I’m Seeing Double (Standards)
26 October 2009 | By LowellB in Editorials, Media, Politics, TN Blog
It seems that in the old legacy media, whether or not political behavior is objectionable depends not on the behavior itself, but on whose behavior it is.
For example, maybe you missed this report from Byron York over the weekend. In a commentary – a commentary! – about the Obama administration’s attacks on Fox News, Ken Rudin, NPR’s political director, first said this:
“It’s not only aggressive, it’s almost Nixonesque,” Rudin said. “I mean, you think of what Nixon and Agnew did with their enemies list and their attacks on the media; certainly Vice President Agnew’s constant denunciation of the media. Of course, then it was a conservative president denouncing a liberal media, and of course, a lot of good liberals said, ‘Oh, that’s ridiculous. That’s an infringement on the freedom of press.’ And now you see a lot of liberals almost kind of applauding what the White House is doing to Fox News, which I think is distressing.”
Listener response must have been furious. Within 24 hours Rudin said this:
“I made a boneheaded mistake yesterday,” Rudin wrote on his NPR blog. “Comparing the tactics of the Nixon administration — which bugged and intimidated and harrassed journalists — to that of the Obama administration was foolish, facile, ridiculous and, ultimately, embarrassing to me. I should have known better and, in fact, I do know better. I was around during the Nixon years. I am fully cognizant of what they did and attempted to do.”
“I apologize for a dumb comparison.”
I wonder if at any time, during the eight years of that Dark Period known as The George W. Bush Administration, any NPR commentator ever described Bush’s approach to the news media as (shudder!) “almost Nixonesque?” Not Nixonesque, mind you, but almost Nixonesque. Such an irresponsible thing to say . . . .
Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s popularity has plummeted lower than Dick Cheney’s. We were treated to story after story about how much people hated Cheney during the Dark Period. To get this news, it looks like we have to go to the Washington Examiner, a conservative on-line alternative.
Perhaps this kind of blindness, mixed with inconsistency, is one of the reasons why CNN’s ratings have fallen 68% and the network is now in prime-time last place. Could be! This appalling performance by Anderson Cooper, followed by this embarrassing (and tardy) apology by Anderson Cooper, are perfect examples of what CNN does to drive away fair-minded viewers.
With Mr. Cooper’s antics in mind, Don Surber may be right with this slightly different theory:
The sneaky opinion — Anderson Cooper’s sneering contempt for conservative protesters — is what people don’t like. Cooper and company try to be stealth but they come of as snide and fake, as if they are trying to hide who they really are.
My guess: It’s a combination of all these things. In any event, people are voting with their remote controls, and CNN is losing.
Posted in Editorials, Media, Politics, TN Blog | 1 Comment » | 
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28 October 2009 | Brad Said:
I don’t think that people in general care so much about being well-informed on the news as they do being entertained. Perhaps Anderson Cooper’s low ratings are due to the fact that he is rather dry and boring compared to Fox’s Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck who may at any minute be on the verge of tearing some “liberal loon” a new one. The traditionally conservative folks in the countryside eat that stuff up. You get more viewers by demonizing the enemy, much like you guys seem to do on this website (which is hardly independent as you boast), than by attempting to hold rational and fair debate. The White House is correct in considering Fox News an oppositional advocacy group rather than a news organization. And no, I think that people are voting the way that they have traditionally voted, and Obama won, even at a time when Fox News’ ratings were higher than those of other cable news networks.