): “…’Jeff Gannon’ can be thought of as the replacement press, a fake journalist with a fake name working for a fake news organization, asking fake questions at a real press event.”

CJR Daily: Interview with ex-Newsday science writer Laurie Garrett, who recently quit daily journalism.

A colleague of mine that used to be at Newsday and is now at Time magazine described this by saying that she had grown up in a working-class Irish-American family in Brooklyn. All of her brothers and sisters were either cops or firefighters or nurses. And she was the one that they all thought was an oddball because she was a writer. She said there came a day in the newsroom when a little light bulb went off in her head and she suddenly understood why fundamentally she was always disagreeing with other reporters and editors and had a different instinct about where to go with a specific story. And it was because one of them said in the newsroom, “How could anybody be a working stiff and a Republican?” And she realized that she had certainly grown up around working-stiff Republicans and here was a newsroom full of people who absolutely couldn’t comprehend how any one individual could put those two ways of thinking together. Which meant that, of course, they couldn’t understand who elected George Bush.

Posted by Jay Rosen at March 4, 2005 6:01 AM Print

So press credulity on WMD was...Bush's fault! What a very strange assertion. It would seem that the only person who could be responsible for one's own credulity would be onself...

Presumably all the foreign intelligence services who concluded the same thing as the US about Iraq WMD capabilities were similarly "creduled" (great concept) by the nefarious, press-hating Bush team. It's so nice when our theories fit neatly with our prejudices, isn't it?

Posted by: Brian at March 4, 2005 5:34 AM | Permalink

Although I agree with your basic premise about decertification, I think Boehlert (and by extension, you) miss one of the main points when he wrote:

"If the press loses its credibility, that eliminates agreed-upon facts -- the commonly accepted information that is central to public debate."

IMHO, this has things kind of backwards. Much of any White House effort to pass its agenda is being accomplished by eliminating agreed-upon facts themselves. The White House is not simply engaged in an attempt to control the flow of information, but is actively engaged in disinformation campaigns. The press, by passively accepting this disinformation, winds up de-certifying itself as the truth becomes known.

No better example exists than with the "Social Security" debate. The White House claimed there was a "crisis" in Social Security, when there is no such thing. The White House also said that there will be problems for Social Security starting in 2014. That, of course, is a flat out lie---what happens in 2014 may create problems, but those problems will not be with Social Security.

And this kind of stuff was reported by the press as if it was established fact, rather than a misstatement of the facts by the White House. The lies were repeated, and in fact continue to be repeated, by "mainstream" anchors and interviewers and pundits, with startling regularity. Moreover, the most obviously partisan right-wingers continue to spread the same lies.

The press, in other words, is an active participant in its own "decertification" by passively accepting obvious lies and distortions as "facts" to be reported. (Of course, some of this acceptance is far from passive, as in the case of "Fox News".) Rather than basing its "reporting" on "agreed upon facts", it has allowed the facts themselves to become muddied.

Although activist democrats have succeeded in making most people aware of the actual facts, that process has required weeks of enormous effort.

(And, it should be noted, it has been the "loony leftists" of the blogosphere who have done all the heavy lifting here. "Moderate" democrats were quite happy to perpetuate Bush's lies initially)

But despite these efforts, it still very easy to find examples of print and (especially) television "journalists" spreading these falsehoods either directly, or by allowing factual mis-statements and opinions based on lies to go unchallenged. With the public becoming increasingly aware of the facts, each time the public is exposed to journalism that allows the lies and distortions to go unchallenged the process of "de-certification" is being advanced.

In this case, we can certainly blame the right-wing for engaging in a disinformation campaign, but those efforts are directed not at de-certifying the press but in pursuit of an ideological agenda. The only group that the press can blame for its loss of credibility is itself in this case, because (unlike the WMD mess) the facts are part of the public record, and the press chose to ignore them.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at March 4, 2005 6:48 AM | Permalink

three points.

1) The Bush regime presented the conclusions of some intelligence analysts as established fact, downplaying significant informed dissent to those conclusions.

2) The "opinions" of the foreign intelligence services were heavily tainted by faulty information being provided to them by the US.

3) By the time we attacked Iraq, the overwhelming majority of foreign governments (and one assumes, their intelligence services) were well aware that their previous opinions were based on faulty intelligence -- which is why the overwhelming majority of foreign governments wound up being opposed to our invasion of Iraq. Nevertheless, the Bush regime continued to assert that Saddam had stockpiles of WMDs -- in other words, at the point at which it was clear that the intelligence estimates were completely unreliable, Bush continued to assert that they were reliable, and the press reported those assertions as if they were based in fact.

Its one thing to report "facts" based on faulty data when you don't know the data is flawed. Its something else entirely to report "facts" when you know that the source for those "facts" has been shown to be thoroughly unreliable.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at March 4, 2005 8:19 AM | Permalink

Of course the whole idea of having a White House press corps is that the reporters in it do represent the American public's common interest in seeing executive power questioned, monitored, examined, explained.

Puhhleeze... if you truly think that this band of (mostly) lefty reporters represent the American public in anything....

Posted by: SteveC at March 4, 2005 8:22 AM | Permalink

I guess Jay is too modest to mention it, but he finally made the BIG time....

he was featured in a segment about bloggers on The Daily Show with John Stewart

link can be found here....

http://treyjackson.typepad.com/junction/2005/03/video_daily_sho.html

unfortunately, Jay still has not achieved Olympian immortality, because it was just a news segment....

but who knows, someday soon Jay will make it to Stewart's couch, and I'll be saying to all the newbies who wind up commenting here that I'm the resident troll! :)

Posted by: p.lukasiak at March 4, 2005 8:56 AM | Permalink

but do we really want a press corps that is as ill-informed as the average Bush voter?

....and lets face it, even if we did have a press corps that was ignorant of the facts on the most important issues, and was completely clueless about Bush regime policies, because of their of their jobs as journalists they will become familiar with the facts and Bush policies, and inevitably wind up as "lefties" as a result, and we'll just be back where we started....

Posted by: p.lukasiak at March 4, 2005 9:07 AM | Permalink

Bush's attempts to decertify misbehaving press are like chemotherapy. Isn't giving poison to people wrong?. Well, yes, but if a measured dose kills the disease and the patient returns to health, in chemo it can be justified. So is Bush giving chemotherapy to journalism? Jay writes:

There's a difference between going around the press in an effort to avoid troublesome questions, and trying to unseat the idea that these[my emphasis] people, professional journalists assigned to cover politics, have a legitimate role to play in our politics.

Does the adjective "these" apply to all the press? Or does it to those whose tenuous grasp on a prestigious position in the spotlight (or producers just behind it) depends on differenting themselves from the pack to maintain their place. Consider this: absolutely nothing in journalistic practice justifies preconceiving the notion to cast the net widely across the United States prior to Bush's inauguration to juxtapose the ceremony on the network news with the funeral of a American soldier killed in Iraq.

What is different today, is that when the New York Times recasts its news, primary source material links ripple through the blogs to show that the Old Gray Lady's slip is showing. When you challenge Bush, you forget that, technologically, this is the first time the President can challenge the small circle of "professionals", not necessarily to behave, but to cut some of the obvious crap, because evidence is out that the public can understand.

Jay raises the alarm when he writes: There is no Fourth Estate, says the Bush Thesis. might more accurately say, "There is no Fourth Estate, says Jay Rosen's Bush Thesis." It's only a thesis, and it's Jay's. He presents as evidence, "As for journalists, 'they don't represent the public any more than other people do,' according to Chief of Staff Andrew Card." I have repeatedly said, "'Journalist' is an earned accolade." which is the same thing Card said, but I'm not accused of undermining journalism. Journalists are not institutionally special; they are special when their reporting stands up in the crucible of examination.

When Jay says, "Of course the whole idea of having a White House press corps is that the reporters in it do represent the American public's common interest in seeing executive power questioned, monitored, examined, explained.", he can't seem to consider that the current crop of candidates might not be doing its job.

I have stood before Presidents, senators, members of Congress, cabinet secretaries, and even presidential press secretaries, to ask hard questions that, with some obvious exceptions, were treated squarely, fairly, openly, and thoroughly. I do not expect this to change. If, the chemotherapy continues beyond curing the disease, then I'll be first in line to help Jay write the column. Meanwhile, I'm with Howard Kurtz. Journalism, no less than the troubles of academia, is at greater risk from the political correctness that, in silence, tolerates poor work.

Posted by: sbw at March 4, 2005 9:16 AM | Permalink

Jay: "He left out excessive credulity on the Weapons of Mass Destruction story, which is on most people's list of recent press failures. That, of course, was Bush's fault."

Well, yes and no. The excessive credulity about Iraq's WMD capability had existed for more than a decade. If we are to believe the CIA reports (and I do) Saddam did not have stockpiles or significant programs since soon after Desert Storm. Yet, we bombed Iraq's alleged stockpiles and programs in 1998 during Desert Fox.

My point is that the excessive credulity by the press existed before the Bush administration, became a Master Narrative among the press, and played along nicely with the continuity of the Bush administration's rhetoric about Iraq.

How excessive the shared credulity among the Bush administration, the press, and many nation's intelligence services was is less material to critics, I think, than the fact that it was proven wrong. It's somehow not surprising that for some, suddenly, this credulity was solely the Bush administration's doing.

But if you like, I can provide links to Clinton, Congress, and news stories using what we now know was excessively credulous rhetoric about Iraq's WMD program throughout the 90's to 2001.

You might also be interested in re-reading some of Blix's comments in the two months preceding the war here and here.

Posted by: Sisyphus at March 4, 2005 9:40 AM | Permalink

Jay:

Boehlert's formulation: "If the press loses its credibility, that eliminates agreed-upon facts -- the commonly accepted information that is central to public debate."

Just out of curiousity, the role of the press in "agreed-upon facts" is based on Lippman's theories or Dewey's?

Posted by: Sisyphus at March 4, 2005 9:52 AM | Permalink

Jay: "There is no Fourth Estate, says the Bush Thesis."

Where does Bush say this, or do you say it?

Does Bush say, "There is no Fourth Estate." or does Bush say that the preeners occupying the White House press room have abdicated their occupation of that hollowed ground?

In other words, Bush might be saying, "When you regain, earn back, from the American people the authority of the Fourth Estate, we'll engage you as such, but while you insist on being non-representative and continue to de-certify yourselves with the American people through your own behavior, we politically, and realistically, do not recognized your self-proclaimed banner - it has no credibility."

Could he be saying that and you have misinterpreted the thesis? Does you evidence prove that theory has no predictive value, but yours - "No Fourth Estate" - does?

Posted by: Sisyphus at March 4, 2005 10:06 AM | Permalink

Kurtz is a hack with multiple affiliations. He keeps denying that his wife is a GOP operative, yet her PR firm website trades on it--he shows no signs of beinga James Carville who can maintain distance from what his spouse represents. It's not surprising that he doesn't belive this, because he lacks distance and would have to use his head rather than some sort of received conventional wisdom.

The WH press corps, with notable exceptions like Helen Thomas, has tended to be rather supine. Watergate, after all, was broken by two guys on the Post's backwaterish Metro beat. There seems to be a myth that the Press gets access by being at the WH, when in fact the real stories come from digging elsewhere in the Executive Branch. Still, it has gotten noticably worse in this administration and the new Ari Fleischer book seems to be symptomatic of it. Last night, he lied to Jon Stewart about "everybody" pulling the same trick of speaking to cherry-picked audiences. Unfortunately, Stewart didn't follow-up on this obvious lie.

The media has played some role in this because of its willingness to put up with these roles, the declining emphasis on investigative reporting, and the clearly timid role taken by editors, publishers, etc. A real active press could sell newspapers, tv time, etc., but they have settled for a sfae game plan instead, which guarantees declining credibility, quality, and (ultimately) profits.

Posted by: Rich at March 4, 2005 10:46 AM | Permalink

I think if those brave journalists of the French Revolution — who gave us the term "Fourth Estate" — were to be resurrected, they would not recognize the contemporary press. 'Nuff said.

Posted by: Terry Heaton at March 4, 2005 11:23 AM | Permalink

Consider this: absolutely nothing in journalistic practice justifies preconceiving the notion to cast the net widely across the United States prior to Bush's inauguration to juxtapose the ceremony on the network news with the funeral of a American soldier killed in Iraq.

why not? We're at war, and the excessive nature of Bush's inauguration celebrations had (rightfully) become a controversial issue.

Personally, I think that the media should have treated the inauguration as a minor event (show a taped excerpt of the swearing in ceremony, and go on to real news) because of the "staged" nature of the whole thing. But if the media is going to provide Bush with the kind of relentlessly positive political exposure that the inaugural ceremonies were specifically designed to guarantee, reminding people that American soldiers were still dying in Iraq was the least a network could do in terms of balanced coverage.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at March 4, 2005 11:24 AM | Permalink

As a Republican I do not defend liberal bias. But as a journalist I cannot share Kurtz and sbw's complacency about the clear effort by this administration to delegitimize the independent press. If they succeed, the negative ramifications will last long after this administration is forgotten and will cost us far more in blood and treasure than has Iraq.

Posted by: Lex at March 4, 2005 12:02 PM | Permalink

Jay,
You are beginning to record chapter and verse in support of the fairly self-evident thesis that Howard Kurtz is indeed both anti-intellectual and hacktackular. Adamant REFUSAL of historical context in the name of remembering precedent is clearly a popular trope along this line. For hacks like Kurtz, anecdote is not the singular of data, it replaces both interpretive framework AND data. Thanks for making this as crystal clear as it could possibly be.

The president's partisans suggest that insulating him from questioning is a sign of authentic politics (our chosen political leaders) taking back control of politics from our un-elected press corps. I suggest it is cowardice and PR in the guise of politics. But what kind of politics are we framing as authentic when it means only pre-screened Republibots are allowed in to "public" events covered by the press? This is a new totalitarian definition of the "public" staged for a compliant, coopted media.

The WMD scam is yet another instance of Bush Republicans (there are honest Republicans out there who do not fall in this category) trying to blame others for not knowing what Bush hides from them--his four years in office have produced an absolutely unprecedented classification state on steroids (by repeating the canard that NOBODY knew, Sisyphus demands entrance into the disingenuous Bush Republican category). And then thmselves refusing to believe their eyes and ears when Bush's mendacity is revealed. Nice work if you can get it. This adamant refusal of counter-evidence (Lukasiak is right, if you were awake in March 2003, it was clearly BS by the time of invasion http://www.furnitureforthepeople.com/blairetc.htm) means that Bush Republican attitudes toward Bush begin to smack of popery.

Are Bush Republicans trying to decertify themselves as parties that support democracy by redefining "authentic" democracy as the absence of public debate and opposition?

The "Bush bubble" does not travel well to foreign countries. It is pretty far-fetched to conclude from this that those countries that refuse to treat Bush like a dictator in the manner he requires hate democracy. Do you Bush Republicans REALLY want to claim that the "Bush bubble is democracy, love it or leave it"? Or do you want to reconsider your hearty amens to the righteousness of the decertification you simultaneously claim isn't happening?

Posted by: Mark Anderson at March 4, 2005 12:17 PM | Permalink

Let me tack on to Lex's comment:

I don't think we, regardless of party or ideology, should be complacent about how insular a President is, or the health of the relationship between politicians and the press.

Based on that, I applaud what Jay, Eric, Ron, etc., are doing.

What I do think is important is that we get the theory right so that it's cogent.

I am, or at least want to be seen as, offering a competing theory about what's happening and why. In many ways (but not all), I agree with Jay about what's happening and disagree with why. I think there's value in that, but should not be used to dismiss any concerns.

For example, Jay and I may have competing theories about why the sun rises in the East. We may find, at some point, that one theory is correct and one is wrong ... or that we were both partially correct in some way ... or that we were both incredibly wrong.

However, both Jay and I may share the confidence that the sun will, indeed, rise again in the East regardless of the outcome of our theories. The need, I think, is to get the theory right.

Posted by: Sisyphus at March 4, 2005 12:20 PM | Permalink

Mark Anderson: "by repeating the canard that NOBODY knew, Sisyphus demands entrance into the disingenuous Bush Republican category"

How fascinating, and yet I didn't write that. To say that I'm repeating "NOBODY knew" is your canard, not mine.

In fact, it is clearly a disingenuous act on your part, demanding entrance to ... what? It seems silly to even write such a thing.

Drive on Mark. Enjoy the ride. Please don't make me a passenger, ok?

Posted by: Sisyphus at March 4, 2005 12:39 PM | Permalink

preeners occupying the White House press room have abdicated their occupation of that hollowed ground

And left it to the Gannons of the press room, who plagiarize rather than "preen"??
The ones who, to the White House's relief, approval, and satisfaction, refrain from freely questioning or attempting to hold leadership accountable? Excuse me, but that doesn't boost my confidence in the expectation that I'll be hearing truthful or well-rounded analysis from our journalists in the press corps.

I agree with P. Lukasiak that the press has been an active participant in its own "decertification" by passively accepting obvious lies and distortions as "facts" to be reported. They bear some of the responsibility. Howard Kurtz is adding non-fuel to their non-fire by pretending we don't have a problem.

I think Lex is correct in saying there's been a clear effort by this administration to delegitimize the independent press, and that if they succeed, the democracy-killing/conscience-stifling ramifications will last long after this administration is forgotten.

I do not agree with "sbw's" theory of "chemotherapy", because that would make the Bush administration the "oncologist"....the physician upon whom the people would depend to save their democracy's life through the science of extreme control rather than through freedom of conscience.

The Founding Fathers would be spinning like chicken rotisserie if they could hear that analogy.

Posted by: Jude Nagurney Camwell at March 4, 2005 1:21 PM | Permalink

Correct me if I am wrong, but itseems like the problem is that people see the MSM as corporations, with money and influence (which is partly true), and even as interest groups

In all arguments that I am seeing, I am still waiting for the conservatives in this debate to tell me what they say about someone like Bill O'Reilly, or Joe Scarborough, who make about as much money (if not more) as Dan Rather or John King, but seem to be talking heads for the right-wing, and they are praised (by our conservative friends) as bringing THE truth back into the news business.

For all the talk on the right side of the aisle for truth and facts, the issue is that people want to hear THEIR truths. And when members of the MSM ask the hard questions to the right's beloved Bush, they feel attacked and hurt and tortured and beaten. I believe that we are losing track of priorities here. At the end of the day, if one is not a sleazy poliicians, one should not be afraid - whether Democrat or Republican - to face the press (MSM or Blogging). The fact that the current administration seeks to circumvent the press (under the guise of attempting to send unfiltered facts to the public) simply tells me that they either have something to hide, or they are not confident in their program and they are attempting to ramrod it up our throats unnoticed.

Now, I do like the comparison with Question time. The American President (as an institution) is about the least accountable leader in the whole West! So maybe he does have the right not to answer to a quetsion, but by God, if he wants to claim that he is accountable to the people, he does not have the right to refuse to be asked the question, in a public forum (except, in my opinion, with regards to his private life and his family). In other words, whether they are good or bad, lefty or righty, MSM or bloggers, the President IS held accountable press, in the name -indirectly - of the people. And if he does not like their questions, he can refuse to answer, and deal with the consequences. But not even allowing the media to ask! Voluntarily avoiding the media when asked tough questions! That's criminal!

Anyway, sometimes my english gets me confused. But we do not all live in DC. If I want an independent (as in not linkd to the White House, or the party of the person that's in it) account of what is happening in DC, where do I go? I will be a responsible citizen, and do my research. But it does not hurt me one bit to hear about the bills that passed the house, or the decisions being taken in Congress, and see/hear live people debating them. And that, only organized journalists, within the MSM can provide. I know I am going to get trouble for all that I have said, but that's okay.

Jay, I saw you yesterday, on the DailyShow. Good job! What was going on with the "Thank you for wearing pants"?

Posted by: The Malau at March 4, 2005 1:25 PM | Permalink

"And left it to the Gannons of the press room, who plagiarize rather than "preen"??"

Pretty much, yes. Although, I'd have to say that plagiarism is a trait not so unique to the "Gannons" that it especially distinguished him from "the press".

Posted by: Sisyphus at March 4, 2005 1:29 PM | Permalink

One more thing, naybe unrelated somewhat. I do agree that the MSM often gives importance to relatively insignificant things (Martha Stewart, Michael Jackson, O J Simpson, etc) which tends to distract from real news (whatever that is).

But as much as I cannot stand the Bush administration, the inauguration of THE president of the country, as in the First Citizenm Commander in Chief, etc, does seem quite newsworthy, and worthy to be broadcast live, especially for all the kids in middle-America. It is, after all, an important event-piece in American history, every four years, and it is something that will impact their lives. I am quit Liberal on many things, except on the importance of civics for the youth (and the adults!) of a nation. I just wish we weren't trying to mix God into the civics pot... but that's another debate.

Posted by: The Malau at March 4, 2005 1:34 PM | Permalink

Jude: I do not agree with "sbw's" theory of "chemotherapy", because that would make the Bush administration the "oncologist"....the physician upon whom the people would depend to save their democracy's life through the science of extreme control rather than through freedom of conscience.

No, you don't have to carry the analogy that far, Ben Casey. But consider that it has been more than 30 years since Hunter Thompson's gonzo "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" first raised the possibility that maybe the Professional Press was writing with crayons. Remember, also, that Bush's face off that Jay keeps resurrecting happened before Jon Stewart's smack down of "Crossfire". Someone had to call attention to the Augean Stables.

We're a few doses of chemo short of killing democracy, but it would surely help if media pundits would encourage Excellence in Media somewhere in the same breath they pound the messenger.

Posted by: sbw at March 4, 2005 2:28 PM | Permalink

Matthew Yglesias via Jeff Jarvis:

Bush has net negative approval ratings on the economy, on foreign policy, and on Iraq. You would think that would be fatal, but it was the same in late October. Generally speaking, the picture is the same throughout. The numbers make the president look very, very, very weak. But he looked just as weak right before the election, and obviously it didn't work out. The upshot, I think, is that the Democratic Party's political problems are really about the Democratic Party and not their opponents.

Perhaps, a similar argument might be made about the press.

Mark Anderson:

Lukasiak is right, if you were awake in March 2003, it was clearly BS by the time of invasion http://www.furnitureforthepeople.com/blairetc.htm

To which, p.lukasiak might respond:

The point being made was that you will rely on [left]-wing blogs for accurate and (from your point of view) unbiased information with the (implicit) demand that others accept what appears there as accurate and unbiased.

Well, the world doesn't work that way, I'm afraid---

Or, maybe he wouldn't.

Posted by: Sisyphus at March 4, 2005 3:08 PM | Permalink

Th the RH p. luk:
How is that you know how ill informed the average Bush voter is? And if we are "ill-informed" is because in the past we relied on Duranty, Cronkite, Rather, NPR, NYT/Blair, Glass, CNN/Eason, 60 minutes, Helen Thomas, LA Times, CBS, Chomsky, Zinn, Churchill...oh and wait..that one conservative reporter Gannon.
De-certify? About time. I'll use my phrase:
EMANCIPATION

Posted by: cal-boy at March 4, 2005 6:05 PM | Permalink

p.lukasiak,

First of all, going back to a previous thread – you don’t know my politics and you really should not assume to. Did I vote for Bush ’00 – No. Was I very grateful it was him and not Gore in the WH on 9/12 – Yes. Did I vote for him in ’04 – Yes (and if I was a hard-core Democrat I would have known how to vote for him 2-3 times). Do I agree with him on everything – hardly. My only agreement with him is on the WOT.

So now I’m a Bush voter. OK. I’ll put my education (BSCS) and worldly experience (7 years living in Germany and extensive travel throughout Europe and many other parts of the world) against anyone’s. I am not a red-stater who has never left the country. Been there – done that. The tee-shirts are wearing out. So?

So yes – I would love it if we had a press corps at least as well as informed “as the average Bush voter”.

You really want to make the case for Helen Thomas and her like?

Posted by: SteveC at March 4, 2005 6:13 PM | Permalink

you are correct, I probably wouldn't. But then again, to me all he is doing is confirming what I already know to be factual, so the question of biased presentation of the facts is irrelevant to me .

Were you, however to have repeated my point (hopefully, more coherently), I'd agree with you. Its just as useless to try and convince a right-winger using a source that has an obvious left-wing ideological agenda.

But there is a difference between an "ideological" bias, and a "fact-based" bias -- and one of the means by which the far-right is trying to decertify the press is by saying that there is not such distinction. I am "biased" against people putting their hands on a hot stove. I'm also "biased" against people invading other countries on false pretenses.

Now, in both cases, I think that my biases are justified by the facts. And what the right wing is trying to do is say that it is impossible to trust any of the facts that I cite because of my biases.

The right wing doesn't care if people don't trust even a right-wing presentation of facts, because the right-wing knows that once you have eliminated facts (and thus, eliminated logic), all that one needs to do is appeal to people's prejudices.

We saw the success of this with Nixon's "Southern Strategy" and Rove's "Faith Based Strategy." In both cases, the GOP appealed to people who regarded "agreed upon facts" as unreliable indicators of the truth, and were actually impervious to factual information that is inconsistent with their prejudices. (It was no coincidence that the majority of Bush voters still thought that WMDs had been discovered in Iraq, and that Saddam was instrumental in the 9-11 attacks. It didn't matter how many times the facts were repeated, these people ignored them.)

The far right is now involved in exploiting the obvious---if you can reduce people's reliance upon "agreed upon facts", far right wingers will be empowered.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at March 4, 2005 6:46 PM | Permalink

How is that you know how ill informed the average Bush voter is?

I guess you never heard of the PIPA study, huh?

http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_Election_04/Report10_21_04.pdf

to summarize, PIPA went around and asked people who they supported, and asked them questions about factual aspects of international issues. And Bush supporters turned out to be extremely clueless (Kerry supporters were only moderately clueless.)

There are other studies by the way....but this is the one taken closest to the election.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at March 4, 2005 6:51 PM | Permalink

Was I very grateful it was him and not Gore in the WH on 9/12 – Yes.

In other words, you were unaware on 9-12 that upon being told that "America is under attack", Bush did nothing whatsoever. Instead, he sat there and continued with that days agenda, which at that point was listening to a bunch of second-graders read "My Pet Goat." Lucky for us, they weren't reading Remembrances of Things Past, or he'd still probably be in that classroom....

Quite honestly, you must have a really good imagination, because I can't imagine what Gore could have possibly done under after being told "America is under attack" that would inspire less confidence....

Posted by: p.lukasiak at March 4, 2005 7:00 PM | Permalink

p.lukasiak: "But there is a difference between an "ideological" bias, and a "fact-based" bias --"

Agreed. I tend to think of them as competing biases, but not necessarily mutually exclusive. The "trick" I think, is that when the facts are against you, you either have to adjust your ideology or double-down to uncover what facts might be missing or wrong. Too often, for ideologues, it's easier just to deny the "other side's" facts.

"... one of the means by which the far-right is trying to decertify the press is by saying that there is not such distinction."

I think there's some truth to that. IOW, Lemann from Jay's link here, starting with: "Conservatives are relativists when it comes to the press."

But I would argue that ideologues, or partisans, are relativists when it comes to the press. However, calling conservatives relativists makes better (as in pathos) copy.

And in that way, pathos is a way to appeal to one's prejudices.

Posted by: Sisyphus at March 4, 2005 7:15 PM | Permalink

To the RH p. luk:
968 individuals participated in that PIPA survey while over 60 million people voted for Prez. Bush. I'll trust the latter as I have learned that most polls tell the opposite of what they are trying to get us to believe. For example, the CBS/NYT poll a couple of days ago discussing how social security reform support is sagging. Now for you that may indicate that social security reform support is sagging, but it tells me that it is getting stronger and Prez. Bush will be successful in some aspect of social security reform. But that is how we Conservatives read the polls of newspapers and academia and lo and behold it has worked.

Posted by: cal-boy at March 4, 2005 7:32 PM | Permalink

I'm sure you'd be as happy to ruin social security as much as Bush does. Of course it will called something quite different. That's how misinformation of euphamism works.

Posted by: marky48 at March 4, 2005 7:40 PM | Permalink

Combine the PIPA survey with this.

Also combine it with a decade's worth of information from news organizations across the Clinton's administration and the first two years of the Bush administration's first term.

Is it really (solely) a "Bush voter" defect? Would it explain the polls in March 2003?

Posted by: Sisyphus at March 4, 2005 7:51 PM | Permalink

To the RH p. luk and Sisyphus:
Thanks for all the links- I like reading and looking at that type of stuff.
My take on polls can be summed up quickly:
They are simply a snapsnot of that moment (the Heisenberg theory is apropos here- a view cannot be located becuase the next days event may change it), really nothing more than a thermometer of that days temperature.
For example, what was the percentage of those who opposed going to war before WWII(very high) as opposed to after the war(liberation of camps, defeat of the Axis powers etc) and the same people who initially opposed going into war would would now have supported it and denied having ever opposed it.
I see this with people from the 80's who hated the band U2 but now like them in 2000's because they are succcesful and now they deny ever having hated them in the 80's.

Posted by: cal-boy at March 4, 2005 8:06 PM | Permalink

cal-boy, [with Ruffles and Flourishes playing in the background]

"My take on polls ..."

Fair enough. One of the things I like about PollingReport.com is the aggregation of polls, and when a poll is repeated the results for that poll are also aggregated across the life of the poll.

Posted by: Sisyphus at March 4, 2005 9:02 PM | Permalink

It would certainly explain the polls in March 2003.

Nor was it solely a Bush Voter defect. A considerable percentage (although still a distinct minority) of Kerry voters also didn't have much of a clue.

The difference, however, is that while the average Kerry voter had a pretty solid grasp of the relevant facts, the average Bush voter did not.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at March 4, 2005 10:09 PM | Permalink

: "... pretty solid grasp of the relevant facts ..."

But I think that's my point. IOW, I could easily construct a poll demonstrating that Kerry voters were/are equally in denial of "relevant" facts (about Iraq or some other topic) that conflict with their ideology.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that a number of pro-war Democrats were so, because of the information provided to them over more than a decade.

Posted by: Sisyphus at March 4, 2005 10:20 PM | Permalink

Bloggers are not today's "journalists", recycling PR handouts IAW publishers' biases and commercial incentives ("will it sell?"). Nor are they diarists like Pepys or Philip Hone, whose private records attained public prominance posthumously. Bloggers are "correspondents", letter-writers in the fine old sense... through the 1920s and '30s, when postmen delivered 3 - 4 times daily, many artists and authors would spend half their time composing and responding to communiques in letter format. And don't forget Paul Revere, with his Revolutionary "Committees of Correspondence", which Royalist authority made every effort to suppress, but in the end could not.

All this "press credential", "degree in journalism" stuff is a canard. Bush et.al dismiss Press Conferences and such because, frankly, they are of no use to him or to the "voting public" they purport to serve. If our MSM possessed the slightest integrity, they would make it their mission to inform, not criticize-- by that, I mean "inform" us of Clinton's KGB passport, Kerry's Dishonorable Discharge, etc. rather than dismissing Bush's 4 1/2 years of TANG service in obsolescent fighter jets as "AWOL from Vietnam" (!). Why attend to unserious commentary, contemptuous of its audience, manipulative to the core? You're better off posting Blogs or E-mails of your own... you're certainly more "qualified", and indubitably more well-intentioned, than the partisan hacks of MSM, defending themselves by maligning an informed citizenry. To "correspond" means fostering mutual relationships, as in the "Mutual Broadcasting" of yore. Where MSM no longer corresponds to anything meaningful, how can any public figure trust them to faithfully report, or a citizen trust them to relay, any information on anything at all?

Posted by: John Blake at March 4, 2005 10:38 PM | Permalink

Careening back to the original thread...
I'm sure I'm not the only one whose view of the vaunted WH press corp. crystalized during the long awaited GWB press conference where, when finally given the the opportunity to question authority, chose , more than once, to "ask" the Prez if he didn't want to apologize, just like humble Dick Clark had.

"Hussein was not threat"
Maybe not to you and me, but I'm glad he's where he is.

Posted by: Garrymcm at March 4, 2005 11:06 PM | Permalink

Sisyphus,
OK, let's say the issue is "excessive credulity" regarding Iraqi WMD rather than "nobody knew."
The IAEA had absolutely debunked the "mushroom cloud" bullshit Bush was pedaling, the main scare tactic. After he was called on his bullshit, Cheney, Rice, and company kept right on lying about it. The fictitiousness of the mushroom cloud line is a matter of fact. You can't hide radiation. The administration response was, how can we rat-fuck the IAEA and UNSCOM most effectively? You are citing Blix, who opposed invasion, in support of how unclear the evidence supposedly was. Do you trust his judgment or not?

Dragging in the Clinton era red herring of excessive credulity regarding WMDs BEFORE INSPECTORS WENT BACK IN is a refusal of Bush's clear personal responsibility for the hysteria over the debunked mushroom cloud scenario and effective refusal to hold Bush responsible for rolling out the Iraq invasion "product" on the basis of the "mushroom cloud" lie. The reference to Blix is after the inspectors started but before they finished and uses Blix's information to draw a conclusion completely opposed to his. You are also resting your argument on a man THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION WAS ACTIVELY TRYING TO DISCREDIT IN THE ROVEAN SCORCHED EARTH MANNER THEY TREATED WILSON/PLAME. Don't you see a little difficulty here?

The Bush decertification bubble was at the heart of selling the BS and creating a disinformed public and congress. Scoffing at Kerry's vote for war is a condemnation of Bush. Kerry's problem was that he believed Bush's lies. Bush was effectively saying, "How can you vote in Congress based on the lies I approved and the secrecy of the classification state I created and call yourself serious world leader material?" And really, how could he? That is precisely why Kerry was not a credible candidate. He took Bush and his chronic mendacity seriously. He and the Democratic primary voters in Iowa were nearly as responsible for the Iraq psychosis as embedded reporters stateside.

Your argument that the problem was excessive credulity has one ENORMOUS problem: THERE WERE MILLIONS OF US PROTESTING IN THE STREETS AGAINST THE INVASION AROUND THE WORLD WHO WERE NOT EXCESSIVELY CREDULOUS. Your argument disappears the entire anti-war protest movement. It is true of Bush Republicans, though not Scrowcroft Republicans. It is true of Demcratic Leadership Council Democrats, though not of Dean Democrats. The anti-war protesters knew then, we know now, and you're still not making sense.

If the problem was excessive credulity as you say, you should be correcting yourself and saying, "Damn, those anti-war protesters were right after all. Good Job!" That's not exactly what I'm hearing from you.

"Excessive credulity" is a Bush Republican avoidance of responsibility. Your argument is a "nothing new under the Bush sun" argument in denial of decertification of the press and agreed upon facts. Nothing has changed, so Bush is not responsible for anything.

You are ultimately using the effect of Bush's decertification of the press as an excuse for Bush's behavior! "We've had excessive credulity about Iraqi WMDs since Clinton so nothing can ever be Bush's responsibility." It effectively asks, "Why didn't you know Bush was lying when he distorted or classified all relevant evidence and conducted character assassination of anyone whose opinion differed!?" Well, the answer is, several million of us did know.

I'm beginning to think allergy to personal responsiblity for the consequences (not the intentions) of one's actions is the core value of Bush Republicanism.

You seat yourself in the Bush Republican jalopy. Whether or not you enjoy the ride will be up to you. You are free to step out at anytime.

Posted by: Mark Anderson at March 4, 2005 11:19 PM | Permalink

"Quite honestly, you must have a really good imagination, because I can't imagine what Gore could have possibly done under after being told "America is under attack" that would inspire less confidence...."

If Gore had been elected, we'd still be negotiating with the Taliban for damages and the extradition of OBL, and Ted Koppel would be on three networks.

Posted by: Garrymcm at March 4, 2005 11:20 PM | Permalink

Hello, everyone.

John Blake: Who mentioned journalism degree? Is anyone--anyone you can find, I mean--saying the White House press corps should all have journalism degrees? I don't get it. Does the phrase all this "degree in journalism" stuff have any rererent to it, any stuff?

I believe it would be unconstitutional to require a degree in journalism for anything.

Please tell me, also, how would secure the White House and allow any journalists in without credentials designating who is regularly allowed in? Or is the idea: no one regularly allowed in?

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 4, 2005 11:22 PM | Permalink

Oh, please. When I see Frank Rich getting all hot and bothered about this Gannon/Guckert character and how such a person could get into the White House press room so easily, I just have to laugh. Quelle prétention!,

As I wrote on my blog, I did it myself with almost no efort back in the eighties.

http://www.rogerlsimon.com/mt-archives/2005/02/whats_a_journal.php

Posted by: Roger at March 4, 2005 11:27 PM | Permalink

De-certifying the press is a means to a much larger and scarier end.

Erm, excuse me for asking if this has been answered somewhere else... but exactly who 'certified' you guys in the first place?

I don't want intermediaries, 'certified' or not, deciding what is and isn't worth discussing.

The whole idea of the White House press corps is that the reporters in it represent the public's common interest in seeing executive power questioned, monitored, examined, explained.

This is a load of self-aggrandizing horsecrap, and you embarass yourself by not recognizing it as such. The function you describe is the responsibility of Congress, the Judicial branch, and voters, not you.

What Bush is doing is not de-certifying the press. Nor is it discrediting the press. What Bush is doing is calling attention to how the press has discredited itself by failing to live up to it's supposed ideal of impartiality.

I have no doubt that many other Presidents have wished they could do what Bush is doing, but they lacked the alternative channels of communication necessary to make it work. That is no longer the case, and the press is discovering that accountability is a two-way street.

Posted by: rosignol at March 4, 2005 11:40 PM | Permalink

I think informed Americans are getting very tired of the Fourth Estate acting like it's the Fourth Branch of government while operating as the Fifth Column for Democratic liberalism.

Brian Williams himself let the facade slip a bit with his media blitz to try and establish himself as a credible replacement for Dan Blather: "My job is to tell the story...to make a difference in the world." No, no, no, you're job is to report the news, I don't want to hear a "story", particularly your version of the "story" Mr. Williams.

Journalists have used the "why" of the what-when-where-why all too often to color their reports with their built-in bias. You report, we decide. And if these "journalists" aren't professional and ethical enough to see their bias then they should find another profession which allows them to change the world without being hypocrites, something like the Peace Corps or a protest mob.

Next thing I'll probably hear from you guys is how Helen Thomas (who threw many a softball to Bill Clinton) is more of a legitimate reporter than Gannon. Nice double-standards, which again proves my point about media bias since she wasn't tarred and feathered by a press corps hysterical about its ideological purity.

Posted by: Hankmeister© at March 4, 2005 11:42 PM | Permalink

I think that you miss at least part of the point the Bush administration has been making, and I think that the rhetorical repetition of "The president needs an interlocuter" is missing a few adjectives.

Members of the Bush administration have stated publicly that members of the press have no special brief, or inherent right to speak "on behalf the electorate." That's a very different philosophical approach to the press than was taken by previous administrations, who, while they may have believed that the press was biased against their administration, did not challenge the underlying need for the press to act as "an interlocuter" for the public.

So what's changed? Is there more to it than a nefarious plot on the part of Karl Rowe to deliver the media into the hands of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Reynolds? I suspect the reality is more systemic than that. In the past, technology didn't allow an alternative to mass media for information delivery - like it or not, the reporters of the mainstream media were hooked into the infrastructure of information delivery - newspapers, radio, TV. To repeat a truism, that's changed with the advent of the Internet. Information delivery has been cut loose from a monolithic, expensive infrastructure. A producer of information no longer needs the capital to install a printing press or transmitter to deliver that information to a wide audience.

But there was another, less obvious, service that reporters and editors performed in the past - they served the public as the informed filter of information. The implicit assumption was that reporters and editors gathered and pored through all of the various sources of information available, parsed and selected what was important, explained and provided context - all, at least in the US, in a reasonably neutral way. This was the true value of the human infrastructure of the mainstream media and is perhaps an even more vital function today, because of the greatly increased sources of information available provided by the Internet.

And it is a function that the mainstream media could have transitioned to - who better than an experienced political reporter or editor to locate, collate, explain and set in context all of the wonderful mix of news, opinion and just plain hot air in the blog world today?

Unfortunately, the mainstream media, whatever their qualifications in terms of experience and skill in this area might be, have largely forfeited the trust of the public by their intense partisanship and lack of scruples. Quite frankly, neither the administration nor the electorate believes that the press is a disinterested intermediary any more. What the public needs is a neutral - maybe adversarial, but not partisan - interlocutor. What they get is an intensely biased, largely unreliable advocate for a particular world-view, and a blurring of the line between reporter and advocate for the left-wing. And I believe that I can speak with some authority on this - while I was in Afghanistan, I was involved in two situations that made it into the mainstream media - in both cases, the factual errors, overt bias and complete lack of understanding both of Afghan society and of the US military (and, in one case, of basic geography) made the news "stories" completely unrecognizable.

Perhaps it was always that way, and has only become obvious with the decoupling of information gathering from information distribution. Its a shame really, since there's surely still a requirement for an informed editor to collate and present information in a rational way; and still room for a more considered approach than the "hey, look at this" Instapundit style (not a slam on Instapundit, by the way - I enjoy the site very much.) And, yes, there is still very much a need for a neutral, disinterested interlocutor on behalf of the electorate - I just think that most of us have stopped believing that the press fills that role.

Posted by: SFAlphageek at March 4, 2005 11:48 PM | Permalink