Sunday, February 08, 2009

Washington Press Corps as Hostile Defender of Status Quo

Both Glenn Greenwald and Jay Rosen give an awesome genealogy of the marriage between the press and the conservative political system in DC on Bill Moyers. Their analyses explain why the press has framed the Obama Presidency from day one as antithetical to the change that was promised during the campaign.

Rosen makes the interesting point that the view that the press falls ideologically to the right or left matters less than the idea that the press sees itself as the "keepers of realism" about Washington's political landscape. That realism undermines any progress Obama might intend to make.  Greenwald adds that any idea that threatens the press and the political elite gets labeled as "liberalism."

The whole 25-minute discussion is worth a look.

1 comment:

  1. Joe Powell talks about this today, in this post. Via the Washington Post, this quote just floored me, about Obama's prime time appearance:

    "Do people really want to come home after looking for a job, or after being at a job they hate, sit down to veg out in front of their favorite show -- and he's on again?" said one TV suit, who suspects/hopes the Average Joe's reaction to too much Obamavision might be "nothing he's going to say is going to help me get a job, or put food on the table."

    Good lord. They really do want him to fail. The establishment is in defensive mode, it's obvious that just as Rush said, they are doing everything they can to make the Obama presidency an epic FAIL.

    And as I posted over at Joe's, I am convinced that the economic stimulus package is being designed to fail. Failure will be a feature, not a bug.

    Democrats are too stupid to realize they are digging their own grave, yet again.

    ReplyDelete