Matthew Yglesias: Greed is Not a Defense: I found Ezra Klein’s defense of Politico to be pretty weak stuff. Ezra’s main point is that coverage that’s utterly trivial and that poisons public understanding of crucial issues that effect the lives of billions of people is rewarded by the market, and that Politico does a good of delivering on coverage that’s utterly trivial and that poisons public understanding of crucial issues that effect the lives of billions of people. This is true, but it seems more like a rationalization for bad behavior than a reason to do it. These are hard times for the journalism business, but that doesn’t mean that people in the media should stop holding each other to any kind of reasonable standards of quality and responsibility. I don’t think the existence of a market economy should be seen as giving everyone ethical carte blanche to totally ignore the welfare of their fellow citizens when going about their business.
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