The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Insulted Again

Posted on | June 28, 2010 | 60 Comments

By Dan Riehl this time, seconding Melissa Clouthier’s “wild animal” characterization of journalists as inherently untrustworthy.

At least he links me. Love me, hate me, as long as you link me.

Here’s the thing: Media bias is a subject about which every conservative is his or her own expert. To denounce “the media,” whole hog, is obligatory for conservatives and no one who wishes to be well-regarded among conservatives can be permitted to question the efficacy of this approach to media relations.

Therefore, I must be condemned as a weak reed, a pushover blabbermouth who should never be trusted or taken seriously in any discussion of conservative media strategy.

OK, I give up.

Meanwhile, I just got through interviewing Andrew Breitbart about David Weigel and the Journolist scandal.

Ignore me. Because I don’t know nothin’ ’bout no media bias.

UPDATE: Dan Riehl replies: “But journalists who want to play blogger half the time risk running into the Weigel-Space trap, because establishment figures can begin to see you as less serious, or a loose cannon.”

Translation: Your advice is not welcome, because actual insight into the organizational dynamics of media bias, based on years of newsroom experience, might contradict the popular theories propounded by the overpaid Republican “media consultants” who’ve been doing such a great job lately.

Help Wanted: No Journalists Need Apply.

Category: Dan Riehl, Media Bias, Melissa Clouthier, Neutral Objective Journalism

Comments

60 Responses to “Insulted Again”

  1. Estragon
    June 29th, 2010 @ 5:55 am

    Allow me to disagree with Joe @ #3: you HAVE actively defended Weigel, both as a good guy and a good reporter. The emails clearly refute that. Were they supposed to be “off the record” somehow? Show me in the latest journalists’ ethics guidelines where it says you treat correspondence with a group of others as a confessional booth! But even if it was as a matter of “honor” – an odd word to use in referring to journalism – SO WHAT? Weigel clearly is neither a nice guy or a good reporter, if the former is defined as not hating the people you cover and the latter as NOT trying to manipulate the news to mislead the reader.

    It’s not about the greater issue of how conservatives and Republicans deal with legacy media. It’s true we have done a poor job, but it is also true even a perfect job wouldn’t get us a fair shake either, at least not since the prerequisite for being a “journalist” shifted from shoe leather and covering Pet Parades, Arts in the Park, and Sewer Commission meetings to getting a soft degree from a J-school, endowed by a lefty professor who couldn’t get a job in any English Department with a burning desire to save the world by helping to create the New Soviet Man.

    Weigel is about Weigel. The “Journolist” is the bigger scandal, sure, but we get into that a lot faster if we don’t have major players still clinging to the fantasy he is either a decent human being or a real reporter.

  2. Estragon
    June 29th, 2010 @ 1:55 am

    Allow me to disagree with Joe @ #3: you HAVE actively defended Weigel, both as a good guy and a good reporter. The emails clearly refute that. Were they supposed to be “off the record” somehow? Show me in the latest journalists’ ethics guidelines where it says you treat correspondence with a group of others as a confessional booth! But even if it was as a matter of “honor” – an odd word to use in referring to journalism – SO WHAT? Weigel clearly is neither a nice guy or a good reporter, if the former is defined as not hating the people you cover and the latter as NOT trying to manipulate the news to mislead the reader.

    It’s not about the greater issue of how conservatives and Republicans deal with legacy media. It’s true we have done a poor job, but it is also true even a perfect job wouldn’t get us a fair shake either, at least not since the prerequisite for being a “journalist” shifted from shoe leather and covering Pet Parades, Arts in the Park, and Sewer Commission meetings to getting a soft degree from a J-school, endowed by a lefty professor who couldn’t get a job in any English Department with a burning desire to save the world by helping to create the New Soviet Man.

    Weigel is about Weigel. The “Journolist” is the bigger scandal, sure, but we get into that a lot faster if we don’t have major players still clinging to the fantasy he is either a decent human being or a real reporter.

  3. Joe
    June 29th, 2010 @ 2:19 pm

    Dan Collins came up with this gem to describe the Olbermann, Maddow and Weigel relationship.

  4. Joe
    June 29th, 2010 @ 10:19 am

    Dan Collins came up with this gem to describe the Olbermann, Maddow and Weigel relationship.

  5. HalifaxCB
    June 29th, 2010 @ 2:47 pm

    RSM – I think you and Breibart have hit the issue bang on. The focus shouldn’t be on Weigel, but on how the Left operates, particularly on the very primitive human need to belong.

    Your sympathetic portrayal of Weigel, as well as Breibart’s posting of his rather self-indulgent confession, are important pieces of the puzzle of how a nominally intelligent person like Weigel allows himself to be co-opted. It took balls to take the position you did; so by way of thanks I’m going to hit the tip jar. And then I’m diving back into “Intellectuals and Society”.

  6. HalifaxCB
    June 29th, 2010 @ 10:47 am

    RSM – I think you and Breibart have hit the issue bang on. The focus shouldn’t be on Weigel, but on how the Left operates, particularly on the very primitive human need to belong.

    Your sympathetic portrayal of Weigel, as well as Breibart’s posting of his rather self-indulgent confession, are important pieces of the puzzle of how a nominally intelligent person like Weigel allows himself to be co-opted. It took balls to take the position you did; so by way of thanks I’m going to hit the tip jar. And then I’m diving back into “Intellectuals and Society”.

  7. SteveN
    June 29th, 2010 @ 4:30 pm

    I agree with Estragon that RSM defended Weigel as a good guy and a good reporter. Not only that, but RSM’s initial assessment was that the departure of Weigel from the Post was a loss for conservatism. Now that more has come to light and RSM’s judgment has been proven to be exactly wrong, he is trying to change the subject and jump on the Breitbart “this is about Journolist” bandwagon as if that had been his reaction all along. Journolist might very well be the much bigger story, but the fact remains that McCain was wrong about Weigel and he should admit it.

  8. SteveN
    June 29th, 2010 @ 12:30 pm

    I agree with Estragon that RSM defended Weigel as a good guy and a good reporter. Not only that, but RSM’s initial assessment was that the departure of Weigel from the Post was a loss for conservatism. Now that more has come to light and RSM’s judgment has been proven to be exactly wrong, he is trying to change the subject and jump on the Breitbart “this is about Journolist” bandwagon as if that had been his reaction all along. Journolist might very well be the much bigger story, but the fact remains that McCain was wrong about Weigel and he should admit it.

  9. thirteen28
    June 29th, 2010 @ 1:31 pm

    Stacy, I like you, but c’mon … you got played by Weigel, big time. You and everyone else that defended Weigel as a good guy and who characterized his ouster from the WaPo as somehow being a “loss” for conservatives. If anything, his exposure and subsequent resignation was a blessing for conservatives as it revealed more truth about liberals than Weigel would ever reveal about conservatives or the conservative movement. Let him go over to HuffPo and MSNBC, venues where he clearly belongs.

    He’s not your friend. He’s not a friend to conservatives. He’s not a friend to the conservative movement. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

  10. thirteen28
    June 29th, 2010 @ 5:31 pm

    Stacy, I like you, but c’mon … you got played by Weigel, big time. You and everyone else that defended Weigel as a good guy and who characterized his ouster from the WaPo as somehow being a “loss” for conservatives. If anything, his exposure and subsequent resignation was a blessing for conservatives as it revealed more truth about liberals than Weigel would ever reveal about conservatives or the conservative movement. Let him go over to HuffPo and MSNBC, venues where he clearly belongs.

    He’s not your friend. He’s not a friend to conservatives. He’s not a friend to the conservative movement. Good riddance to bad rubbish.