[marron]

While we're at it, here is another nugget from Sullivan that is worth reading.


Wednesday, October 15, 2003

WHAT LIBERAL MEDIA?

Don't miss Jill Stewart's post-mortem on the Los Angeles Times' attempt to destroy Arnold Schwarzenegger by any journalistic means necessary. Here are money quotes from someone Stewart calls a "longtime, respected Timesian involved in the Schwarzenegger coverage":

Toward the end, a kind of hysteria gripped the newsroom. I witnessed a deep-seated, irrational need to get something on this guy [Schwarzenegger]. By Wednesday before it was published, I counted not fewer than 24 reporters dispatched on Arnold, and this entire enterprise was directed by John Carroll himself. Carroll launched the project with the words: 'I want a full scrub of Arnold.' This was fully and completely and daily driven by Carroll.

He's as good as his word on being balanced and trying to make this paper more balanced, he really is. But not when it came to Schwarzenegger. Carroll changed completely. It was visceral, and he made it clear he wanted something bad on Schwarzenegger and he didn't care what it was.

The air of unreality among people here was so extreme that when they did the office pool, of something like 113 people who put in a dollar to bet on the outcome of the recall and on who would be chosen governor, only 31 bet 'yes' on recall and 'yes' Schwarzenegger to win. All you had to do was read a poll to know how wrong that was, but inside this place only about 25 percent of the people could see the recall coming...

The mainstream press critics like those published on Romenesko are asleep as to what has happened here. They are defending the L.A. Times in every way. There should be no defense by media critics of what happened here. One woman did not sleep for two nights after a Times reporter showed up at her door, with the thinnest evidence, demanding to know if her child was Arnold's love child. It never panned out, it was untrue. Why has the L.A. Times become a tabloid, knocking relentlessly on people's doors for tabloid gossip? And would John Carroll have run a front page Love Child story if it had been true? Could we sink any lower?

[the Real fifi]

Sullivan is one of the finest conservative writers and minds. If he objects, it is because the Republican party is so often unfairly tagged as racist and anti-gay, tags which limit its appeal. There is no reason to give ammunition to your enemies, and a more prudent pol would not have allowed this meeting or photo.