Greed is Not a Defense
I found Ezra Klein’s defense of Politico to be pretty weak stuff.
Ezra’s main point is that coverage that’s utterly trivial and that poisons public understanding of crucial issues that effect the lives of billions of people is rewarded by the market, and that Politico does a good of delivering on coverage that’s utterly trivial and that poisons public understanding of crucial issues that effect the lives of billions of people. This is true, but it seems more like a rationalization for bad behavior than a reason to do it. These are hard times for the journalism business, but that doesn’t mean that people in the media should stop holding each other to any kind of reasonable standards of quality and responsibility. I don’t think the existence of a market economy should be seen as giving everyone ethical carte blanche to totally ignore the welfare of their fellow citizens when going about their business.
56 Responses to “Greed is Not a Defense”
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February 19th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
amen.
February 19th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
oboy – when Ezra and Matt go at each other it gets nasty. Expect a frothy, obscenity-rich response from that other hothead.
February 19th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Yeah, readers just love it when you repeat hyperbole like that — it really lets them know how much contemplation you have put into your response; separates the professional blogger from the trolls and the like.
February 19th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
What, you don’t enjoy readying the stories of intrepid reporters like Erika Lovley and Johnathan Martin? I do think that Ben Smith is pretty legit, and it’s a shame that he’s working for the politidouche.
February 19th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Not to pick nits, but the verb ‘effect’ means to bring about the possibility of, while the noun form describes a change in state. I think the word you’re looking for is ‘affect’.
And when the snarky celebrity-driven media is flushed from the system, perhaps we’ll return to a healthy discourse. In the meantime, the grammar police will be watching.
February 19th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
“These are hard times for the journalism business, but that doesn’t mean that people in the media should stop holding each other to any kind of reasonable standards of quality and responsibility.”
When did they start?
The media have been whores and mouthpieces for as long as I can remember.
February 19th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Listen Matt — I love you. I’m a regular on your blog because, usually, you provide entertaining and thoughtful posts, etc. But this is weak.
First, I don’t think you’re reading Ezra right at all — he admits Politico isn’t top notch (”4chan of political reporting”), but he never goes anywhere near i being “utterly trivial and that poisons public understanding of crucial issues that effect the lives of billions of people”. From this, providing a source of news that can sustain itself in today’s market — by sustaining itself on reporting news — is commendable, as part of the evolution of journalism. He does, you’ll notice (or would have noticed) that this creates issues with quality — and so Ezra (as “people in the media”) did NOT “stop holding each other to any kind of reasonable standards of quality and responsibility”.
(more to come)
February 19th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
affect, not effect.
(Sorry – confusing the two is a pet peeve)
February 19th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Ah, jeeze, as if you didn’t have enough of a handicap against Ezra in your race to TV fame.
February 19th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Just because The Politico gets a lot of hits doesn’t mean they have a good business model. It’s basically a successful 27,000 subscriber paper targeting official DC filled ads from lobbyists with a money losing web operation. The train wreck of the day-to-day coverage (win the day! shit through a goose!) is a smooth delivery mechanism for old-school money politics. The market force driving The Politico’s success is big dollar lobbying of the federal government, not journalism.
I know this because Ezra Klein reported it on his blog!
February 19th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
MY sounds like a character on West Wing bitching about Process Stories. Translation: they’re not writing about what *I* want them to write about. Boo-effing-hoo. What’s wrong with stories about how the sausage is made?
February 19th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
My last post get me to my next point — you take issue with a defense of an industry that points out there is a real demand for it, saying:
“I don’t think the existence of a market economy should be seen as giving everyone ethical carte blanche to totally ignore the welfare of their fellow citizens when going about their business.”
Now, I am no market fundamentalist, but it strikes me as a morally dubious claim that Politico is ethically obligated not to exist. This would imply that we have some kind ethical obligation to specifically limit the freedom of others by refusing to provide certain services.
February 19th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
I don’t think the existence of a market economy should be seen as giving everyone ethical carte blanche to totally ignore the welfare of their fellow citizens when going about their business.
You have to be kidding, Yglesias.
February 19th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
It’s all a question of tone. Ezra is listening politely and skeptically to the rationalizations offered by Politico. Matt is listening with a grimace on his face, and then spitting on the sidewalk.
Boils down to the same thing. Politico sucks.
I’m amazed, actually, that there’s an audience for discussions of politics as personality-conflict, divorced from arguments about the underlying policy. But evidently there’s a *huge* audience.
February 19th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
I also realize (in post 12) that I invite some sloppy comparisons with other business models, so to clarify —
I am opposed to the war on drugs. If anyone wants to make this comparison, I would hope they give some defense.
I should provide hit jobs. But this is a pretty clear example of a service involving an non-consenting third party.
February 19th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
This is a joke, right? MattY and CAP can’t seem to publish anything intellectually honest; both are completely unable to understand that not everyone agrees with them.
For a test involving millions of people, let’s see MattY or CAP admit that the “47 millions of Americans without h/c insurace” includes millions of people who are not in fact Americans. I’m going to bet that you’ll never hear MattY nor CAP admit that.
February 19th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
One of the first people to pimp out the Ashley Todd story was none other than Jonathan Martin. After being told info from the McCain campaign he quickly wrote a blog entry entitled “It’s getting ugly out there” http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/1008/Its_getting_ugly_out_there.html
The truth quickly came out about Todd, and Martin quickly followed it up with another blog post. No, he didn’t apologize for spreading that trash, instead he said “Seems like McCain just can’t catch a break.” http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/1008/When_it_rains_it_pours.html Yup, thats JMart for you in a nutshell.
February 19th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
“I don’t think the existence of a market economy should be seen as giving everyone ethical carte blanche to totally ignore the welfare of their fellow citizens when going about their business.”
As others have noted, this is kinda silly, and a departure from your usual take on things. Basically, you seem to be saying that people should be nicer even though it’s not in their interest. I mean, that’s great and all, but where’s the typical Yglesian, pragmatic analysis of underlying incentives?
February 19th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Matt — Tale o’ the Tape —– Ezra
Sam Power – poster on wall – Krugman
Cheap taco – fav eats — Fresh tofu
East Coast — rap style – West Coast
The Table – multimedia- MSNBC staple
junkets — weaknesses —– mandates
February 19th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
I’m really unclear about how Politico is harming my welfare. They provide trivial but often interesting political news. So? There are other places to go for serious policy stuff. Even if Politico is doing a bad job of what they do, they’re not hurting me.
February 19th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Unlike you apologists, I think shitty journalists should be thrown up against the wall and kicked in the nuts.
Those fucking assholes are part of a propaganda machine that is directly responsible for electing and enabling the Bush regime. The Bush regime that stole $3 Trillion out of Social Security, that ran up $6 Trillion in debt, that killed 4200+ Americans in an unnecessary war based on a lie, that crippled thousands more for life and that brought on a second Depression through a corrupt sellout to the financial industry. A Depression that is throwing millions out of work and plunging them –and millions more — into deep poverty. Meanwhile Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter count their $millions.
As far as deceitful and misleading journalism having a viable
“business model “, let’s note that that business model is based on lies that are not challenged.
General Motors had a viable business model — until Consumer Guide came along. WHere is General Motors now?
February 19th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Agreed. Ezra’s argument sounds far more like a damnation of the free market than a defense of what it produces.
February 19th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
“I don’t think the existence of a market economy should be seen as giving everyone ethical carte blanche to totally ignore the welfare of their fellow citizens when going about their business.”
This is obviously correct. Perhaps people would not be so quick to dismiss this statement if Matt were writing about a chemical company or an auto manufacturer. The shallowness and stupidity of our political discourse kills way more people than DDT or the Pinto did.
Laws and regulations create a market and set minimum standards for what is considered acceptable behavior in that market. That does not mean that anything an actor does in that market that is not strictly illegal is therefore moral or ethical. That we do not, for good reasons, arrest the people who run the Politico for helping to poison the political discourse does not change the fact that they are engaged in an unethical and immoral enterprise.
February 19th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Wow, I had no idea people hated Politico so much. What do these people think should happen to Drudge? Or, god forbid, US Weekly?
February 19th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
There’s a real category error floating around on this thread, caused when commenters confuse economic/legal logic with moral logic.
The Politico has a legal right to publish shallow, personality-driven, poorly-sourced stories. And they have an economic right to make money doing it.
But Matt and Ezra also have a legal right to tear down the value of the Politico brand. And they have not just a moral right, but a *responsibility* to do so — if the Politico continues to publish crap.
February 19th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Bullshitico exists to give cablenews ’serious’ material to fill its timespots without having to devote resources in search of live car-chases and missing blonde women. It’s journalism at the point of decadence before collapse.
February 19th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
In fact, because Politico sees economic value in being a boil on the ass of journalism, they create a market for people like Matt or Ezra to lance that boil. Matt should try to understand this.
February 19th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Politico is mostly good for getting the dry facts on a breaking story (e.g. so and so is voting for X, and the line vote is X – Y). The rapid fire posting of news often means that Politico, like it’s idol Drudge, get things first.
But its “analysis” is often limp, amounting to little more than a few quotes from some “insiders” (whom are often less “inside” than “vaguely close to the action”) and then a dollop of vague cliffhanger questions (’Does this mean X will do Y? We will have to see’). There’s nothing profoundly surprising about this; Politico isn’t a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal after all. You’re not going to get MEATY discussion of actual policy, or even a vague notion of anything that doesn’t happen in D.C. (it has been blessed that a majority of the political actions these days are on the domestic economy; the idea of Politico writing about foreign affairs that are critical is absurd).
February 19th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Politico, The Hill, and other inside-the-Beltway political-process and -personality papers and mags are a kind of trade press — as Variety is to the entertainment industry. They give a sympathetic insider’s view of the system rather than expose or challenge it. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as it’s read for what it is.
There is something wrong with reporters and columnists for mass-circulation/mainstream news media adopting the insider perspective. Those are the people we should be cussing.
February 19th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
You’ve spiked my theory.
I was working on the assumption that the reason Ezra liked Politico and Drum and Atrios didn’t was because Ezra lived in DC and they didn’t.
And then you come along……
February 19th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
These are hard times for the journalism business, but that doesn’t mean that people in the media should stop holding each other to any kind of reasonable standards of quality and responsibility.
This from a guy who can’t keep his dirty links off of Megan McArdle.
February 19th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Mark
“The shallowness and stupidity of our political discourse kills way more people than DDT or the Pinto did.”
Ah, the consumer of a Pinto or DDT laced products aren’t directly responsible for them; hence their status as victims of corporate crime (or unethical behavior or what have you).
The “consumers” of Politico aren’t just responsible for political discourse, they are the discourse. Reading Politico only cheapens the discourse if it is the sole source of news, which can only about when the “consumers” of news make it so.
February 19th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Too many steves: “Even if Politico is doing a bad job of what they do, they’re not hurting me.”
Do you live in the U.S.? Jesus, I used to think you were a reasonably smart commenter.
Politico takes the values of the late ’90’s/2000’s MSM, which indicates Dems=frauds, GOP=psrty of ideas. And doubles down.
Honestly (Austin Powers accent), are you mad, Mike Allen driving the debate in hackdom DC doesn’t ‘hurt’? Only if the end results of national gov’y policy don’t impact you.
February 19th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
I often find Politico to be infuriating but I must say that I share Ezra’s views here. It has a target audience – politicos – and publishes stories ranging from serious to silly about US politics. I will agree that there are fundamental problems with the media having the incompatible dual objectives of informing the public and turning a profit. But I don’t see why it makes sense to single out Politico. As commenter Allbetsareoff says above, it’s much more similar to a trade magazine than a serious news outlet. And considering the damage that the cable news channels seem to inflict on the public’s understanding of issues, it hardly seems worthwhile to focus on an “industry rag”.
February 19th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
“I don’t think the existence of a market economy should be seen as giving everyone ethical carte blanche to totally ignore the welfare of their fellow citizens when going about their business.”
How is this even controversial? Of course society has an interest in protecting its citizens. And that interest may sometimes outweigh society’s interest in protecting the market economy.
February 19th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
> I don’t think the existence of a market economy should be seen as giving everyone ethical carte blanche to totally ignore the welfare of their fellow citizens when going about their business.
Thank you for writing this, and demonstrating so clearly the reason why you and your fellow travelers can’t be taken seriously. Godspeed.
February 19th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
mike: “And considering the damage that the cable news channels seem to inflict on the public’s understanding of issues, it hardly seems worthwhile to focus on an “industry rag”.”
This is the point–those cable news channels you deride get their production meetings content from the ‘industry rag’, they read every day. And Drudge.
Ezra has just sent his stock sinking. Hope it ends worth it.
February 20th, 2009 at 9:53 am
The big problem with Politico is that it is not forthright outside of DC with the fact that it is not fully researching its stories and not practicing journalistic best practices.
Their stories are not balanced and they aim to be provocative not informative.
Their intent is to survive by click-throughs and links from other sites. So they scour around DC for provocative quotes to make inflamatory headlines. Naturally, since the right wing nuts are happy to spout out any old crap, they get the majority of the coverage in Politico.com.
And then the problem becomes that Matthews, Yahoo, etc. pick up these stories as if they are TRUE and have been RESEARCHED.
This is a bad, bad cycle of bad journalism.
February 20th, 2009 at 9:56 am
Andruw – I see your point, but I think the core problem lies with cable news and other large media outlets for turning the industry-rag gossip into actual “news”. I don’t think Politico is doing anything particularly praiseworthy. But if we’re discussing the issue of political-process stories dominating the mainstream media at the expense of actual policy stories, I think our focus should be on the large media outlets that constantly try to turn entertainment into hard news for the sake of increased viewership/readership/profits, while neglecting their responsibilities as journalists.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Bye-bye, Ezra. That pretty fellow sure didn’t take long to turn.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:30 am
the Politico is a useless, trash website for people of mediocre intelligence who just can’t understand good writing because of the multisyllabic words and complex conceptual framework.
it is entirely for Villagers. the Politico exists because a bunch of “reporters” who nobody cared about or respected, all got together and decided to create a news/velveeta factory specifically to please and placate the villagers. everything about this website – bad stories full of made-up crap, specious logic at every turn, comment section that seems to come from StormFront, rather than a news aggregate site. its a self-fulfilling prophecy that Politico has “succeeded”. they make news the villagers love so that the villagers will in turn keep asking them “so what’s the headline today?” and on and on, etc.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Politico’s web site gets about as much traffic as Hot Air, a blog run by two guys.
So, either Allahpundit and Special Ed are making millions of dollars a year, or Politico is hemorrhaging money faster than the stock market and will be out of business soon.
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