The left side of the blogosphere is often extremely critical of media institutions like the Washington Post and the New York Times. True the right is far more critical, and vicious, but our we have no obligation to compete with the wingnuts for ugliness.
So I think that every so often we should thank these outlets. In today's Times, for example, they devote a lot of front page real estate to topics that they know will subject them to attack. Their piece on "Struggling Back From War's Once-Deadly Wounds" will elicit an entirely predictable outcry from Rush, Sean etc etc. Rush will be on Armed Forces Radio, again advising our troops how the liberals wished more of them died in combat. He will denounce the hatred and bloodlust by the left directed at our Armed Forces.
"Pakistan's Push in Border Areas is Said to Falter ... -... Members of Al Qaeda Are Seen Guiding Militants in Tribal Lands" will immediately be called inaccurate liberal defeatism. It will once again be noted how the Press only reports negative news about our Glorious Leader's Crusade. The "cowardly" press will be condemned again.
The paper of record, which gave us Judith Miller and sat on the FISA scandal for far too long, at least finally gave us the scandal. It also reported on the failure of Bush's illegal wiretapping to turn up much of anything - a report which was guaranteed to arouse the right's attack dogs. The WaPo reports today on how the Bush propaganda machine is intervening in Palestinian elections.
We have to hold these guys to a higher standard. But we also have to be grateful for the courage which they do at times display. Imagine our wold with only Gannet, USA Today, and Rupert Murdoch keeping us misinformed.
I agree bustard, but I think these papers have to be even more aggressive in their reporting--you can almost feel their fear when reporting information contrary to the Bush administration's party line,
Posted by: sisterblog | January 22, 2006 at 07:45 PM