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Dan Froomkin: Shutdown Coverage Fails Americans
holding the entire government hostage while demanding the de facto repeal of a president’s signature legislation and not even bothering to negotiate is by any reasonable standard an extreme political act. It is an attempt to make an end run around the normal legislative process. There is no historical precedent for it. The last shutdowns, in 1995 and 1996, were not the product of unilateral demands to scrap existing law; they took place during a period of give-and-take budget negotiations.
But the political media’s aversion to doing anything that might be seen as taking sides — combined with its obsession with process — led them to actively obscure the truth in their coverage of the votes. If you did not already know what this was all about, reading the news would not help you understand. What makes all this more than a journalistic failure is that the press plays a crucial role in our democracy. We count on the press to help create an informed electorate. And perhaps even more important, we rely on the press to hold the powerful accountable.
That requires calling out political leaders when they transgress or fail to meet commonly agreed-upon standards: when they are corrupt, when they deceive, when they break the rules and refuse to govern. Such exposure is the first consequence. When the transgressions are sufficiently grave, what follows should be continued scrutiny, marginalization, contempt and ridicule. In the current political climate, journalistic false equivalence leads to an insufficiently informed electorate, because the public is not getting an accurate picture of what is going on.
More here
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Two Perfect Examples
There is no choice but for their to be a negotiation on debt limit if only to negotiate on how much to lift it.
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Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) October 06, 2013BOEHNER: "Call me, maybe."
OBAMA: "All you're ever gonna be is mean."
Our government is run by teenage pop divas.
#shutdown #default
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Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier) October 06, 2013****
Only way to shame dysfunction in MSM is by others in MSM calling out some of their own. If not, dysfunction continues.
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KSK(africa) (@lawalazu) October 06, 2013When @Froomkin writes about journalistic failure, he paints a perfect portrait of @ChuckTodd. america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/… http://t.co/XqXlmuBajA
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Nerdy Wonka (@NerdyWonka) October 06, 2013shorter @ron_fournier @chucktodd - Obama should act like an adult while we still shill for the temper tantums of .@gop. #TreasonousBastards
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(@amk4obama) October 06, 2013game to date: GOP adopts insanely obstructionist strategy. DC pundits tell WH what concessions it should give so GOP will stop acting insane
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Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) October 05, 2013"Both sides to blame" pundits will use anonymous quote with ellipses as excuse to refuse to reckon with reality of GOP position.
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Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) October 04, 2013@ron_fournier Our press is run by people with no journalistic integrity, insight, or even intelligence. Present company not excepted.
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Mary Foster (@marylynne1) October 06, 2013@chucktodd I see you call yourself a 'political junkie'. How appropriate when what you write is political junk.
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Mary Foster (@marylynne1) October 06, 2013****
