@Robert Rhea: Hey there! I was looking forward to ...

Kenneth M. Walsh (noreply@blogger.com, https://www.blogger.com/profile/01666275272819956774)
2019-01-25T16:31:30.543-05:00

@Robert Rhea: Hey there! I was looking forward to a MAGA-free Friday, but since you went to the trouble of writing this thoughtful and measured comment, I figured I owed you a response.

I agree with a lot of what you said, I just think you're off on a few key points. First, I never said my profession was under assault because of the Covington coverage. I agree with what you said is the real reason the media is under assault. I said the (shoddy, quick-take) coverage was adding fuel to the assault, something we hardly need right now. Second, the backlash -- from a lot of people I respect -- began long before a public relations firm was involved, so I don't see how that is to be credited in any meaningful way. I find it most curious that all of my friends -- many of whom work in PR and crisis management(!) -- are pointing to hiring a firm as some sort of smoking gun, though. (What does Kathy Griffin or anyone receiving death threats do in this kind of situation?)

But most of all, if you think a story saying that a group of students clashed with four black men who were preaching God's word (um, no), crashed an indigenous people's march (no), subjected the indigenous people to a hideous tirade of racist insults and fantasies (no, that was those other guys), while chanting "build a wall" (no evidence so far), corned a Native American who was trying to pass (no), who is a Vietnam veteran (no) and then mocked him (highly subjective) is "mostly correct," then I guess we in the journalism world should demand that Janet Cooke be given back her Pulitzer Prize, because I'm sure there was an 8-year-old who used heroin at least once somewhere.

Moving goalposts (what about the kids/school doing XYZ not at the event?) and accepting things based on truthiness used to be the right's M.O. But somehow because the only thing that's not in dispute is that they were wearing MAGA hats, no one can think straight here. That's fine for the public -- but journalists must do better.

P.S. I totally agree with your take on the media and Trump. (Boy was it exhausting to watch.) But I think Caitlin Flanagan is right about The New York Times, most notably when it had to roll back a story about the FBI opening a criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton. They tried so hard to be fair that they wound up being anything but.