Elite Tabloid Press

For years conservatives and other thinking folks have struggled with how to refer to the media. We’ve kind of settled on “the mainstream media,” Rush Limbaugh prefers “the drive-by media,” others go for the simplicity (and acute accuracy) of “the liberal media.”

With few exceptions, journalism amongst the so-called mainstream media is dead.

Face it–they’re activists. We already know this. Folks like Brent Bozell have spent a life’s work meticulously documenting this. What’s been fascinating about this campaign cycle is how the liberal media has turned on one of their own. Finally, there’s a liberal in the free fire zone. The Clintons are getting a taste of what we’ve dealt with for years–much at the hands of the Clintons. The vast majority of the media coverage this campaign has been decidedly pro-Obama and anti-Clinton.

The media have chosen to choose sides rather than report the facts. Nothing new there, but add that to the increasing space and time allocated to Britney Spears kind of stories, and a general move toward the National Inquirer / TMZ.com style coverage and I think the time has come to call these clowns what they are. The elite tabloid press.

Don’t let the word ’elite’ scare you away from this moniker. First, we know they long to be elite. They live to be elite. So, let’s call ‘em elite. After all, they’ve taken tabloid journalism to an elite level, no?

The Audacity of Self-Import

Sen. Obama published his autobiography in 1995. 

Four years BEFORE Sen. John McCain!

Anybody else find this laughable? It’s also telling. Obama clearly sees his life, his story, as extraordinary–annointed by the universe as some sort of chosen one. Harsh? Yes, but how many of us would even think of writing an autobiography a couple years out of college?

Contrast Obama with Sen. McCain who, despite his compelling and heroic story of capture and imprisonment during the Vietnam War, inspiring recovery (genuinely the stuff of movies) and 25 years of accomplishment in the nation’s capitol,  didn’t even feel compelled to stop and reflect on his life long enough to put it on paper until 1999, when the Senator was in his 60s.

More and more stories are poppipng up that cast the Obama campaign as messianic, calling those voting for him more followers than supporters. Let’s go to the video:

 

Many have called the whole thing ”creepy” and I can’t disagree.

Old Grey *Ugly* Lady

The New York Times has published a 3000 word story attacking Sen. John McCain on character and corruption.

The McCain camp says, “The New York Times has lowered it’s standards to engage in a hit-and-run smear campaign.”

Reading more like a National Inquirer “Alien” headline than a lead piece by “the paper of record,” the story doesn’t backup the insinuation it leaves with the reader. In addition to being barely sourced and thin on facts, the timing of the piece is curious. With the campaign of Democratic Party front-runner Barack Obama entering hour 36 of their first real speed bump (see below) as the lead story, a juicy John McCain story would undoubtedly  move the elite tabloid press (formerly referred to as the mainstream media) away from the Obama scrutiny.

The NY Times piece would likely be rejected by a first year journalism professor as unsourced, full of innuendo and politically motivated. Even if The Times editorial board deemed these accusations credible and worth further investigation, the details as currently assembled warrant no more than a sentence or two.

Instead, we get a piece three times longer than the average story (source) that even an opposing campaign wouldn’t dare release.  The new “charges” imply an affair between Sen. McCain and a 40-something lobbyist, who in addition to sleeping with the Senator, allegedly squeezed legislative favors out of him as well.

Deftly dancing around the lack of sources, evidence, or even actual charges, the authors provide just enough innuendo for readers to draw the conclusions they want them to. Worse, The New York Times uses the “new charges” as an excuse to bring up–in great detail–the story of McCain’s divorce to his first wife and 20 year old charges about the his role in the Keating Five scandal.

Attorney Bob Bennett, who many remember as the guy who got President Clinton off the hook in his perjury trial, appeared on Hannity & Colmes (Fox News Channel) last night to defend McCain. Bennett, the Special Investigator who investigated the Keating Five and, specifically, John McCain for 18 months said, “…This is a real hit job…and…I suspect it’s only because John McCain is winning so much that we are even reading this story.”  Bennett, a Democrat, exonerated McCain, recommending that he be removed from the Keating Five investigation.

This is a sad day for journalism in America and an even worse day those associated with The New York Times.