For reporting that is an embarrassment to the profession
of journalism, and for being beholden to corporate paymasters rather than
the citizens of America.
We received so many nominations for individual members of the corporate "Big
Media" that we decided to just present a group BuzzFlash Media Putz
this week. The occasion for the recognition is that until the Indiana/North
Carolina primaries, the corporate press focused for weeks on tin lapel pins,
Jeremiah Wright, the Pledge of Allegiance, and other issues that have no
relevance to the problems facing America.
In fact, as recently as last Sunday, Tim Russert, the "dean" of
insider D.C. broadcast-journalism "respectability," grilled Barack
Obama yet again on Rev. Wright, taking up a large part of an hour interview
with a topic that was old news, a distraction, and had no bearing on the
severe problems facing our nation.
There have been variations on the theme of nonsense "journalism." As
BuzzFlash reader Dennis McCann of New Orleans noted in his nomination, "Contessa
Brewer of MSNBC deserves this week's award for her completely fabricated
report that Barack Obama shot Hillary Clinton the bird. It seems to me if
a 'reporter' is going to report an outright lie, it should not be one so
easily disproven by an accompanying video. If members of the media wonder
why their credibility is at an all-time low, Ms. Brewer is this week's Exhibit
A."
But Brewer is only one of the media herd who become obsessed with distracting
issues that divert the attention of the American public from the pressing
public policy issues facing our nation.
Our colleague, Robert Parry at ConsortiumNews.com captured the destructive inanity of the corporate mainstream media – particularly
the broadcast press -- in a recent commentary, "US
Media Trivializes Campaign 2008":
Some clever political operative injects "oppo" into
the campaign -- some little "scandal" that supposedly speaks
to the "character" of
a candidate -- and the press corps obsesses on this marginal issue nearly to
the exclusion of all substantive matters.
This all-consuming event distorts the campaign, turning the targeted candidate
into a laughingstock or someone who isn't quite American enough. Pundits pile
on with criticism that the guy should have reacted faster or slower or answered
this way or that.
Millions of voters become convinced, amid this intense negativity, that they
simply can't vote for this loser and the outcome of the election changes.
Then, in the election aftermath, the American press corps goes through a
period of self-reflection; some excellence-in-journalism group issues a scathing
report about the superficiality of the news coverage; political journalists
vow that in the next election they won't get suckered again.
Then, the process -- which dates back at least to 1988 and Lee Atwater's
savaging of Michael Dukakis -- begins anew, albeit always with some slightly
new twist.
All this might be quite funny if one doesn't consider the consequences
for the Republic. When historians try to figure out how the most powerful
nation on earth managed to end up under the control of someone as unfit
as George W. Bush for eight years, they will have to take note of this
media phenomenon.
In 2000, Al Gore was transformed from a thoughtful, even far-sighted government
official into a delusional braggart who claimed "I invented the Internet" (though
he really didn't say that), a traitor who sold nuclear secrets to China (though
he didn't), and a phony who wore earth-tone sweaters and cowboy boots.
John Kerry also had many strong points -- as a genuine Vietnam War hero
(a decorated Swiftboat captain in the Mekong Delta) and a gutsy investigator
(Nicaraguan contra drug trafficking and BCCI) -- but saw his war heroism
smeared by the misnamed Swiftboat Veterans for Truth and his Americanism
mocked because he "looked French."
At key moments in these campaigns, the press let the "oppo" define
Bush's opponents and thus millions of Americans went to the polls believing
fiction was truth, up was down.
In their daily media phone calls with the press, the Clinton campaign
has been pushing just this type of guilt-by-association character assassination
of Barack Obama for weeks and weeks. Phil Singer, Harold Ickes, and Howard
Wolfson have been the main morally defective Clinton operatives on the
calls, but other Clinton "consultants" have also been using
Rovian attacks on personality on a daily basis, often using right-wing
screeds
to press their point. And Hillary Clinton herself has advanced the attacks
through sly innuendo.
And the corporate mainstream press took the bait, because personal attacks
and "character issues" are now what pass for political journalism.
For this lamentable reality, BuzzFlash.com awards this week's Media Putz
Award to the entire corporate mainstream media. There are some exceptions,
but they're as rare as an NAACP member at a Klan rally.
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