the failures of journalism
Today's top-drawer Washington newspeople are part of a highly educated, upper-middle-class elite; they belong to the culture for which the American political system works exceedingly well. Which is to say, they are, in the pure sense of the word, extremely conservative.
Most probably passed childhood in economically sheltered times, came to adulthood in the years of plenty, went to good colleges where they developed conventionally progressive social consciences, and have now inherited the comforting benefits that sixty years of liberal government have created for the middle class.
This is not a background likely to produce angry reporters and aggressive editors. If few made much fuss about President Bush's granting boons to those already rolling in money, their silence may not have been because they feared the vengeance of bosses, but only because the capacity for outrage had been bred out of them. Belonging to the upper-middle-class elite may do that.
Russell Baker, in a letter to the New York Review of Books. Via Romenesko.
Comments
The Washington Post is an unreadable paper.
Sometimes their online discussions are pretty good, but ask the President of the Steel Workers association why he wants to hide behind Bush's steel tariffs, you get know answer.
Protectionism for American's elite must die!
Posted by: d fresh | December 15, 2003 3:52 PM
The Post has a few good writers -- Anne Hull and DeNeen Brown come to mind -- but you're right. My objection is it's dense and overly wonky. They have been kicking ass on the WMD questions, though, even if they for some reason bury the stories on A26.
Posted by: nedlog | December 15, 2003 4:02 PM
[...] "These are people who have been to rather good colleges, who come out of that secure, upper-middle-class culture that has flourished in the United States with the help of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the GI Bill of Rights. It's now easy in this country to become substantially educated and, therefore, well paid.
"I was a journalist for 50 years and hate to pronounce, but these are not adventuresome people. How could they be? Most have been to college and then have gone directly into journalism. What can you expect with that sort of background?"
"It's like working at Wal-Mart [...] which I suppose is the survival form of poverty in today's economy. If you don't have to do it and nobody you know has to do it, you just don't think about it. Most people in journalism today don't anticipate ever being in a Wal-Mart as anything but a shopper."
"The old-timers I met on those trips were an odd mixture. Many had only high school educations. One very good correspondent for the Scripps chain had spent the Depression pounding out tunes on a piano in a five-and-dime. They had a raffish but informative experience of the world that is very hard for journalists to acquire now.
"When I started out as a police reporter, I lived next door to a cop. Reporters don't come out of those neighborhoods nowadays. We've all moved uptown. Today, reporters join clubs. They play golf."
Russell Baker quotes from "Affluence remakes the newsroom," Tim Rutten's Dec. 13 "Regarding Media" column in the Los Angeles Times
Posted by: George | December 17, 2003 5:28 AM