12/15/2005
Final Thoughts on WaPo's Harris
So, I read the Harris "Live" thread with bated breath, wondering if he'd answer my question which was "What's Jeff Gannon really like?" Long story short, he skipped right over that one.
Here's what I think is going on with Harris: through a combination of being worked over by the Bushies and fear that what happened to Dan Rather will happen to him, he has unwittingly diluted critique of Commander Bunnypants. And it's certainly true that the Washington Post goes after the Bushies as well as any US paper does. If you listen to the BBC, however, you're reminded of how administration-friendly our press has become.
Brad Delong notes a fine bit of fact-checking from the Post's Peter Baker. Right on. That's how things should be. Now, compare that to Harris's tepid reporting and lack of fact-checking on Bush's 2004 campaign. One of these things is not like the other.
In the online discussion thread Harris keeps bringing the issue back to a narrow issue: should Froomkin's column be called White House Briefing or Dan Froomkin's Cooking with Walnuts?
I sees this as spinning to some degree. The discussion started with Ombudsman Howell saying:
Political reporters at The Post don't like WPNI columnist Dan Froomkin's "White House Briefing," which is highly opinionated and liberal. They're afraid that some readers think that Froomkin is a Post White House reporter.Froomkin's column is not "highly opinionated and liberal". It's what we call "reality based." He does that thing that they call... what is it... fact-checking. He spanks Bush's little bottom with the daily act of mendacity that White House briefings have become, and rubs George's nose in the mess he's made.
Meanwhile, Harris suggests a conservative blogger for "balance." I can see it now: While my colleague Froomkin believes that recent polls show that Bush is unpopular, such talk is pure naysing, and undermines our mission in Iraq. Good God, now I'm starting to sound like David Brooks.
Anyway, what I'm saying is that the narrow focus Harris tries to create in the thread doesn't gibe entirely with history. The issue is bigger than that. It's a pervasive notion that criticising the Executive branch is inheritantly "liberal and opinionated."
|
