By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions
Tucker Carlson may have finally hit bottom. Then again, maybe not. If Fox News fails to act after Carlson was exposed over the weekend for making insanely misogynist comments on a low-rent radio show between 2006 and 2011, then he will probably continue on his merry way, indulging in sexism and racism on what might be the worst prime-time program on cable news.
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Fascinating stuff from the Boston Business Journal.
The stench of corruption emanating from the White House is so noxious that it can be hard to focus on outrages that truly matter. This matters: As long rumored, but not confirmed until this week, President Trump personally intervened in the merger of media giants AT&T and Time Warner in order to punish CNN, high on the list of “fake news” outlets with which he is perpetually enraged.
The revelation is contained within Jane Mayer’s 11,500-word examination of Fox News, which appears in the current issue of The New Yorker.
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Contract negotiations between The Boston Globe and the Boston Newspaper Guild are becoming increasingly tense, with the Guild accusing management of union-busting and Globe publisher John Henry denying it.
Earlier this week the Guild posted an open letter to John Henry and his wife, Linda Pizzuti Henry, who is the paper’s managing director. The key takeaway:
Now, we are in the midst of negotiations led by a mercenary law firm that is trying to bully your employees into a contract that essentially asks them to give up their rights as union members. These tactics are threatening to destroy the long-standing, constructive and respectful relationship between the Guild and management. This approach to collective bargaining has also stoked feelings of deep anger and even betrayal among employees. It is doomed to fail.
That was followed by John Henry’s sending an email to the Boston Business Journal in response to the Guild’s letter. The highlight:
Globe management has set a very simple but very important goal of strengthening our newsroom for the challenges of a long-term future in local journalism. The Globe and the guild need to engage in a collaborative effort designed to ensure what both sides need in order to have a vibrant workplace and serve the needs of our community.
This has been ugly right from the start, and it doesn’t look like it’s getting any better.
Earlier: “Newspaper Guild blasts Boston Globe management over contract woes” (Dec. 14).
Do you find it more difficult to read a book these days? Or even a long article? Do you catch yourself pausing every so often (OK, make that every few minutes) to see what’s new on Facebook, scroll through Twitter, check email, or possibly all of the above? Has concentration given way to distraction?
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Behold your liberal media: Twice — in this article about concerns moderate Democrats have regarding their more progressive colleagues and in the accompanying photo caption — The New York Times, on its own authority, refers to left-wing freshman members of Congress as “bomb throwers.”
This is phenomenally bad journalism.
If U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had his way, First Amendment protections for freedom of the press could be turned back not just to the pre-civil rights era but to the pre-Civil War era as well.
Let me explain. On Tuesday, Thomas wrote that the court ought to overturn its landmark 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan decision and allow the states free rein in deciding what standards should prevail in libel suits. In Sullivan, the court ruled that to prove libel public officials would have to show defamatory material about them was published with the knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard as to whether it was true or false. That standard, known as “actual malice,” was later extended to public figures as well.
Now Thomas would reverse that. “The states are perfectly capable of striking an acceptable balance between encouraging robust public discourse and providing a meaningful remedy for reputational harm,” Thomas said. “We should reconsider our jurisprudence in this area.”
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The latest celebrant at the altar of DIY media consumption is the writer Antonio García Martínez. In a piece for Wired.com headlined “Journalism Isn’t Dying. It’s Returning to Its Roots,” Martínez observes that the current economic travails of journalism and the accompanying decline of objectivity are simply a reversion to the norm — that partisan, financially perilous propagandizing would be far more recognizable to founders such as Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams than the establishment press that dominated American society during the second half of the 20th century.
This is all true, but it is also beside the point. We’ve lost a lot. At its best, the mainstream press held (and still holds) government and other large institutions to account in a fair and unbiased manner. If we lose that entirely, then we’ll lose one of our most fundamental tools for governing ourselves.
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This seems rather prescient given the events of the past few days. Here’s what Jeff Bezos told Washington Post staffers in 2013, shortly after it was announced he’d buy the paper. From “The Return of the Moguls”:
In his message to Washington Post staff members the day that the purchase was announced, Bezos alluded to an infamous moment during Watergate when Nixon henchman John Mitchell barked at Bernstein that “Katie Graham’s gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer” if a particularly damaging story were published. Bezos wrote, “While I hope no one ever threatens to put one of my body parts through a wringer, if they do, thanks to Mrs. Graham’s example, I’ll be ready.” As we shall see, it was not long before Bezos would be put to the test.
The first quote is from Katharine Graham’s autobiography, “Personal History”; the second is from a Post account of the sale.
