It's not often that we find ourselves disagreeing with NRO's Jim Geraghty, but this is one of those times. Last week on his NRO blog Campaign Spot, Geraghty wrote this about the Journolistas:
I don’t think anybody begrudges liberal activists and journalists their right to free association, either in the physical world or the Internet/e-mail world. But hearing that the Marc Ambinders, Ben Smiths, Mike Allens, and other non-liberal correspondents were on the list is eye-opening and potentially troublesome.Which leads us to ask, what evidence is there that Ambinder, Smith, Allen et al are "non-liberal" in any way, shape or form? These three and others like them may be in the "mainstream" of contemporary journalism, but the journalistic mainstream is liberal. What we have seen from Ambinder, Smith and Allen has been decidedly left of center and condescinding at best toward Sarah Palin. That's what led libertarian journalist Bernard Goldberg to coin the term "lamestream media" and Gov. Palin to adopt it with open arms.
Let’s say you’re one of these guys, and while JournoList existed, you wrote an article arguing something like, “Sarah Palin just completely mishandled this issue.” I find it likely that the JournoList crowd would respond in their chat board, “Great piece by [JournoList Participant X], he really astutely lays out how she screwed up, etc.” Now let’s say he wrote, “Palin just hit it out of the park.” The response on JournoList, I suspect, would be or was quite negative, accusations of stupidity, dishonesty, hackdom, etc. Sure, journalists are always getting feedback and criticism from all quarters. But the mainstream folks on JournoList were hanging around a crowd that pretty clearly was determined to influence the conversation about the presidential race, touting some stories as important and blocking off others as unfit for serious news attention.
Frankly, we're amazed that Jim Geraghty, whom we've always considered to be a very perceptive fellow, doesn't get this. But then again, his employer is not William F. Buckley's National Review anymore.
- JP
Josh - I agree, these conservative pundits, Washington GOP consultants and the RNC itself, have no idea how corrupted the main stream media has become. They still think they can play nice and be friendly with the MSM and they will get fair reporting out of them. They are totally clueless. If conservative candidates are to be successful they must view the media as part of the liberal opposition.
ReplyDeleteA case in point is the thread currently up on Memeorandum. The RNC is concerned about the Sharron Angle campaign so they have hired Brian Jones to coordinate the media strategy for the Angle, Fiorina and Washington state senate campaigns.
Who is Brian Jones? Well surprise, surprise. He was in charge of Sarah's 2008 VP press, media and communications team. Yeah, he did such a wonderful job there lets bring him back to head up three senate campaign media strategies. Again, he is one of these clueless DC consultants who doesn't understand the media is out to destroy his clients. Angle's campaign needs to tell the RNC thanks but no thanks to Jones.
Everytime one of these fools from the McCain campaign shows up in another campaign we need to call them out. I wonder if Jones was one of those annonymous staffers trashing Sarah after the campaign? Again, Angle's campaign needs to tell him to take a hike.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Jones_(politician)
Josh - some further info on Brian Jones. He is the Managing Director of Mercury Public Affairs. Steve Schmidt of course is a senior partner in Mercury Public Affairs who brought Jones in to run Sarah's communications team. He is widely seen as a protege of Schmidt.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.muckety.com/Brian-Jones/4707.muckety
In fact, Brian Jones is quoted in a Politico story defending Steve Schmidt after his 6o Minutes interview where he trashed Sarah after the book Game Change was released. We need to expose all of these incompetent McCain staffers and consultants whenever they appear in another Republican campaign! Sharron Angle needs to stay far away from him - especially if he tells her its a good idea to do 10 hours of taped interviews with Katie Couric !
Rusty - excellent data! I have forwarded your first commentary here to my Congressman (Wally Herger)asking him to inform any RNC contacts he has that this idiocy has got to stop. I also sent it on to Sal Russo, with the Tea Party Express, asking him to do his best to keep Brian Jones as far away from Sharron Angle as possible. Am I doing the right thing? I think so.
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