I look forward to David Broder’s columns because I am always in need of material and Broder usually provides it. Today, however, his column is spot-on. In fact, it is a little too spot-on. Consider the following:
I had never heard Imus’s broadcast, because I am a longtime fan of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” which is on at the same time. I was stunned to learn how many of the journalists I admire had been regular guests on the program. Many are now having a hard time explaining their association.
It turned out that many of them had heard Imus ridicule and insult women, gays, African Americans, Hispanics, Jews, Catholics and others. Some had been targets of his unfunny slurs and came back for more.
Their rationalizations are lame.
I believe David Broder is telling the truth when he says that he is a long-time fan of NPR’s “Morning Edition”. I believe that he didn’t listen to Imus, and I would believe it if Broder said he was unaware of Imus’s history of bigoted and insensitive remarks. But I don’t believe that Broder is truly ‘shocked’ to learn that his Beltway buddies were regular guests on the Imus program.
Broder has been a regular critic of bloggers. He’s called us ‘foul-mouthed’ and ‘vituperative’. Surely he is aware that a central part of bloggers’ critique of the mainstream press involves the clubbiness revealed by the Imus scandal. Broder would probably argue that he is a consistent advocate of civility.
These are weak excuses for journalists’ participation in this continuing offense to civility. Jokes are not jokes when they wound and humiliate. The claim that Imus’s slanders were the price they had to pay in return for his providing a forum for their ideas doesn’t wash. Big-name newspaper, magazine and TV journalists have no trouble finding places where they can voice their thoughts.
I agree with Broder. I’m impressed that he sees the problem. But he sees the problem as being mainly a matter of civility. I don’t. I see the problem as primarily a matter of insularity. The club is too male, too white, and too much out to protect their own. The media had to be dragged kicking and screaming to condemn perjury and obstruction of justice out of the office of the Vice-President. They tried to ignore the Downing Street Minutes. They were totally complicit in the trumped up case for war in Iraq and they never disciplined their own (the Safires and Krauthammers) that acted as the stenographers of the neo-conservatives…actively spreading disinformation and never apologizing. The Washington Post has the worst record of all major newspapers, but only McClatchey has emerged from the Bush era with their credibility intact.
David Broder only sees part of the problem. He’s disappointed to discover that members of his club have been acting like immature frat-boys rather than upholding the dignity of their profession. I sympathize. But their credibility wasn’t destroyed by going on Imus. It was destroyed by a failure to report on and object to what the Bush administration has been doing to this country. And Broder is no exception. He has been wrong when he has prognosticated; he has been more concerned with appearances than accountability.
The reason the blogosphere exists is because, while reporters are still doing great reporting, editorialists and columnists are not drawing the proper conclusions from that reporting. For way too long, Broder’s club has been more inclined to defend the Bush administration and their catastrophe of a war and their assault on our institutions than they have been to condemn them.
In doing so, the press has lost credibility as the Bush administration has lost credibility. We see the same thing with Hillary Clinton’s recent collapse in the polls. Her numbers plummeted at precisely the moment when the Dems got a little power and the people expected them to do something about Iraq. Prior to that, people were not aware how closely she has followed the Bush line on the war. Now that she says that we have to keep permanent bases in Iraq, they don’t like what they see. Well…the people have the same disappointment with the press. And the disappointment isn’t a recent development. And it has little to do with the Imus in the Morning program. Or civility.
