Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog: Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (David Broder Is a Real Winner! Edition)

August 30, 2004

Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (David Broder Is a Real Winner! Edition)

We have a winner in August's "most pathetic op-ed" contest: David Broder, who writes:

Policing Political Ads (washingtonpost.com): [I]n a nation with our Constitution's guarantee of free speech and a government whose decisions affect every aspect of life, the flow of money from the private sector into the political world will be almost impossible to control. What can be disciplined is the tendency of these ads to exaggerate, distort or flat-out lie. And the candidates who benefit from the ads are the ones who have the first responsibility -- along with the media -- to police them. The candidates ought to be judged by their willingness to tell their supporters when they have crossed the line.

A good idea. But the voice is passive: "the candidates ought to be judged..." Ought to be judged by whom? The problem is that the paragraph quoted above is not what it should be--the first paragraph of David Broder's column--but the last paragraph. The column is a judging of candidates-free zone. There is a missing subject of the active voice-version of Broder's last sentence is--the person who will judge candidates by their willingness to tell supporters that they have crossed the line. But whoever that subject is, it isn't David Broder. David Broder doesn't think it's his business to wonder why George W. Bush says that he understands "why Senator Kerry is upset with us," or to share with his readers what he's presumably heard with his own ears--that senior Republicans last December were boasting that voters would be confused about which side John Kerry had fought for in Vietnam after the White House was through with him.

Absolutely pathetic.

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, teach gym. But I certainly wouldn't want David Broder teaching either of my kids' gym classes.

Posted by DeLong at August 30, 2004 02:13 PM | TrackBack

Comments

Oo, oo! I have an even worse one:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50500-2004Jul14.html

This one's got all the Broder trademarks: no serious analysis, banal commentary, and a total unwillingess to take a stand on anything. Writing about "Our Broken Health Care System," Broder concludes:

"Last month G. Richard Wagoner Jr.... was quoted in the Detroit Free Press as telling a business conference that rising health care costs are crippling the competitiveness of U.S. business and should be the top issue for the winner of November's presidential election.

'It is well beyond time for all of us to put partisan politics behind us,' Wagoner said, 'and get together to address this health care crisis.' The message is coming through -- loud and clear. Whoever is president will find the issue waiting for him."

What penetrating insight! Whoever the next president is, health care will be an issue for him. My God, I'da never thought of that...

Posted by: Brad Reed at August 30, 2004 02:23 PM

Those who can't teach gym, administrate.

Posted by: SP at August 30, 2004 02:30 PM

Give him a break. He's geriatric.

Posted by: Luke Lea at August 30, 2004 02:41 PM

And what leads you to think that he'd do any better--or that the WaPo would do any better? Didn't the handling of Clinton's impeachment show us the priorities of the popular press--what it wants, and what it aims for? (Emerson said it best: "Nothing is got for nothing".)

Posted by: alabama at August 30, 2004 02:48 PM

Here's how much of a hack David Broder is. In January of this year, he came to New Hampshire to cover the primary. The entire state was crawling with rabid Democrats and almost-as-rabid independents and even some partially-rabid Republicans who were sick and tired of George W. Bush and Broder said on TV something like: I don't see any way President Bush can lose the election.

Posted by: Vicki Meagher at August 30, 2004 03:36 PM

David Broder is a one trick pony.

Here's the trick.

Observe the polls and follow the conventional wisdom.

Once it's safe to do so, embrace the conventional wisdom in a somewhat even-handed aw shucks kind of way.

Voila: you are the wise Dean of the press corps.

Posted by: praktike at August 30, 2004 04:39 PM

Ya know, if a guy is writing something, at least show an interest in the subject.

Posted by: T at August 30, 2004 04:58 PM

"...What can be disciplined is the tendency of these ads to exaggerate, distort or flat-out lie...."

How? He is obligated to tell us how. But he doesn't, because he can't, because it can't be done.

Posted by: Frank Wilhoit at August 30, 2004 05:02 PM

DeLong has already shown his chops by quoting key (and obscure) lines from The Simpsons, the greatest TV show of all time. Now he is quoting from School of Rock, the greatest movie of all time. Not too shabby.

Posted by: David J. Balan at August 30, 2004 05:15 PM

Frank: sure it can. But the press would have to resume (after a serious layoff) doing the sorts of things that used to be standard parts of its job description, like ascertaining the reliability of their sources, and digging up and reporting the facts.

And, in its editorial function, being willing to call a lie a lie, and to call a serial liar a liar.

But as Brad says, David Broder, the ultimate Wise Old Washington Insider, can't be bothered to do his part, and the news side of his paper can't be bothered to do its part.

I lived in Bristol, VA, for five years in the mid-90s. Somewhere around 1994, the Bristol Herald-Courier 'upgraded' its op-ed page by adding Broder and George Will. (The scary thing was, this *was* an upgrade for a paper whose op-ed page featured Cal Thomas.) After reading those (even then) worn-out gasbags for a year or so, it became apparent to me that neither one had had a new idea the entire time, and neither one was likely to have a worthwhile insight in the next year, either.

The Bristol Herald-Courier didn't have much in it that was worth reading, but I decided that it was less onerous to run out of paper to read before I finished my coffee, than it was to read their overrated flatulence.

Posted by: RT at August 30, 2004 05:20 PM

Broder is proof positive that it isn't just cream that rises to the top.

Posted by: Knut Wicksell at August 30, 2004 06:05 PM

"Those who can't teach gym, administrate."

And those who can't administrate go into politics.

Posted by: Dragonchild at August 30, 2004 06:11 PM

Broder is hopeless.
When did Mallaby kick the kool aid habit?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45418-2004Aug29.html

Is this why he left The Economist?

"Perhaps Bush fails to understand that his policies are unsustainable, or perhaps he understands but refuses to say so. In other words he is either ignorant or dishonest: Neither suggests that he deserves the trust of the electorate."

Posted by: bakho at August 30, 2004 07:22 PM

Oh how glorious.

Broder has been swine fodder for years but totters onto talk shows and into op-ed pages as if he owns the farm. I never read or watch this man, it's too enervating and soul-sucking. Broder is the Oatmeal Man.

Eat, piggies, eat.

Posted by: John H. Farr at August 31, 2004 12:56 AM

What alabama and Knut Wicksell wrote.

Also: The best portrait of Broder I've seen is in Eric Alterman's book on the punditocracy, _Sound and Fury_.

Posted by: liberal at August 31, 2004 06:12 AM

RT wrote, "But the press would have to resume (after a serious layoff) doing the sorts of things that used to be standard parts of its job description, like ascertaining the reliability of their sources, and digging up and reporting the facts."

But when has the press really done this, in say the post-WWII era in the US?

Posted by: liberal at August 31, 2004 06:14 AM

bakho wrote, "When did Mallaby kick the kool aid habit?"

Who said he did? In
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50944-2004Aug8.html
he wrote:

"Bush ousted Saddam Hussein, whereas the Democratic establishment, which also believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and also talked the talk of regime change, would never have done anything so risky."

Last paragraph: "So which should I prefer? A candidate whose foreign policy instincts are wrong? Or one whose implementation discredits his good policy? A candidate who lacks the guts to be for trade, or a candidate with an anorexic compulsion to starve the government of money? There are ways to balance these factors, and I'll do that another time. But if people see this as an easy choice, they see something I'm missing."

Posted by: liberal at August 31, 2004 06:19 AM

If we had a press that took a few minutes away from its "he said-she said" clowning and took its fact-checking responsibility seriously, we wouldn't have to worry what's put in these silly ads. The more ridiculous ads would be exposed as fraudulent and immediately laughed off the air, as they should be.

Instead, we have media clowns, such as Broder, who are just putting in their time until they can get their first retirement check from their employers. I trust that we still have a few reliable historians, who may one day record that the decline of the American press was the beginning of the end of the republic.

Posted by: Mushinronsha at August 31, 2004 08:20 AM

Wanna know what blows me away by all this discussion of 527s by Broder and the rest?

It's the idea that if you buy tiny amounts of advertising time for political speech then your activities should be regulated and scrutinized.

However if you buy a network, or if you work for a network then you are perfectly free to say and repeat whatever political nonsense you want without regulation or scrutiny.

It completely amazes me that we think that the swift boat guys or moveon.org need to be regulated in some way when there is absolutely no regulation of the corporate money that buys the networks themselves. Speech is speech right? What's the difference between the swift boat liars and the FOX commentators other than the fact that one group paid for their airtime and the other gets paid for their drivel. Why single out the swift boat guys for going on the air for a few 30 second ads in a few cities when Rush Limbaugh spends hours on the air every day repeating the same lies and worse?

Speech is speech is speech whether you have to pay to get on the air or get paid to be on the air. I frankly don't see the difference and I think they should all be held to the same standards of accuracy, at least on the public airwaves. If the FCC stopped chasing after Howard Stern for toilet humor and started fining candidates, advocacy groups, AND the media for making or repeating lies on the air then we might start seeing better coverage and more careful reporting. But I don't have any hope of that ever happening.

Posted by: Kent at August 31, 2004 08:25 AM

"If we had a press that took a few minutes away from its "he said-she said" clowning and took its fact-checking responsibility seriously..."

I don't understand. What do journalism schools teach? Do they teach reporting, or do they teach stenography and lexical sculpture? Do journalism graduates come out and promptly discard the "fact-based reporting" of their training, or did they never get such training in the first place?

Enquiring minds want to know.

Posted by: Anna at August 31, 2004 12:35 PM

p.s. that's a sincere question.

Posted by: Anna at August 31, 2004 12:47 PM

I suppose I don't buy the criticism. Surely it's obvious that Broder means *voters* ought to do the judging when he says, "The candidates ought to be judged by their willingness to tell their supporters when they have crossed the line."

While that may seem pat or naive, I don't know what good alternatives there are. Untruthful political speech can only be punished by defeat at the polls, unless, I suppose, it crosses the line into slander or libel -- where the US rightly imposes a tough standard for "figures in the public eye," I think the phrase is.

If I read your objection correctly, then, you seem to wish the press would both detect, report, *and* pass withering judgment on falsehoods like those of the Swifties. Broder is of a different opinion: detect and report only, and leave judgments to the voters. That's a little artificial, I agree -- but it's not as dishonorable as you imply.

Broder implicitly ignores the he-said/she-said equivalency problem in these kind of things, and maybe he shouldn't. But you might also consider that voters shouldn't need to have their hands held by a more activist press all the way to the conclusion that Swifties are liars and Bush is scum for making them a tacit feature of his campaign -- no matter how true I think that is.

Rather, that conclusion may be properly the voters' alone to make, and beyond the scope of the news media's role.

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