Lileks declares national media hopeless

I just heard James Lileks on the Hugh Hewitt program (to listen go to this page to listen over the internet) talking about SBHFS, sudden Bush hatred fatigue syndrome, and suggesting that the media may have crossed the line. He describes his own experience with what Hugh has been talking about in connection with his his new book, the failure of bookstores to carry anything favorable to Bush while they heap their promotion tables with anti-Bush screeds. Lileks noted the tendency of magazines to feature stories like this:

On the way out I checked the periodicals rack. Esquire. Hadn�t read that in a while. Flip through it; hmm, an article on Stem Cell research. Title: �Please stand by while the age of miracles is briefly suspended: How the president is trying to kill my daughter.�

Glenn Reynolds and Roger L. Simon came on shortly to react to Fox News Channel coverage of Kerry's claim that he spent Christmas of 1968 in Cambodia being shot at by "our Vietnamese allies," which have been all over the blogs for a week, but until now have been ignored by the rest of the media. As everybody keeps saying, what Kerry did in Vietnam wouldn't be an issue except for the fact that he has made it such a central theme of his campaign, especially his convention speech. The media will scoff and want to dismiss this, but they have set their own precedent with their prolonged coverage of allegations that Bush didn't show up for National Guard Service.

Glenn described the media as having their fingers in their eyes going "La, la, la, I don't hear you!" but he and Roger both predict this will crumble by midweek. I'm not so sure. Glenn also mentioned that such media bias could threaten the very nature of democracy, a point which is always being touted by journalists as they claim Constitutional protection. If you're in that position, ethics would demand that there be a range of opinion in the media without the populace having to search for it on cable TV or the Internet. A paper like the NYTimes, given its position of leadership, is ethically obligated to provide diversity of views beyond hiring a couple of conservative columnists, even if the rest of the print press declines. The biggest problem, however, is with the broadcast news networks, which are slanted across the board. This means that most peoples' news is infected with a liberal slant that needs to be corrected. As they work studiously to avoid this issue, they risk an angry backlash from those whom they have taken for granted. What worries me is whether it will happen soon enough to save Bush's presidency.