Story location: http://archive.pressthink.org/2005/08/23/opn_thrd.html

An Open Thread After a Closed One

Some people aren't too happy that I shut down the comments on the previous post by Austin Bay, Roll Forward: Why the Bush White House Needs the Press to Win the Big One. But in blogging, life goes on. So here's an open thread to talk about it. Or what Austin said.

Some people (like the up and coming neo-neocon) aren’t too happy that I shut down the comments on the previous post, which was by guest writer Austin Bay: Roll Forward: Why the Bush White House Needs the Press to Win the Big One.

(See other reactions by Neuro-conservative, Don’t Press, Don’t Think, and Norma, “what a hypocrite.”)

But a weblog’s life goes on. So here’s an open thread to talk about it. Or what Austin Bay (“Weekly Standard writer, NPR commentator, Iraq War vet, Colonel in the Army Reserve, Republican, conservative, blogger with a lit PhD…”) said:

“The Bush Administration must revitalize its public diplomacy, and that means ‘rolling forward’ and establishing a new, more mature relationship with the press…But the NY-DC-LA axis must also ‘roll forward.’ It’s in their institutional interest as well as simple survival.”

And here’s my suggestion to participants in the previous thread. The bias discourse, however justified you may find it, is making many of you dumber by the day. You should be concentrating on getting more of your people into the mainstream media, and making great journalists out of them. And you should be discussing the bias the press should, in your considered view, have.

Instead you have driven yourself into a logic loop. Deep down, you don’t believe in an objective press. Deep down you don’t believe our press is objective.

Meanwhile, Dean Esmay has something to say about the big comment shut down at PressThink (after 168 posts):

The criticism was withering and went on for days, and he finally said “screw this” and shut off the firehose. Maybe he was a little snippy about it.

Does it need to be analyzed further than that? I mean, Jay’s just this guy, you know?

So talk to him. Thanks to Dean for his words, too.

I think my point in the previous post could have been better put: say what you will about the performance of the press, Austin Bay is talking about what we need the big institutional press to do. Let’s make sure to have a discussion about that. If you’re suggestion is: we need the big, institutional press to die, fine. Maybe in the end it will.

It’s an open question. This is an open thread.

• The View from Nowhere: “Is ABC the most anti-war network? Ridiculous, says Peter Jennings. And it is… to him.” (Sep. 18, 2003)

• Maybe Media Bias Has Become a Dumb Debate, Part One: “Denouncing bias in the media has become a dumb instrument. The cases keep coming. The charges keep flying. Often the subject—journalism—disappears.” (Oct. 24, 2003)

• Maybe Media Bias Has Become a Dumb Debate, Part Two: “The charges keep flying. But often the subject—journalism—disappears. Now there’s a Party of Peace in the bias wars. They favor perspective, and they’re telling us something.” (Oct. 25, 2003)

• The News From Iraq is Not Too Negative. But it is Too Narrow: “The bias charges are getting more serious lately as the stakes rise in Iraq and the election. The press has every reason to keep reporting aggressively on the investigation of Abu Ghraib. But there is something lacking in press coverage, and it may be time for wise journalists to assess it. The re-building story has gone missing. And without it, how can we judge the job Bush is doing?” (May 26, 2004)

• The Abyss of Observation Alone: “You should have answered,” the sniper says to the correspondent. “You could have saved one.” (March 1, 2005)

• “When I’m Reporting, I am a Citizen of the World.” “That’s a quote from CNN’s Bob Franken. A tour through his press think shows why I ask the Big Journalism Deans: if schools like yours are supposed to spread the gospel, how do they know they have the religion right?” (June 10, 2005)