Old media dethroned

Los Angeles Times ^ | August 9, 2008 | Tim Rutten

[libstripper]

When John Edwards admitted Friday that he lied about his affair with filmmaker Rielle Hunter, a former employee of his campaign, he may have ended his public life but he certainly ratified an end to the era in which traditional media set the agenda for national political journalism.

From the start, the Edwards scandal has belonged entirely to the alternative and new media. The tabloid National Enquirer has done all the significant reporting on it -- reporting that turns out to be largely correct -- and bloggers and online commentators have refused to let the story sputter into oblivion.

[libstripper]

Just as good as Rathergate and the coverup of the Sewiftvets' entirely accurate charges. The DBM takes it here even worse than Edwards.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Is Rutten a reporter at the LAT ?

[ThreePuttinDude]

TheMediaReport.com

Examining the Los Angeles Times and today's media

[ Main ] [ Links ] [ Special ] [ Archives ] [ Contact / About ]

 

LA Times Critic: Geraldo Rivera at Katrina Was Like A "Vulture on Crystal Meth"

Tim Rutten and criticism don't mix.

- September 2005 -

 

        Los Angeles Times' media critic Tim Rutten has long had a somewhat troubled relationship with reality (for just a few examples, see here, here, and here). He also has never been shy about letting his liberal political views get in the way of doing what he actually should be doing: Analyzing the media in a fair and objective way.

        However, his liberal slams on conservative media reached a new low in his weekly column, "It's hard to feel bad for Geraldo" (Sat. Sept. 17, 2005) (reg. req'd), which begins as follows (emphasis mine):

"IT would be comforting to believe that Geraldo Rivera is inexplicable.

"Sadly, when we consider Rupert Murdoch's ceaseless schemes for global domination and the venal blood lust that pulses through Fox News, Geraldo is easy to explain — which makes him simply inexcusable.

"Seeing him descend bright-eyed and sweaty on wretched New Orleans, as he did in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, was like watching a vulture on crystal meth. The word that came to mind was not 'reporting,' but 'feeding.'"

        "Ceaseless schemes for global domination"? "Venal blood lust"? Vultures on crystal meth? Is Rutten talking about a television network or a murderous, communist dictatorship?

        And that was just the beginning of the article!

        Rutten's article then relays Geraldo's ongoing battle with the New York Times surrounding critic Alessandra Stanley's apparently false claim that Rivera "nudged" a rescue worker in order to capture video footage. Rutten's conclusion? Well, Geraldo has had a couple troublesome episodes with reporting in his own history, so he basically deserves Stanley's smear. Nice, eh? Then, in a laughable example of hypocrisy, Rutten lectures his readers on the utmost importance of "a critic's credibility." Puh-leeze.

        It's nearly impossible to imagine Rutten taking such a cynical and mean-spirited approach towards CNN or any other news network. (For example, can you imagine?: "Sadly, when we consider Ted Turner's ceaseless schemes for global domination and the venal blood lust that pulses through CNN, Anderson Cooper is easy to explain — [it] was like watching a vulture on crystal meth." Uh-uh. It would never happen.)

 

TheMediaReport.com says ... "Los Angeles Times: We have a problem ... with being an objective observer ."

[libstripper]

He’s a columnist. Loooks like LAT’s way of trying to duck the fire.

[TomGuy]

he certainly ratified an end to the era in which traditional media set the agenda for national political journalism.

No he hasn't.

It was the National Enquirer that brought the Clinton affair to the public. Drudge may have had it online, but the Interenet was still new and had comparatively few users. It was the NE with 11 million paid circulation and front page racks at nearly every grocery and convenience story that brought the Clinton affair to the public. The old media had sat on it, had known about it, but had refused to report on it. The NE forced it into the pubic and that forced the old media to being reporting on it.

The NE has done the same with the Edwards affair. You can bet the old media knew (or at least highly suspected) Edwards had extra-curricular things going on. They just chose not to report it.

[Recall nearly a year ago the stories that the LA Times was sitting on 'a sex scandal' involving 'one of the major candidates'? Was this it, or is there another scandal out there waiting to hit? Only the NE knows for sure. lol]

[csmusaret]

The Enquirer is “new” media?

[longtermmemmory]

I think the issue is one of real information.

CNN listed as “breaking” a story that was WEEKS old.

The institutional papers were REFUSING to cover the story and are now giving excuses.

The dethroning is the fact that we HAVE TO go OTHER places for factual stories.

CNN, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, and EVEN FNC are essentially reduced to fluff work and after the fact reporting. (bimbo reporting, dead blond de jour, anything geraldo says...)

[kellynla]

“With that admission, the illusion that traditional print and broadcast news organizations can establish the limits of acceptable political journalism joined the passenger pigeon on the roster of extinct Americana.”

Great piece!

And in the...Gasp!...Los Angeles Times, no less! LOL

Thanks for posting it!

[dr_who]

Yep, the NYT, WashPo, Knight Ridder, AP, etc make the National Enquirer look like a respectable news publication. Remember the mainstream coverage of the Gennifer Flowers episode?

[longtermmemmory]

Passenger Pigeon Media!



.

[Chode]

and the RATS, take another one in the..................HA ha!!!

[Dr. Sivana]

The Enquirer is “new” media?

Only in the same way that a different use of AM radio can be considered "new" media. The Enquirer has remade itself to keep sales up, and now covers political and celebrity stories much better than they used to. In the 70's, they ran the "Hitler is Alive" stories and stuff like that, but they and the Star moved beyond that, while the Weekly World News and the Sun hammed it up even more. The Globe continues to just make stuff up.

Somewhere along the way, the Enquirer got it first and right often enough to be worth checking out.

[mewzilla]

The eighth paragraph of the column says it all.

[mewzilla]

Paging Wolf Blitzer in particular: See the 8th paragraph.

[semantic]

Passenger Pigeon Media!

Ah, the good 'ole PPM; so obsolete and so clueless that they barely recognize their own demise.

Seriously, I've said it before and I'll say it again: future generations will look upon citizens of the pre-Net era with the same pity we hold for victims of Pravda and other Soviet propaganda.

[semantic]

Only in the same way that a different use of AM radio can be considered "new" media. The Enquirer has remade itself

That's the beauty of capitalism - walk away from a market as the PPM has, and someone will 'Rush' (pun intended) to fill the void.

[ExTexasRedhead]

The Muslim Messiah’s dirty laundry including corruption needs to be exposed next.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

"Hey! Where's our 'Fairness Doctrine'?" cry the MSM employees.

"We could squash a story like swatting a fly in the good old days. It's not fair! Everything today is so.. so divisive. It's bad for our democracy."

[Kaslin]

You don’t have to be a reporter to write an editorial. If you look close the piece was written under Opinion

[xzins]

The dethroning is the fact that we HAVE TO go OTHER places for factual stories.

That is an excellent line, my friend. It is one of those succinct bullseyes that summarize an entire issue. Thanks.