Media whores



Conservative commentator and part-time White House lawn jockey Armstrong Williams has has admitted to taking $240,000 to promote Bush's educational policy on his television show. This has created a great deal of hand wringing in journalistic circles, and predictable navel gazing about what it means to be a journalist these days. The White House denies responsibility, natch, saying it was a Department of Education decision to promote the No Child Left Behind Policy. The Tribune Company has dropped Williams as a commentator.

The Bushies have been producing phony news segments for years, and distributing them to unsuspecting or friendly news outlets. That's fine, as long as the pieces are identified as political infomercials. But they're not.

This story stinks on so many levels I'm not sure where to begin, or who deserves the most outrage. The Bush administration has shown contempt for so many American institutions that it should come as no surprise that now it's laying waste to what's left of journalistic credibility to advance its own agenda. But it's not like the American media needs any help debasing themselves. What is called journalism these days is more like the public affairs divisions of entertainment focused corporations.
9.1.05 20:15
 


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