I'd be interested in reading your thoughts about this:

- what is the difference between "reporting" and "opinion" or "punditry"? how can one discern the difference?

- is there an ethical code that states reporters are "bound to objectivity"? is it some "unwritten rule" of honor ... or something real?

- would you be ok if these "reporters" were henceforce renamed "eel fish" ... or if the activity they engaged in was now called "stenography"? or is your issue with the fact that they exist in this way? what should or shouldn't they be doing?

i honestly don't know the answers to these questions myself. i would like to understand your premise. i'm not certain if i think this is "wrong."

It should be noted that Tim Grieve, in just a fast glance at the list of conservative pundits "praising" Obama, discovered an apparently-glowing Limbaugh quote to actually be part of a scathing attack on the senator. Grieve calls the list movie-style blurbs, and on the basis of the Limbaugh quote being distorted 180 degrees by being wrenched out of context, I wouldn't trust any of 'em without reading the originals.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/01/08/obama1/index.html

I thought you were immune

from this salon pro-clinton coverage, but here you go-- garbage.

X criticizes media coverage of Y. Therefore, X supports Y.

First of all, call her "Clinton"-- not Hillary or HRC. This first name stuff is an absurd usage in public life.

If you concentrate really, really hard, the confusion that results by using "Clinton" to refer to her might occur to you.

You given any thought to what these cynical, privileged, status quo figures may have witnessed that does not fit with your nifty dismissal narrative of Obama?

Could you give an example of my "nifty dismissal narrative of Obama"?

Oh, that Jay. What a hoot. If he wasn't already "working" for McCain, he'd have a lock on the Giuliani gig.

Glenn,

This post is way out of line. Kurtz's column, as you of all people should have expected, was hyperbolic and inaccurate. Tim Grieve has taken apart some of it on this web site, btw, so you wouldn't have had to look far to check into that. He's also listed all manner of negative stories that have been run on Obama (and Edwards), from pointing out his inexperience to his former drug use to whatever, which from what I've seen is the tip of the iceberg (and Bill Clinton's rants about what wasn't covered in the press about Obama were indeed, by Tim Russert ironically enough).

Meanwhile, no less than the NYT (to say nothing of Salon) has been running Hillary friendly coverage, to name just two (although I accept cable news has not been favorable). And did you consider to put their shadenfrude at Hillary's demise in the context of any other campaign disintegration? Did you not notice how much glee went along with McCain's demise, (or the historical or non-political variety, e.g. Brittany Spears)? More to the point, you have neglected to digest the locus of the press coverage, which includes the heretofore coverage of the Clinton campaign as if she were already nominated, which HUGELY helped her campaign by denying other candidate's needed exposure. Even now she continues to get more exposure than any other candidate, which, despite the fact that much of it is bad, is not the worst position to be in (see Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich for good example of said). And it bears noting that it was only after Obama starting winning the spotlight that the coverage became negative on Hillary. It was not the cause of the poll shift.

Given that all this paints a decidedly mixed picture of the press's net effect on this election, how is your gross oversimplification holding up?

Bottom line Glenn, at this point, these criticisms are so oversimplified as to be completely counterproductive. At best, you are raising issues without defining what it is that would be an appropriate model or how what's inappropriate is affecting anything. And it bears mentioning that accepting that badly flawed viewpoint has clear political implications, which makes them emotive irrespective of whether or not you possess a political position.

Seriously, if you desire to go down this route, it is incumbent upon you to define in detail what precisely your model is for how the political press ought to comport themselves as juxtaposed against 'their crimes' of in many cases being imbued with American culture and simultaneously governed by human nature. And here I mean countries that you feel are functional by comparison with US dysfunction, not abstract notions of never neverland fairness. This may be a constructive angle to explore against the highly destructive precedent you've been following.

And Mouseburger. . .

Obi wan liberali sez

“What we have are basically sports reporters…It's all about who is perceived to be winning and whose offense is sputtering, who commits a personal foul on defense, or who you think has the momentum due to an ill-advised turnover. That is what our political dialogue has come down to.”

Actually, primarily thanks to Howard Cossell and Brent Musberger and their ilk, sports reporting has followed the same shameful path as the rest of reporting. It’s no longer strategy and strengths and weaknesses; it’s story lines and personalities. Crap in, crap out.

Glenn's "two headed-beast" is interesting because it highlights the weird power relationships going on here.

It's like poker. In poker, a "good" player can make a lot of money through his/her behavior. On the other hand, the winner is the person with the best cards; end of story. So the behavior (bluffing, trading etc.) is an ancillary skill: the main skill is no skill at all (being dealt the correct cards).

In presidental elections, a "good" candidate can garner a lot of attention and support through proper manipulation of the press, donors, public statements, voting record etc. On the other hand, the winner is the person with the most votes; end of story. So the entire Hillary apparatus cannot change the fact that she won't get the votes.

The press (as Greenwald illustrates) even at their most innocuous, is engaged in a contradictory task of controlling the election while simultaneously reacting to the election. They "hate" Clinton because the public "hates" Clinton because the press "loves" Clinton because the public "loves" Clinton, poll numbers vs. hatred vs. more poll numbers. vs. more horse race maneuvering vs. even more hatred, when at the end of the day the voters walk right past all of that and cast their votes. It's a hall of mirrors. The press' "powerlessness" in the face of polls is what "authorizes" them to indulge their emotional reactions to the candidates. There's no shame in openly "hating" a candidate: it's like "hating" rain, since the press "is only reporting." It requires so much doublethink that it's impossible to find the original questions any more.