There was a time in the early 80s, before she sold out to corporate news, when Cokie Roberts was one of the great triumvirate of female reporters at NPR (Roberts, Totenberg, and Wertheimer). Hard hitting, no nonsense, high quality news. But at some point (I think when she decided to contract with ABC), she sold out. Her reporting is now lazy, imprecise and often just plain wrong. Her history shows that she's capable of much better work, so the only conclusion is either that she got lazy or that she deliberately sold out. I stopped taking her seriously years ago.

Assuming it's not just the latest attempt by the Bushies to try to convince folks that they're in touch with reality, these sorts of statements require very careful parsing. They are usually constructed to allow deniability when they are challenged after the fact.

In this case, my guess is something like the following.

"Well, I think we've thrown out all of the rose-colored glasses in how we look at Iraq." The tense is past perfect, so they'll just claim that the statement refers to some indefinite time in the past, but relatively long ago (e.g., two or three years). So, you see, they're not saying that they just now stopped seeing things through rose-colored glasses. Oh, no. They've been realists all along.

Just for the sake of argument, let's accept Drezner's hypothesis that the media really prefers to and should focus on the future and not the past. Even granting him this odd position (Doesn't knowing past motivations and actions inform the present and what we should do in the future?), there are still important choices about what the press should be focusing on for the future. Given the powers that will accrue to whomever becomes the next President, shouldn't the press be prioritizing what it reports on to inform us about how those powers will be exercised? How does talking about Obama's bowling better inform us in that respect rather than talking about the substantive policy positions he's taken? Or about how he might undo the power grab in the Executive branch under the Bush administration?

This guy has a professor's position at Tufts? It makes me embarrassed to be a professor myself, albeit in the the sciences in my case.

First, Glenn, thank you for all your efforts. Your work is consistently high quality, and you have that rare ability to remain constructively critical even when you are attacked personally. I rarely disagree with your analyses, but know that when I do, that you will give my critique serious thought before replying.

Second, since a significant part of McArdle's argument comes down to judging the media by how well it succeeds in the free market, I think a critique of the strengths and weaknesses of a free market approach to the news is important. As a biologist, and and evolutionary biologist in particular, I would offer that it is quite possible that human nature and the free market will often "conspire" to drive the news in the direction we've seen it take. It has been argued for literally millenia by educators and philosophers that there is a "baser" side of human nature (selfishness, greed, etc.) that can be appealed to by unscrupulous individuals and that we can be distracted by powerful people who take advantage of these predispositions. In the free market, where profit is the ultimate determinant of success, it's hardly surprising to find that a large corporation would produce news that attracts the most eyeballs by using emotional triggers rather than news that informs to the greatest extent.

Nearly everyone who has considered this problem, especially in the context of a democracy, has acknowledged the need for education to ameliorate these tendencies and to cultivate minds that will consider the world critically in an intelligent way. Clearly, there is a subpopulation within the United States that does think critically (or no one would read you or the other good sources on the internet), but if we are too small a proportion of the viewing public (or, in my case, non-viewing since I find the signal-to-noise ratio too small), then the news media will cater to the larger subpopulation for more profits.

From my perspective, this is the longer term crux of the matter. How do you get a people that has a very large proportion of individuals who prefer bread and circuses to seriously participating in their society to care enough to change things? Under a free market model, it may be very difficult even when there is an external threat that makes that participation particularly important.

I agree. But how can this happen if the very people who are part of the education system are defending the media or the Bush administration? Does this mean America is doomed?

-- Magritte's pipe

I'm by turns optimistic and pessimistic. As an educator, I operate on the hope/faith that helping students learn how to think critically is important and worthwhile. On the other hand, I look at the countervailing corporate influence in people's lives (advertising, the pressure to focus on one's next purchase to fulfill oneself, etc.) and realize how difficult it is to counter the larger culture with education, especially when our "leaders" do everything within their power to insulate the population from the results of their actions (e.g., no draft, simply adding the cost of the war to the debt rather than raising taxes). It is most certainly an uphill battle.

Glenn,

If you're going to be on the road flogging your new book, I suggest you make a trip to Austin, Texas. You'll be treated to our great hospitality and food and will undoubtedly have the opportunity to meet many of us who have appreciated your efforts.