Sounding A Little Desperate There?

Another grenade lob in the perennial war between the two most hated groups in America: pols and journos.

I hope they destroy each other. It will free me up to go antiquing.

Notice how he claims American people aren't stupid... He's right. We understand that the attack by this administration on the media is to try to make us think the media is stupid. That way we can't believe what they say about the politicians.

Great spin there, Rover Boy.

I wonder if there is any administration who never criticised the media.

Not if that media was fulfilling its function as watchdog and citizenry-informer.

Blatham,

I am pretty confident you can't name an administration that hasn't criticised the media.

The media has been listed at the very top of most hated professions (sometimes sharing billing with lawyers) in the US for the past 20 years.

Rove's statements were nothing new.

Just bringing a bit of stuff to support my statements:

1996 Reporters and pols distrusted PBS

More, yeah, hated.

Clinton criticizes media

I remember Thomas Jefferson being pretty pissed at the media...

Anyway, just wanted to put some links with my statements.

lash

I was agreeing with your statement suggesting all adminstrations will/do/have criticized the media. There's good reason for that, if the media is doing its proper job.

However, that does not mean that all instances of political distaste for media (and attempts to thwart media criticism) are equal. Johnston's "goddamned liberal media!" complaint is not the same species of creature as we see in totalitarian states.

And that isn't an either/or, on/off proposition. There are gradations in between. What Rove and this administration are doing constitutes a greater and more serious move to undermine an independent press than anything I know of in US history.

Weighing in to agree with Blatham.

Yes. But wouldn't it follow that you are presupposing that the media is always doing it's job, and is impervious to human frailties, such as self-promotion, bias or greed...to name three?

I agree to a degree with your statement--but I think the accurate view is a bit less trusting of the media.

Have you made a statement elsewhere to support your Rove/Bush exceptional push to destroy media?

BBB
"The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787. ME 6:57

Thomas Jefferson quotes about the freedom of the press:
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1600.htm

Not impervious, no. Nothing necessarily saintly regarding the individuals/companies involved in media. In that, they are quite the same as politicans, probably particularly now when such money and social status even celebrityhood can attend TV news personalities (print far far less so). Cronkite and Matthews are very different "news" creatures.

Now, of course, we also have the factor of corporate control of major media and the evolution of newsrooms from more independent operations to operations which have corporate profit as the senior guiding principle. And, related, the tendencies to gear coverage so as not to offend and therebye hurt profits.

What "saintliness" attends independent news reporting has to do with their function. A better way to say this is "essential to a democracy". Its the same sort of "saintliness" as that which the congress or SC have in their role as essential balance to executive power.

I've written a lot over the last few years on this administration's moves to stifle independence in the press but the best place is probably http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=69502&start=0

More than that single press issue comes in here, but that issue makes up a senior part of the discussion.