Thursday, February 16, 2006
The Media Elite
"In the absence of any pressing news these days -- other than Iran's nuclear weapons development crisis, the election of Hamas terrorists in Palestine, on-going worldwide Muslim riots and killing in reaction to a cartoon, Al Gore's near sedition while speaking in Saudi Arabia, the turning over of our East Coast ports to be managed by a United Arab Emirates firm, the criminal leaking of vital NSA secrets to the New York Times, Mexican military incursions across our southern border, the Iraqi crisis, Congress's refusal to deal with the developing financial collapse of Social Security and Medicare, ... -- the White House press corps has exploded in righteous fury over the question of the vice president's little shooting party last weekend.
As I understand the profound concern of the ever alert White House reporters, they smell a constitutional crisis because the shooting party failed to alert the media of the accidental shooting down in Corpus Christi, Texas. Well, actually they did alert the Corpus Christi media — but that didn't count. Unless the exalted ones have been formally informed by an official government press secretary, no public communication has technically occurred....
When an out-of-town newspaper got the scoop, the dignity of the White House press corps had been impeached, so they threw a public temper tantrum. ...
[The] Washington press corps, and particularly the White House press corps, has developed, as an institution, a grossly dilated view of itself. Most of us can tolerate arrogance, if it is accompanied by extraordinary capacity and virtuosity. The brilliant scientist, the war-winning general, the great artists are entitled to their pride.
But the hallmark of the Washington press corps these days is mediocrity, groupthink, a lack of curiosity and rampant careerism.
...
We live at a moment of revolutionary change in the international order. The rise and violence of radical, possibly caliphate-forming Islam and the huge, culture-changing, unexamined consequences of rampant globalization make the present one of the least predictable moments to be alive.
... We need the kind of future-oriented intellectual vigor, curiosity and genuine iconoclasm that typified American reporters in the first half of the last century.
Instead, as the shooting-party incident exemplified, we have in the White House at the most elite level of American journalism, self-absorbed, self-important men and women who stand on their prerogatives even over marginal and inconsequential matters.
Should they ever have a truly daring, creative, productive, hard-researched idea about what is going on in this dangerous world — they should alert the media."
Excerpts from "The shooting party" - Tony Blankley - The Washington Times ¶ Thursday, February 16, 2006
As I understand the profound concern of the ever alert White House reporters, they smell a constitutional crisis because the shooting party failed to alert the media of the accidental shooting down in Corpus Christi, Texas. Well, actually they did alert the Corpus Christi media — but that didn't count. Unless the exalted ones have been formally informed by an official government press secretary, no public communication has technically occurred....
When an out-of-town newspaper got the scoop, the dignity of the White House press corps had been impeached, so they threw a public temper tantrum. ...
[The] Washington press corps, and particularly the White House press corps, has developed, as an institution, a grossly dilated view of itself. Most of us can tolerate arrogance, if it is accompanied by extraordinary capacity and virtuosity. The brilliant scientist, the war-winning general, the great artists are entitled to their pride.
But the hallmark of the Washington press corps these days is mediocrity, groupthink, a lack of curiosity and rampant careerism.
...
We live at a moment of revolutionary change in the international order. The rise and violence of radical, possibly caliphate-forming Islam and the huge, culture-changing, unexamined consequences of rampant globalization make the present one of the least predictable moments to be alive.
... We need the kind of future-oriented intellectual vigor, curiosity and genuine iconoclasm that typified American reporters in the first half of the last century.
Instead, as the shooting-party incident exemplified, we have in the White House at the most elite level of American journalism, self-absorbed, self-important men and women who stand on their prerogatives even over marginal and inconsequential matters.
Should they ever have a truly daring, creative, productive, hard-researched idea about what is going on in this dangerous world — they should alert the media."
Excerpts from "The shooting party" - Tony Blankley - The Washington Times ¶ Thursday, February 16, 2006
Comments:
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I read Blankley often, but I had missed this column. Thanks.
I used to think of the MSM as a bunch of jackals. Now I think of them as a bunch of spoiled brat jackals ;-)
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I used to think of the MSM as a bunch of jackals. Now I think of them as a bunch of spoiled brat jackals ;-)
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