You just hit the nail on the head. This relationship dynamic has been staring us all in the face for years but reading here was an epiphany for me. Investigative reporting that requires analysis beyond stenography is risky for editorial job security for all the obvious reasons. Rocking the corporate boats is not part of their revenue objectives until outrage has been properly cultivated by the new 4th estate, Blogsylvania.

Feel the synergy...

Of course when you take away substantive news like this all that is left behind is weather, sports, Hollywood, local pervs, fires and car accidents. Ooh flashing lights on the boob tube.

Dearest ChiDy, a few quibbles:

"The notion that people care more about Paris Hilton than a trillion dollar (lost) war effort is -- well, not really reasonable. Your circulation numbers are beginning to reflect that fact, not the burning need for an extra entertainment feature"

Wanna bet? You know what happens to cable news viewership and magazine readership whenever there's a Paris Hilton or Anna Nicole scandal to feed on? Unless you mean "reasonable" in the sense of "please stop feeding the public this stuff, which they want, but which isn't helpful to having a functioning republic." In which case, fight on!

I generally share your enthusiasm for blogs, which provide everything from out-of-the-box thinking, to actual reporting (Josh's work on, say, the AUSA firings, has been amazing, and my colleagues who covered the Libby trial came away very impressed by Marcy), to expert analysis that is highly relevant to what we do. I also think that blog traffic has shown that there is a solid market for hard news reporting, and investigative reporting/writing.

But the idea that the media is suffering because of a surfeit of entertainment features? No, no, no. Newspapers are suffering in large part because of vanishing (-ed) classified ad revenues and the increased emphasis on breaking news and the 24-hour news cycle, which makes "what happened yesterday" reporting really hard to sell. Cable news? Big Internet news sites? I think that we're in between "mature" news markets, at a time when the proliferation of (mainstream) news outlets and the changes in media media (not a typo, I mean, "more people getting news from not-the-newspaper-or-the-evening-news"), and forces like blogs, are still transforming the news landscape. Add that to the declining budgets, reduced newsrooms, etc, and you have...well, the conditions for blogs and other non-traditional outlets to thrive.

But in the process of making your argument, you're recycling a hoary myth about the media: that there was some kind of golden age of news gathering, when everyone in the media muckraked, afflicted the comfortable, spoke the truth to power, etc, and that only now (or, to paraphrase Atrios, only since Clinton was elected) are we seeing this decline. I think you and I have discussed The Boys on the Bus, and I can't remember whether you've read it. If you haven't, please do. It's all in there. This ain't a new dynamic.

"So the next time you have to choose between ending your workday at 2pm, or sticking around to make those tiresome phone calls to officials and leaders who probably won’t talk to you about much other than their next cocktail party, remember this..."

Oh. ChiDy, you wound me. You can't possibly think that we all end our workdays at 2 pm, or that we don't trudge through daily, tedious crap in an effort to bring you news, or that even a plurality of us socialize with the people we cover. That's just........mean.

Are you back in DC? I may have some free time while the president is in Latin America...drop me a line.

of a Big Name journalist at the WaPo whom i interviewed recently. ok, he actually said "i'm done by 3pm," so i'll fess up to a little embellishment.

i don't doubt there is a spike in viewership when paris hilton's latest comes on. that's not the point. the point is that the press has something called "responsibility." i get a lot of attention when i walk down the street naked, but i'm responsible for two cats, and if i did that often enough, i'd be permanently unemployed. sure, i could make a living off the people who offered me money for being naked in public, but that wouldn't exactly be the "best choice" of lifestyle for me, or for my cats. because eventually, i'll get old, and no one will want to pay to see my titties.

in this age in which madison ave types can make literally anything "sexy," i also don't buy that "what happened today" has to be a turn off. (gosh i hate speaking as if everything had to relate to sex to get people's attention) framing is everything, as is context- and professional people know how to mix interesting writing/broadcasting, the right amount of "hook" to keep people interested in the story, and bells and whistles that play to the subliminal and subconscious. if they can sell tires and laundary soap, surely they can sell unprecidented government scandal. and hey! the scandals of today often have to do with sex! so there you go.

my mother was a TV journalist, my grandmother was a syndicated columnist. i do understand there was no "golden age." however, i suggest you go back and compare a few issues of the WaPo or CBS nightly news from the 60s and 70s. there is a clear, striking difference between that and what we have today. "dumbed down" is a term i hate, but can truly be applied to the drivel that is most of today's "serious" news. not to mention that the average news broadcast is now over 1/2 sports and entertainment, where before such segments took up less than a quarter of the half hour. i've seen the academic studies on this. it's distressing.
katie couric vs cronkite: nuff said.

i'm glad you can see why blogs are the future. soon, there will be money directed at the project of sending bloggers in situ, so that they can directly report on the things we currently rely upon you all for the first hand account. in other countries, like iraq, this is already happening. i know more about what is happening on the ground there via iraqi bloggers than i do the entire washington media class. and my arabic is poor- i can only imagine what i would know if i could read arab language blogs. i'm sure i could shame a few of the professionals.

it's not your fault, WH'ho. i know that. you work hard, you try to get out the information and still stay in the game in a way that allows you the continual access. but the system is broken. editors, owners- they are the ones to blame. sometime in the 80s, they decided that it was OK to go the route of short term profit and gain. as Yoda says, "once you go down the path of the Dark Side, forever shall it dominate your path." the american press has abdicated its privilegs and responsibilities as the guardians of democracy. it didn't happen overnight, nor has it happened to everyone in the media. but it's happened to enough to allow a literally treasonous administration of criminals to sell the heritage and future of this country for a few billions.

that is an unforgivable crime. for you cannot deny, if enough editors and owners had come together and say, "fuck profit for a little while, we just had a coup!" in 2000, none of this, not all the dead or the raped or the tortured, would've come to pass.

Ol WH'Hooker seems a might put out with ya CD. Cain't imagine why...

One wonders what hard numbers WH would use to bolster 'The sheeple want dere Anna Nicole and don't wanna be bothered about Palestine' meme?

Last I looked WaPo, NYT and FAUX News circulation and viewer numbers were headed down and that trend is not a new one. Of course the old chestnuts of 'not enough staff...funding...time...etc.' to do a good job are unearthed. That's par for the course when you are no longer producing a product anybody wants.

What people want is accurate, reasonably timely information upon which they can make decisions as citizens on.

Anybody who writes or sez otherwise is a fool or a tool. I blog and I organize and I talk to lots and lots of regular folks and that's what I hear and see from them. The citizenry; folks the likes of which PumpkinHead, Tweety, AdNags, MoDo want nothing to do with. The citizenry being so ignorant and all...

People are hungry for accurate information. Not lies and spin.

They are coming to the blogosphere for it.

And folks like CD and me and thousands more will dig it up write about it and the country will be better for it.

As to CD's cocktail party criticisms.

The shoe looks to fit pretty good so go ahead and wear it.

fdl:

President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush had dinner last night at the home of Karl and Darby Rove in the upscale Palisades neighborhood of Washington.

When a pool reporter following the president's intown travel stationed outside dispatched an email to Rove inside, asking if the architect of the president's campaigns could spare a doggy bag for the press van, sure enough — out came an emissary bearing a gift of sausage and quail wings.

The press had already called in a pepperoni-and-mushroom pizza from Domino's, but the host's contribution to the press van feast was the most excitement seen outside this residence in a while.

access seeking lapdogs. literally.

feel the power.

For a relatively low-profile organization, Free Press is on a roll. Four years ago, it used old-fashioned grassroots organizing, along with basic Internet tools, to help derail the FCC's years-long effort to relax media ownership rules. Last year, the group thwarted a multi-million dollar lobbying effort by the Baby Bells to rewrite the nation's telecom laws over "net neutrality," the idea that Internet providers can't discriminate against any Internet traffic.

Progressive, left-leaning grass-roots activists have gotten more attention for their opposition against the Iraq war, but their bigger impact may have been on national media regulations and telecom policies. By mobilizing the progressive left to focus on media and telecom issues, Free Press has effectively blocked some of the most-wanted issues on corporate wish-lists.

The Free Press success is all the more remarkable, given the array of big-name media companies pushing for change. Technology has changed the competitive landscape, said a coalition of media firms -- including Belo Corp., CBS Corp., News Corp.'s Fox Entertainment Group and NBC Universal Inc. -- in a December letter lobbying the FCC to ease the rules. The FCC "should modernize its local ownership rules to reflect these dynamic changes in the media marketplace," they say.

Media reformers have been working on these issues for years, but "they've never had traction among grass-roots America before," says Mike McCurry, former press secretary for President Clinton. Mr. McCurry drew scorn from left-leaning bloggers last year after he helped launch a public-relations effort on behalf of phone companies hoping to kill net-neutrality rules.

Free Press, which launched in 2003, has 300,000 members, about two dozen full-time employees and an annual budget of roughly $2.5 million. Last year, it raised more than $5 million in funding, mostly from liberal-leaning private foundations, including George Soros's Open Society Institute. In 2005, almost half of its funding -- $755,000 -- came from the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, which at the time was overseen by its president, journalist Bill Moyers. This year, the group is hoping to raise $4.5 million and wants to hire more grass-roots organizers.

It is raising its ambitions as well. After stymieing efforts to loosen media rules, Free Press members believe they may be on the verge of changing the terms of the debate -- to tightening regulations again.

"We're going to use this opportunity to move the goal posts," says Josh Silver, Free Press co-founder and executive director.

Unlike other watchdog groups that have focused on telecom and media-reform issues in the past, Free Press has successfully tapped into the grass-roots network dominated by MoveOn.org.

"We just have to remind them to talk about media reform, not the war," says Amanda Ballantyne, Free Press's field organizer who is in charge of getting people to show up tonight for the Columbus hearing, the 11th on the subject in the past two years. She helps coordinate similar events around the country, rounding up locals and tutoring them on the basics of media-ownership limits.

lots more at the link.

A. Citizen: Thanks for the bullshit, but ChiDy and I actually know each other and have been having this conversation for months. Keep on making shit up, though, you're totally average at it!

"of a Big Name journalist at the WaPo whom i interviewed recently. ok, he actually said “i’m done by 3pm,” so i’ll fess up to a little embellishment."

I'm honestly floored. A columnist or a reporter? I've known investigative reporters who work weird hours, so one work day might end at 3 pm while another started at 5 pm and ran to 3 am. But somehow I don't think that this is what you're talking about.

"i don’t doubt there is a spike in viewership when paris hilton’s latest comes on. that’s not the point. the point is that the press has something called 'responsibility.'"

OK, but this is why I asked for a clarification of your earlier comment. I couldn't tell whether you were arguing that declining market share was directly related to this, or whether you were making the "responsibility" argument.

"katie couric vs cronkite: nuff said."

It burns. But that's fair. (though I'd say that this reflects the staggeringly segmented and niched media marketplace...CBS thought they could draw morning show watchers to evening news and that evening news watchers would watch morning-show style news. Oops.) The other often-cited point is the length of time a president had to speak on the nightly broadcast (the famous study of how Kennedy usually got 20 seconds to make his point, while subsequent presidents have seen their quotes whittled down to sound bites). That said, I'm not sure that "longer presidential quotes" per se is an indication of better news coverage (the postmodern 'spin' phenomenon tends to lead us to cut back on how much any one person gets to say).

I'm also reminded of the Baltimore Sun's tough lesson: They did a poll that found that basically no-one read their world affairs section. They cut it. They hemorhhaged readership. It turns out that subscribers wanted a paper that had foreign news in it (more serious) even if they didn't read it themselves. You could build the argument that serious news consumers are quitting MSM for blogs because of this (a variation on the Couric vs Cronkite point above).

"i’m glad you can see why blogs are the future. soon, there will be money directed at the project of sending bloggers in situ, so that they can directly report on the things we currently rely upon you all for the first hand account."

I trust you're watching the established media try to do this already? Also, no, blogs are not the future. The Internet, coupled with portable technology like cell phones, PDAs, iPods, etc, that's the future. Blogs are part of that. And I see no reason why a large, well-funded independent blog could not have 'correspondents' cover major political campaigns, for example. As I've joked to you before, my son may get his news from the Talking Points Memo Media Empire some day.

The USAToday digital sheet from Minority Report roughly approximates where I think we're going from a technological standpoint. From a content provider standpoint, I don't know, though we're due for a realignment from impartial and impersonal to more advocacy/diary news.

"access seeking lapdogs. literally."

Uh, well, to be honest, if I were sitting in a pool (for non-reporters: that's the name for the small group of reporters who cover the president on behalf of their colleagues, even when events, like this one, are not actually open to reporters), in a van, for hours, with no access to the president and no prospects for one iota of news, I might be tempted to email someone inside the closed event too. I'll go put my hairshit on and fast.

But your criticism drives me absolutely batshit. That wasn't "access seeking." And wanting access is NOT a bad thing, ChiDy. You WANT us to want access. In fact, you scream bloody murder when we don't push as hard as you want us to. You're damn right we want on-the-record comment from the people we cover. You're damn right we want as much information as possible about meetings behind closed doors, about presidential telephone conversations with Pelosi or the King of Spain. You're damn right we want someone in the meeting to answer our questions.

You seem to be using "access" synonymously with social interaction. And that's dead wrong.

WH'ho:

You know what I do when I travel? Like when I need to sit in a bus or a train or a plane "for hours"?

This may surprise you, but I either bring my own food, or buy it, or do without. And if I can afford it, surely the much better paid press can afford it.

So, yes, I find the picture of "a doggy bag for the press van" nauseating.

They can't plan for themselves, so they look to the parental figure to handle one of the most basic human functions there is: getting fed. Can't you see how infantilized this behavior is?

As far as your technical thoughts, I'm with you. But as long as cocktail-wienie-chomping Beltway Teabaggers--oh, I'm sorry, content providers--get listened to, delivery mechanisms by themselves won't do much.

Thanks for posting your comments. Why not get an account here and post for real? C'mon in, the water's fine! If a little choppy from time to time ;-)

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

Lambert: That whole "plan-ahead" advice is genius! Seriously, though, there's nowhere to actually *put* food when you're in the pool, and it's not like they tell you with any kind of advance notice when you're going to a dinner pool.

Even more seriously, holy jeebus, it's so great that I can rely on you lazy blogger types not to actually READ the pool reports, otherwise you might notice that pizza was already being provided to the pool! Pfew! ;-P

= As far as your technical thoughts, I’m with you. But as long as cocktail-wienie-chomping Beltway Teabaggers—oh, I’m sorry, content providers—get listened to, delivery mechanisms by themselves won’t do much. =

Ag oh ah-air, aw ah goo gair -- sorry, nutsack blocking my airway. "That's so unfair, not that you care."

"Thanks for posting your comments. Why not get an account here and post for real? C’mon in, the water’s fine! If a little choppy from time to time ;-)"

Choppy? I used to post comments over on Eschaton. So Lambert? You ain't shit! ;-P Over there, one guy befriended me, then the minute I used my real email he called my boss and tried to get me fired.

Which is why I remain a pussy about these things. People can't, or won't, understand that debating how the media operates with you does not mean agreeing or disagreeing with your politics.

I write:

either bring my own food, or buy it, or do without.

You respond, or not:

[T]here’s nowhere to actually *put* food when you’re in the pool, and it’s not like they tell you with any kind of advance notice when you’re going to a dinner pool.

It would be a cheap shot to mention the word "lunch bucket," So I won't do that. And of course it's absurd that there would be any good available for delivery in the Palisades. And if pizza's provided, then why send up to The Big House for a doggy bag at all? And I notice you don't mention "do without."

Je repete:

They look to the parental figure to handle one of the most basic human functions there is: getting fed. Can’t you see how infantilized this behavior is?

Apparently, you just can't see the problem. And feel free to return to The Big Leagues at Eschaton any time!

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

= It would be a cheap shot to mention the word “lunch bucket,” So I won’t do that. =

Yes, that would be horribly, horribly wrong. "For shaaaaaame, Lawrence!"

= And of course it’s absurd that there would be any good available for delivery in the Palisades. =

Well, not through a Secret Service cordon, no. There actually are logistical hurdles here. When Clinton ate at Cashion's in Adams Morgan years ago, the Service did not allow anyone in or out until he left.

= And if pizza’s provided, then why send up to The Big House for a doggy bag at all? =

OK, that's it. I'm through trying to subtly agree with bloggers. I mean, really, WTF do you think I was trying to do by drawing your attention to that???

= And I notice you don’t mention “do without.” =

I just think that's more poor planning than a sign of virtue (Hmmmm. Lunch bucket, well-paid journalists, Palisades, do without...you know, for a political hack like me, "two is a trend."). I will now write "I've done without plenty of times" and you will now write something snarky about "some of my best friends have gone without."

= Apparently, you just can’t see the problem. And feel free to return to The Big Leagues at Eschaton any time! =

OK, we've gotten off on the wrong foot, apparently. I don't know whether I misread your earlier post as friendlier or more inviting than you meant it to be. I don't know whether I've been proven deaf once again to the way electronic communication, particularly the each-in-turn structure of posting comments, kills tone. FWIW, I'm sorry, it was not my intention to be antagonistic. That was my best (worst?) approximation of playful banter.

You're right, though, I don't consider Karl Rove a paternal figure. At all.

I don't think it's infantilizing to send a joking email to Rove asking for food when he's having a private dinner with the president - in fact, I think it was intended as more of a "yo, we're here, and we know where you live" message. Quite a bit whiny, sure. A bit vain. But not access-whore lap-dog-y.

Pool holds typically have food (paid for by the press corps, organized by the White House) to take one logistical issue out of our way. They also strive to provide things like phone lines and power (paid for by the press corps).

As for my Eschaton mention, I don't consider it the "big leagues," I was just trying to explain my reluctance to open an account with you guys because I'd been badly burned before.

'Secret Service cordons...' and all. My, my are we not important. How about you guys just DO WITHOUT!

I'm pretty sure that like most Americans you are not suffering from malnutrition and could probably stand to loose a few pounds.

The fact that you actually defend the 'doggie' bag incident shows clearly that you have no concept of the terms 'independent press'. But let's move on...

It don't matter to me that you know CD. The point of her post is quite clear: The corporatist press is nothing more than propaganda for the established financial and political conspiracies that 'run' this country.

I might speculate a little but...

I don't 'make shit up...' like you folks do an a regular basis to deliberately mislead the citizens of this country.

Don't like being called a paid liar?

Start, you know, reporting the facts about things like:

The Libby trial...a crime was committed.

The MeatGrinder....we have lost this illegal, immoral war.

Social Security....it's not in danger of going 'broke'.

Everything else. Then we can all sympathize with you about how tough it is being a stenographer,oh excuse me....I meant journalist.