The Lazy Media
Within minutes of the first reports Saturday that Representative Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, and a score of people with her had been shot in Tucson, pages began disappearing from the Web. One was Sarah Palin’s infamous “cross hairs” map from last year, which showed a series of contested Congressional districts, including Ms. Giffords’s, with gun targets trained on them. Another was from Daily Kos, the liberal blog, where one of the congresswoman’s apparently liberal constituents declared her “dead to me” after Ms. Giffords voted against Nancy Pelosi in House leadership elections last week.
This lede sums up the absurdity of he-said/she-said journalism and stupidly cynical “everybody does it” analysis in a few short words.
Boy, Matt Bai really had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find that false equivalence, didn’t he?
Tags: Fair and Balanced, Matt Bai, New York Times, So-Called Liberal Media
They usually have to scrape the bottom of the barrel for their false equivalence. This fake objectivity is so much more important to them than information or even holding powerful people accountable.
The false equivalencies still serve to help the belligerent right wing — whose horrific acts get laundered into normalcy by this stupid “everyone does it” crap.
Matt Bai is an exceptionally talented writer and researcher. He champions the cause of most Progressive ideals. He even wrote a book on the effect of the ‘Net Roots’ movement and the comeuppance of the Democracy Alliance project. He is also an aquaintance of mine.
The only False Equivalence here is the de facto manner in which liberal-minded posters on here believe in their own puritanical self-righteousness, bereft from reality.
Besides, I was actually shocked that Bai’s editor at The New York Times allowed him to use so many GOP-related examples as compared to providing a more balanced approach. But of course it’s the NYT.
The media is only Lazy if its conclusions do not fit your own world view.
No statement from DEGOP leader, Christine O’Donnell, yet?
Yeah, he’s a great researcher. He really had to look hard to find something so he’d be allowed to write about Sarah Palin and her irresponsible rhetoric.
I love how a diarist on Daily Kos has the same power and influence as Sarah Palin.
May we all in the anticipated moments of silence to come,search, reflect and repent on our own mispoken metaphors and hyperbole. Whether it’s guns, gays, or genetic frailties, we’ve all been guilty. And no one can ever predict which words corresponded, and which words corrupted. May the pen continue to be mightier than the sword, and we not forget anyone can use a sword. Those of us disciplined to use a pen, should excercise that same discipline of responsible, mature thoughts or rhetoric to impart on those readers or listeners. Because those reaching for a sword may not have been given a word as an alternative.
It’s a sad day when “bear arms, lock and load, targets, 2nd amendment alternatives, and crosshairs” has permeated mainstream vernacular from a time when it was assumed a crime scene or hunting camp was being discussed.
Let’s not continue to normalize this jargon.
JC seems to assume that Beck and Palin were using metaphors and not speaking literally. I, on the other hand, am very sure that Beck, Palin and their followers regard Democrats as the literal enemy.
How many times to we have to be told that we are the enemy befor we take them at their word? How many Democrats have to be shot for the crime of being Democrats before we get that they mean what they say?
“bear arms, lock and load, targets, 2nd amendment alternatives, and crosshairs” is not jargon. It is not metaphorical speech at all. It is a literal creed.
I’m with jason 330.
Democrats, liberals, progressives, unions, working people, the middle-class and the poor are ALL in the gun-sights of REPUBLICAN politicians working for their corporate masters.And I agree, LITERALLY.
If America didn’t have a constitution and STAND for freedom they’d run all malcontents into prison or worse for not working for the wages and under the conditions they’d DICTATE.
The BLUNT-SKULLS under their sway who continue to vote for them will one day wake up. I hope.
Or else, WE’RE all doomed.
Raw Story linked to her 2010 opponent’s fundraising advert. He was inviting people to shoot rifle targets with him for entertainment. Not to say she was superimposed on the targets but the gun play was real, literal shit in a context of a 2010 outcome – one that Sharon Angle and others called for bullets if the ballots didn’t work to bring GOPers into office.
Sorry, there is no DEM equivalent to that.
The dkos diarist featured in the NYT article speaks.
Thanks, UI. You’ll notice one thing there that you won’t in any conservative post anywhere on the internet — a willingness to examine his own wrongdoing.
Holy shit, batman – that is some link, UI. Some Gabrielle Gifffords vs Jesse Kelly stories straight from the district firsthand accounts.
Her show on TLC has been canceled.