Jimmie at the Sundries Shack takes on Eric Boehlert’s latest whine. Boehlert’s mantra — which he repeats to help himself sleep at night — is that he’s not like those “press hating” conservative media critics at all. No. The author of Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush just wants to “help” the press by rubbing their noses in their mistakes. He’s even reduced this argument into mantra form:
Obsessed with proving that all MSM reporting from Iraq and the Middle East is biased in favor of Islamic terrorists and therefore American news consumers aren’t getting the ‘truth’ about either region, LGF has been at the center of an on-going crusade to de-legitimize the press. (Conservative media critics are out to destroy the press; liberal critics want to make it better, stronger.)
I’ve written about this stupid argument before, but Jimmie specifically tackles the notion the conservative media critics like Charles Johnson at LGF “hate” the press:
Charles Johnson doesn’t, to my thinking, hate the MSM at all. He mistrusts it, because it has demonstrated a history of biased or unapologetically fgraudulent reporting. He mistrusts it because after scandal upon scandal, the MSM refuses to repair itself to ensure that the mistakes never happen again and acts with an air of arrogance seemingly safe in the knowledge that it has a monopoly on the news and that we’ll swallow any sludge it decided to feed us.
What we’re trying to destroy, Eric, is the idea that the press is fine the way it is. We see a lot of problems with the way news is reported in this country — problems we want to change. It’s exactly the same thing you’re trying to do with your press criticism. It’s what press criticism is. If being a press critic bothers you so much, go write about taxes or health care.