It occurs to me that had the Episcopalians been clever with their scheduling, they could have buried the vote on Bishop Robinson under the avalanche of Kobe Bryant coverage.
A couple of pertinent essays: they were both written during the Jayson Blair/Howard Raines fiasco at the Times, but the sentiments fit the current situation as well.
From Time magazine: the press is too smug.
...many big-media journalists are now cautious, well-paid conformists distant from their audiences and more responsive to urban elites, powerful people and megacorporations — especially the ones they work for. Hence the bland news anchors who verge on self-parody; magazines so commercial they're practically catalogs; timid pack journalism (We love dotcoms too! I mean, we never believed in them either!); local newscasts shilling for their corporate parents ("Up next: the hottest Survivor finale parties! Plus, the rest of the news!"); saturation coverage of trials-of-the-minute and movies we know will be lousy but will have big opening weekends. Yes, people watch and buy all this stuff. That doesn't mean they respect it. They see a profession that acts excited about a lot — Laci Peterson, The Matrix Reloaded, political horse races — but cares about nothing.
This one's from new media;
Unfortunately, the business right now resembles a herd of sheep. Many editors assign pieces more to impress their fellow editors than to serve the needs of the public. When I read the pile-on of attack pieces about the New York Times, I hear a distant baaa.
Add to it the fact that it's August, traditionally a slow month for news, and what do you get? Legal analysts on ESPN and religion analysts on the major networks and cable.
Posted by Linkmeister at August 6, 2003 01:19 PM