The 2000 election, bad journalism, and the fix we're in
There have been a pair of excellent articles on The Daily Howler this week. They frequently look at the state of journalism and its legacy from the 90s, when it so easy to build a career on pinata-fying Clinton and Gore.
The first post starts off with another bit of bad journalism from NYT reporter Ann Kornblut, who was recently corrected after an outcry from the blogosphere on a story in which she completely misrepresented a speech by Hillary Clinton. And Kornblut is at it again.
The body of the piece is a look at how journalists are revisiting the 2000 election now that Gore is in the news again. Some are copping to the fact that he never claimed to have invented the Internet, but not the many other ways in which they helped torpedo his candidacy.
The second post begins with the scary news that more Americans believe the myth of Saddams' WMDs and ties to al Qaeda now than a year ago. And other instances of the public failing to know the facts. Again, the body of the post is part two of how the media is rethinking their history of dumbing down political discourse vis a vis the 2000 election, but doing nothing about it.
It isn't pleasant reading (a WaPo story from just three days ago repeats several long-since debunked stories about Gore), but it's worthwhile. Tomorrow's installment will be about Eric Boehlert's look at the Swift Boat campaign-- certainly an excellent example of the media jumping all over a hot-yet-bogus, then dropping it when the truth came out. All to the detriment of another presidential candidate.
The first post starts off with another bit of bad journalism from NYT reporter Ann Kornblut, who was recently corrected after an outcry from the blogosphere on a story in which she completely misrepresented a speech by Hillary Clinton. And Kornblut is at it again.
The body of the piece is a look at how journalists are revisiting the 2000 election now that Gore is in the news again. Some are copping to the fact that he never claimed to have invented the Internet, but not the many other ways in which they helped torpedo his candidacy.
The second post begins with the scary news that more Americans believe the myth of Saddams' WMDs and ties to al Qaeda now than a year ago. And other instances of the public failing to know the facts. Again, the body of the post is part two of how the media is rethinking their history of dumbing down political discourse vis a vis the 2000 election, but doing nothing about it.
It isn't pleasant reading (a WaPo story from just three days ago repeats several long-since debunked stories about Gore), but it's worthwhile. Tomorrow's installment will be about Eric Boehlert's look at the Swift Boat campaign-- certainly an excellent example of the media jumping all over a hot-yet-bogus, then dropping it when the truth came out. All to the detriment of another presidential candidate.
posted by Matt Sandwich | 1:09 PM
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