Andrew Breitbart said this on Big Government:
Everything you needed to know about the unorthodox roll out of the now-notorious ACORN sting videos was hidden in plain sight in my Sept. 7 column, “Katie Couric, Look in the Mirror.” ACORN was not the only target of those videos; so were Katie, Brian, Charlie and every other mainstream media pooh-bah.
When you read the whole thing you realize how successful this has been. Acorns defenders in the print media are now forced to make their defense to a public that has seen the videos and Jay Leno and John Stewart mockery of Acorn has left guys like Errol Lewis in effect asking readers: “Who are you going to believe? Me or your own eyes?”
The media is now on the spot and choices had to be made. The Washington post chose to go after the filmmakers as it was very hard to go after the film.
Michael Barone commented:
The Post, like almost all of “mainstream media,” waddled in late on this story. I remember one time in the 1980s when the Wall Street Journal beat the Post was beaten on a story based on public information in Montgomery County, Maryland, court files. Ben Bradlee, the executive editor of the Post at the time, did not whine as New York Times managing editor Jill Abramson did on the ACORN story about how the bureau was short-staffed and, gee, it’s hard to stay on top of every story. Bradlee was furious—scooped in our own backyard!—and as I recall heads fell. But that was then and this is now. “Mainstream media” is complacent about suppressing a story that is embarrassing to the Obama administration and the Democratic party, and its response after getting scooped is to waddle in with attempts to discredit it. Pathetic.
The AP wasn’t far behind playing defense as they attempt to make excuses for Acorn:
ACORN has portrayed its problems as the unfortunate work of a few employees. In the best case, that suggests it made bad hires and gave them poor training and supervision. But when the founder of a national organization admits attempting to keep quiet his brother’s theft of more than $900,000, it’s a sign that ACORN’s problems may rise high and run deep.
How did ACORN wind up in this mess? Did it simply grow too big for its own good?
Oh I see poor Acorn betrayed by their own success. Peg’s (proudly banned from lgf yesterday) personal friends at Powerline (proudly banned from little green footballs last week) had this to say:
The AP takes the cue and puts the words in O’Keefe’s mouth. It’s quite a racket they’ve got going here, and someone really should call them on it.
They actually contacted the Washington post before putting up their entry and are still waiting a response.
Between this and the Van Jones issue the media is now faced with a choice: Unwavering defense of the administration or to act like, you know reporters.
This week George Stephanopolis made that choice and caught the president totally by surprise:
Save money on your state-mandated auto insurance with GEICO? Pass your signature legislation while holding the White House, a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and a 70+ seat majority in the House? Obtusely obfuscate the lawyerly difference between a dollar seized by the government through fine and a dollar appropriated by the government by tax? Confuse the practical utility of automobile liability insurance and health insurance?
Now, technically Obama is right in the Stephanopolis interview. A fine is not a tax. The net effect is the same but he’s the kind of technically right you might expect a Constitutional lawyer to be on this issue. He’s stuck on the hot seat, though, because he’d look like a dick nattering about what kind revenue generating bill originates in which house of Congress. So deny it, impugn Merriam Webster (a fine, upstanding woman I’m told), and misdirect with a fallacious comparison to state-mandated auto liability insurance.
Who’s the genius that cooked up that line of reasoning? It’s a flawed argument for a couple of obvious reasons.
This wasn’t a confrontational interview but that was an actual challenging question, the type that I used to hear reporters ask decades ago, and this president couldn’t handle it. I thought the guy was supposed to be the Liberal Ronald Reagan?
Morning Joe is all over the Steph clip today, it’s news but the real news is that he followed up. I submit that he would not be doing that if it wasn’t for the Acorn Tapes, Andrew Breitbart, James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles. That is the real news. The combination of Van Jones and Acorn are going to force the media to be either advocates or reporters and in at least some cases they are choosing to be reporters.
Related: This howler from Newsbusters:
But check out Tom Rosenstiel (formerly of Newsweek and the L.A. Times) gritting his rhetorical teeth at Alexander’s point even as he calls the liberal media “non-ideological”:
It “can’t be discounted,” said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. “Complaints by conservatives are slower to be picked up by non-ideological media because there are not enough conservatives and too many liberals in most newsrooms.”
“They just don’t see the resonance of these issues. They don’t hear about them as fast [and] they’re not naturally watching as much,” he added.
The “non-ideological media” have “too many liberals in most newsrooms”?
Expect a lot more of this. The worm has turned.
