Letters to the Editor
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Lazy and simple yes, but also deliberate
Glen,
razor sharp, as usual. I've watched this in horror for quite some time. I find it troubling, not just for how it is used, but I've always felt, that is was damaging to public discourse and language in general.
My earliest recollection of observing this mechanism of tangential argument was in the 80's while Regan was in Office, and he was using this sort of rhetoric against Noriega, whom he had allowed to remain in power in the first place.
I've always found this linguist device was used to obscure details and distract people/readers from the historical record--the simplicity of it is designed to "sound" plausible, but when you even scratch the surface, you quickly discover it hides duplicity or hypocrisy.
I quite agree with your incitement of Mdm. Pagillia, I've had to struggle to finish her rambling and disjointed missives. Chiefly though, she fails in objective criticism, in digging up references and in brandishing these to effect. She is right there in the muck with all the mud slinging...
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Camille and Anecdotes
In the past, Paglia generated a lot of hits to the site---that. She's a known (if too well known) quantity and she revels in controversy. Unfortunately, as Glenn notes, the years have made her version of controversy much staler. I wouldn't be surprised to see her go, if she doesn't help build traffic to the site.
Journalists love anecdotes. They are absolutely bhorrible at statistics and in making sense of complicated sentiments. they also figure their readres are even more cluless. Sadly, reearchers are quite stupid about how research information is used by the media and don't balance research with interpretation for a lay audience. Bottom line, nice vivid anecdotes (the kind easily remembered and often very distoring) get press where the mundane facts (even when they represent the overwhelming state of popular sentiment or scientific fact) get ignored. And it's not just hacks like Barone--BTW what happened to him? 15 years ago, he was a middle of the roader who could sometimes do some decent analysis.
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Cheap and Lazy
GLENN: The point here -- as always -- is to try to force the media to write about the stories it covers in a more critical and factual manner, to compel them to abandon the cheap and lazy cliches that otherwise frame everything they write.
Howie's going to read your response and get very indignant: That ungrateful twerp! I do him the favor of mentioning him in my column--with nary a word of criticism--and he has the gall to call me "cheap and lazy!" That's it; he's cut off!
Also wondering whether how pleased Salon is going to be with your remarks regarding Paglia. Promise to tell us if you get lectured about it being unseemly to criticize fellow contributors, won't you?
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Blame America First by Anecdote
To see this in actual practice reference cable teevee, local newspapers, and other MSM media sources. The attention devoted to what are essentially local stories of truly sad individuals or hyped up celebrity, Hollywood outrage stories is astounding. This too has a profound effect on people and is part of the lazy journalism/conservative movement.
Example, very little time or space is given over to momentous events -- subprime mortgage collapse, increase in number of bankrupt Americans, global warming, effects of war in Iraq on military families or the Iraqi people but boatloads of attention is paid to some missing white kid or anything Paris Hilton does.
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Quibble about TPM
That, for instance, is the function that Talking Points Memo has performed with the U.S. attorneys story. They didn't do so much original reporting or uncovering of new facts. The real work they did was in critically examining the available facts, making the connections that were being missed, and then insisting that the media treat the story as it deserved to be treated by highlighting and documenting what it revealed.
I think it would be fair to say TPM did do significant original reporting. They have 2 or 3 full time blogger-reporters, and Josh himself is a professional reporter.
TPM straddles the line between journalism and blogging. They do both quite well. Many of their leads come from reader tips, which they actively solicit. This tactic was instrumental in figuring out which New Mexico lawmakers had called ousted Prosecutor McKay - they simply had their readers start calling all of them, and got all the rest to deny it was them, leaving Madrid and Domenici the culprits by elimination.
Naturally, once it became clear (thanks to TPM's insight and connecting the dots, as Glenn said) that there was plenty of "there" to this scandal, the mainstream investigative journalism apparatus easily eclipsed what TPM is capable of doing. Naturally, TPM at that point ceased investigation of new facts and resumed the deeper analysis of known facts to provide new insights.
TPM Muckraker's archives of reporting:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/cats/us_attorneys/
Also see this post, where Josh is happy to see the media were picking up the story on their own:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/012743.php
TPM has a unique niche in the blogging biosphere in playing a kick-start role for scandal. A few intrepid reporters just need to uncover enough dirt that the Pulitzer hungry press starts digging on their own.
Think of Josh as the toothless old man who holds up a nugget and shouts to the town "There's gold in them there hills!" He won't find most of the gold himself, but without him no one would have gone looking at all.
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Barone et al
Barone uses another tactic in his column that is the height of self-ivolvement. His unstated premise in the "liberals hate America" argument is that the Neocon Vision of How America Should Be = America. When you state it this way it becomes an absurd premise, but it is his (et al. making the same argument) premise. When Republicans were railing against Clinton, especially in regards to his military actions, were they America-hating? Of course not - those weren't the actions of America, but of Democrats.
While to some degree this is all rhetorical propaganda, these people are of the opinion that what they believe constitutes America, ipso facto. And I can't think of a more self involved notion.