A few weeks back I highlighted some comments by the political director of ABC News, Mark Halperin, indicating his belief that the news media ought to work harder to "prove" to conservatives that they aren't biased in favor of liberals.
Given the contempt conservatives show for the media, and given that their critique is motivated by political, rather than empirical, considerations, I thought his comments were a bit bizarre. But nothing could have prepared me for how he has behaved since.
The man is literally groveling at the feet of one of the most dishonest conservative commentators around, Hugh Hewitt. Glenn Greenwald has done a fabulous job tracking the history here, so there's no need to cover that ground again here.
But take a look at how Hewitt has responded to Halperin's efforts, and how baffled Halperin is by that response. Halperin admits to bias, and suggests that ABC needs to actively work to regain the trust of conservatives. Rather than embrace this, Hewitt instead hits back harder, stepping up his critique of Halperin and ABC's "liberal bias." Halperin is amazed. I am not.
All of this just proves a href="http://blog.alexwhalen.com/blogarchives/2006/10/abcnews_becomes_foxnewslite.php"> the point I was making earlier. This isn't about getting the media to report the news accurately or fairly. Its about destroying their ability to report on truth at all. From the very beginning, This isn't something conservatives have ever been secretive about. They've always admitted it quite candidly. And yet somehow the political director of ABC News is baffled by their behavior.
Once upon a time, political reporters reveled in the fact that those in power feared them. They looked with pride on their role in our democracy as a check on the powers that be. Now they grovel for their "respect."
And people wonder how we got ourselves into this mess....
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