Media Meltdown

Blogging Instapundit is a real "Coals to Newcastle" exercise, but I'd like to highlight his point that the media treatment of the Cambodia story is bigger than the story.

Today he has a cartoon about the Cambodia story. He points out "WHAT'S REALLY INTERESTING about this Kerry cartoon from the Charlotte Observer is that it assumes the reader's knowledge of a story that's gotten, even today, very little coverage from the traditional media (including, based on a site search, the Observer itself.)"

Then he links back to an update to a post (gotta love the blogosphere):

But this story seems to me to be absolutely fascinating in that it reveals just how in the tank for the Democrats the mainstream media are, and how little the vaunted Cronkitean claims of objectivity and research and factual accuracy really mean when the chips are down.

To me, that's a bigger deal than the underlying issue or even, in some ways, the election itself. Elections come and go, politicians come and go, and pretty much all of them turn out to be disappointments one way or another. But the "Fourth Estate" is a big part of the unelected Permanent Government that in many ways does more to run the country than the politicians. And it's unraveling before our very eyes. Which I think is the biggest story of the election.

Things are happening too quickly now in an election to sift through. But I think it is going to be very difficult for any of the mainstream press to claim objectivity after this imbroglio. President Bush's "AWOL" story drew nine times the media coverage that the SwiftVets have. Maybe a sitting president is more interesting than a nominee -- but not nine times.

UPDATE: Glenn gets a candid email from a well known reporter admitting that he's right. Except "...it's not 'liberal' so much as it's partisan. Think of it like a sporting event where folks desperately want one team to win and the other to lose." Wow. Read it!

Posted by jk at August 19, 2004 08:24 AM