It has never been clear to me whether the Wall Street Journal is, on net, a force for good or a force for evil. The excellence of the news pages is offset by the atrociousness of the editorial pages. Plus the editorial pages gain additional weight and power by their association with the excellent news pages. Would the world be a better place without the Wall Street Journal? Unclear. Would the world be a better place if the Wall Street Journal's news pages were replaced by news pages of the quality of, say. Murdoch's New York Post? Probably not--but even on this I am still a bit uncertain.
Franklin Foer of the New Republic and his homies, however, have no doubts whatsoever. He says the Wall Street Journal is a mighty force for good, and its editorial page--well, he can't bring themselves to even hint that the Wall Street Journal has an editorial page. But they do say that liberals should fight to defend the Wall Street Journal--as it is currently constituted, with its editorial page.
Craven. Mendacious. Journamalists. How dumb does Franklin Foer think that I am? How dumb is Franklin Foer?
Frank Foer and Company: [Defending the Wall Street Journal as it exists toay] should be a pivotal moment for liberals--a time to dial back their relentless hostility to newspapers and start crusading for them: We don't mean to sound naïve about the shortcomings of these institutions.... But you need only consider the contributions of the Journal to understand the stakes of the present moment... the great chronicler of capitalism... one of the most important checks against its excesses. The paper has regularly exposed important failings of the market--from the leveraged buyouts and insider trading of the 1980s to the stock manipulation of recent years. In the era of deregulation, it's hard to imagine that the government would have uncovered these epic cases of malfeasance.
Sadly, these great feats haven't won the newspaper business liberal love. There are many, especially in the blogosphere, who can't wait to dance on the graves of the crusty old MSM "gatekeepers." They champion the rise of "citizen journalism," as techno-enthusiasts like to describe the bloggers and their Wikipedia model of media: Unlike the MSM brontosaurs, bloggers will actually report the truth without fear of losing access to Washington cocktail parties or pressure from corporate bosses....
But there's a problem with the new order they imagine... bloggers chasing Truth without the shackles of objectivity. You can always dismiss a blogger, or a partisan paper like the New York Post.... But... [with the] Wall Street Journal... this complaint... rings so empty. The MSM makes an earnest (albeit occasionally flawed) effort to achieve a neutral understanding of events, and that's the source of an authority and prestige that even its harshest critics... must respect....
While the MSM's authority and prestige persist, they are in peril.... Newspapers themselves have squandered the sense of self-confidence that they once oozed.... [T]he timidity that characterized prewar WMD reporting and led the Times to sit on its domestic wiretapping stories for a year....
How can newspapers recover their mojo? For starters, they should stop sounding apocalyptic.... [P]rofit margins at most papers remain high.... The crisis in newspapers relates more to perceptions than the actual bottom line. While the Times, the Post, and the Journal are still run by their founding families... they must answer to investors who continue to demand cost-cutting that boosts share prices but undermines their mission.
As stewards of their papers, the Sulzbergers, the Grahams, and the Bancrofts have exuded the best spirit of Progressive-era elites, a commitment to reform and independence...
Interesting how they contrast "Truth" with "objectivity." That says a lot about the Lippman model of "professional" journalism. Here are some quotes I've gathered on that theme:
"The norms of 'objective reporting' thus involve presenting 'both sides' of an issue with very little in the way of independent forms of verification... [A] journalist who systematically attempts to verify facts--to say which set of facts is more accurate-- runs the risk of being acused of abandoning their objectivity by favoring one side over another....
"....[J]ournalists who try to be faithful to an objective model of reporting are simultaneously distancing themselves from the notion of independently verifiable truth....
"The 'two sides' model of journalistic objectivity makes news reporting a great deal easier since it requires no recourse to a factual realm. There are no facts to check, no archives of unspoken information to sort through.... If Tweedledum fails to challenge a point made by Tweedledee, the point remains unchallenged."
--Justin Lewis "Objectivity and the Limits of Press Freedom" Project Censored Yearbook 2000. pp. 173-74
"Newspapers don't have an obligation to ferret out the actual facts, only to repeat what people in power say."
--Slacktivist, August 13, 2004
"...I find myself increasingly covering Washington's most ignored beat: the written word. The culture of deceit is primarily an oral one. The soundbite, the spin, and the political product placement depend on no one spending too much time on the matter under consideration.
"Over and over again, however, I find that the real story still lies barely hidden and may be reached by nothing more complicated than turning the page, checking the small type in the appendix, charging into the typographical jungle beyond the executive summary, doing a Web search, and, for the bravest, actually looking at the figures on the charts."
--Sam Smith. Project Censored Yearbook 2000. p. 60
Posted by: Kevin Carson | May 20, 2007 at 11:04 PM
"[Defending the Wall Street Journal as it exists toay] should be a pivotal moment for liberals--a time to dial back their relentless hostility to newspapers and start crusading for them...."
Immediately, the commentary becomes a pompous absurdity. I, however, am not much concerned with whether the Wall Street Journal is sold, but I am concerned with a single buyer controlling "too many" mass media outlets. The need is for highly diverse media ownership.
Posted by: anne | May 21, 2007 at 07:24 AM