By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions
I realize this sort of thing is happening all the time these days. Still, it seems noteworthy when a Washington Post fixture like media reporter Howard Kurtz up and quits in order to go over to the new-media side — in his case, to Tina Brown’s Daily Beast.
Kurtz will continue hosting “Reliable Sources” on CNN.
It’s hard to think of this as anything other than a great move for Kurtz. What does that say about the Washington Post?
For the time being, I’m going to take a pass on writing a full item about David Weigel’s firing/forced-resignation/whatever-you-want-to-call-it from the Washington Post. I recommend this round-up at Salon by Alex Pareene and a blog post by John McQuaid. And you must read Post ombudsman Andy Alexander’s commentary, as loathsome an example of the genre as I’ve seen in many years.
More: Conor Friedersdorf tells Alexander, “Rather than encouraging reporters and opinion writers to be fair, accurate, and intellectually honest, you’re creating incentives whereby reporters are encouraged to conceal their true opinions, opinion writers are encouraged to be movement hacks, and between the two there is no overlap.”
In my latest for the Guardian, I find myself agreeing with Gerard Alexander’s essay in the Washington Post that liberals are condescending. But it’s hard not to be when many on the other side reject evolution, think global warming is a hoax and believe President Obama was not born in the United States.
As the late Tip O’Neill was fond of saying, all politics is local. The idea that Republican victories in New Jersey and Virginia amount to some sort of repudiation of President Obama is just as silly as the notion that Obama’s endorsement was a key to Democratic victory in a congressional race in upstate New York.
Yet your media are going to spin it as a referendum on Obama. And, mostly, they’re going to ignore New York so they can advance a simplistic — and wrong — script. Indeed, the lead headline on the Web site of the rapidly deteriorating Washington Post this morning proclaims, “A warning to Democrats: It’s not 2008 anymore.” (The actual analysis, by Dan Balz, is more nuanced than that.)
Polling analyst extraordinaire Nate Silver explains all. But his take on Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine’s defeat in New Jersey, I think, is especially worth noting:
Obama approval was actually pretty strong in New Jersey, at 57 percent, but 27 percent of those who approved of Obama nevertheless voted for someone other than Corzine. This one really does appear to be mostly about Corzine being an unappealing candidate, as the Democrats look like they’ll lose just one or two seats in the state legislature in Trenton.
Keep in mind that we’re going to be dealing with the same situation in Massachusetts next year. Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick is unpopular at the moment, and if his numbers remain low, it’s possible that he won’t be re-elected.
If Patrick loses, the national media will dutifully explain that we repudiated Obama. But those of us who live in Massachusetts will know better.
In my latest for the Guardian, I examine why the pay-for-play scandal at the Washington Post — off-the-record access to Post editors and reporters at publisher Katharine Weymouth’s home for $25,000 a pop — defied early efforts to contain it.
On the one hand, it’s good to know that we’re still capable of being appalled. On the other hand, was this really all that different from what happens every day at the nexus of power, media and money?
Civil-liberties lawyer and friend of Media Nation Harvey Silverglate explains in the Guardian why the Washington Post is wrong to claim that it can’t use the word “torture” because of libel concerns.
In my latest for The Guardian, I take a look at the insurrection with the ranks of the Washington Post over George Will’s repeated mischaracterizations of the scientific evidence for human-caused global warming.
The Washington Post’s refusal to correct George Will’s error on global-warming data is starting to rise to the level of a scandal. This account at the Washington Monthly shows why.
In my latest for the Guardian, I take a close-up look at a story in the Washington Post Magazine about a teenage girl with dwarfism who underwent dangerous, painful surgery in order to become taller.
The Post story is an extraordinary achievement. At root, though, it stands as an argument that dwarfism is a difference that ought to be fixed. Our experience in raising a daughter with dwarfism tells us that’s exactly the wrong approach.
I’m looking at the Washington Post’s Political Browser, its shiny new compilation of what is supposed to be the best political news on the Web. And here is the first thing I see:
12:30 p.m. ET: The debate is now only hours away, which means our televisions and Internet caches are full of suggestions for “What McCain/Obama Needs to Do Tonight…”
Well, The Rundown would like to hear what YOU think they “need to do,” so deposit your suggestions in the comments section below.
Wonder if I could take the credit if I wrote in, “I think McCain should bring up Joe the Plumber.”