Letters to the Editor

• I agree with Glenn, but then I disagree -- or rather I wish he would apply this analysis to other issues

  [Read the article: What "truly motivates" George W. Bush?]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  In particular the behavior of journalists and "MSM" like the Washington Post, the New York Times and others, or for that matter lobbying and campaign finance.

  It is impossible to understand the emasculation of the the US media without understanding the economic milieu that modern journalists operate in. In general journalism pays well – crap. A few major media outlets pay well to senior reporters assigned to important “beats” like the White House. We can decry Broder and Cohen, fairly I believe, but in doing so we are implicitly recognising that they have reached a level of seniority and indeed wealth where they can do real journalism and not fear the consequences. But most of the by-lines we see in the MSM are by much more insecure hacks, men and women making a good, decent income in an industry that pays most of their peers poverty line wages. Is it any wonder that they won’t take risks with upsetting the White House, or that they look up to the “successful” in their profession like Broder, Klien and Cohen. We also ignore the impact that the formation of media conglomerates have, with entities like ABC, NBC, Fox, CBS, the Washington Post and NY Times exposed to government displeasure in areas that have nothing to do with news. How many people have had to tell 10s or 100s of people they just lost their job because we the management screwed-up; I have and they were some of the most unpleasant days of my life. Can you see how killing a story might not seem that big a deal if it means not laying someone off who has little savings and few prospects – I’d sooner have my teeth drilled than repeat that exercise – and so the shades of grey are slowly killing us.

  Campaign contributions are another example. We may detest Karl Rove, but one has to recognise his skill. Those skills have been obtained in part by his involvement as a permanent campaign staff member over decades. Can we expect the democratic Karl Rove to live on beans and leftovers and get that skill as an unpaid volunteer. The reality is that campaign consultants need experience, and to get it most need to be paid. These same consultants form the higher reaches of both parties – no wonder they see problems in campaign finance control; but the alternative is to have rich trust-fund-babies do the work, and guess what, inherited wealth leans Republican. So we end up with a situation where we tolerate money in politics because, well, we hope the Dems can spend it better than the Republicans. Lobbying is yet another example, somewhat like campaign finance. Frankly, Hill pay is pretty crummy for the quality of some of the staff. If we cut off the opportunity to take lobbying jobs, who will that leave, again the children of the rich.

  Of course the dirty little secret is that trust-fund-babies have been taking over journalism, particularly political journalism and political staff jobs, not to mention some types of Federal Government jobs for the last two decades. Too many of these jobs pay too little and, at least in journalism and political staff require people to “pay their dues” in unpaid internships and very poorly paid assistant jobs for a year or five before pay gets good. Sooner or later weariness at living in group homes, struggling to pay rent and student loans leaves only TFBs, the children of the well-off or rich, and this is distorting our political debate. Again, I am not saying TFBs are evil, but that simply do not “get it.” And the whole Bush family have been like that for 5+ generation of silver spoons in the newborn’s mouth – and without making someone a bad person, having no-one past your great-grandfathers generation of your family with even a mortgage to pay does make that person do bad things.

  At the end of the day we need to understand why the public buy this manichean world view, while being willing to understand the greyness inherent in issues like abortion, or even the rationale for income tax.

  Permalink Wednesday, June 20, 2007 09:00 AM