The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are now in an all-out pissing match. I’d say great – nothing like a little journalistic competition to lubricate the gears of democracy, right? Except that it’s not that kind of newspaper war. It’s a stupid, Murdochian war. In other words, a war which is not about anything but war itself, or, to be precise, a state of neverending ideological conflict.
Briefly: the NYT’s David Carr wrote a piece calling attention to what a lot of us have noticed in recent months: that under Rupert Murdoch’s ownership, the Journal’s Washington coverage has moved noticeably rightward from its traditional, ideologically neutral stance. Probably the low point of this was the news story that repeatedly used the term “death tax” for “inheritance tax.”
The WSJ’s managing editor Robert Thomson responded with (politely-phrased!) trash talk:
The news column by a Mr David Carr today is yet more evidence thatThe New York Times is uncomfortable about the rise of an increasingly successful rival while its own circulation and credibility are in retreat. The usual practice of quoting ex-employees was supplemented by a succession of anonymous quotes and unsubstantiated assertions. The attack follows the extraordinary actions of Mr Bill Keller, the Executive Editor, who, among other things, last year wrote personally and at length to a prize committee casting aspersions on Journal journalists and journalism. Whether it be in the quest for prizes or in the disparagement of competitors, principle is but a bystander at The New York Times.
NYT editor Bill Keller then responded to this, and no doubt Thomson will fire back, if not now at some other propitious time. And so on.
Here’s the problem. There are a lot of flaws in standard DC political coverage – its obsession with the news cycle and cable talking heads, its deference to power, its maddening insider’s cynicism and arrogance. But American politics still depends on journalism institutions to, well, explain it to itself. The federal government is a huge and complex monster. If you’re going to go toe-to-toe with it and expose what’s going on, it helps to have a weighty name behind you – like the NYT or WSJ, with their traditions, smart editors and clout.
But those institutions are under siege and disappearing. Layoffs have all but demolished many important redoubts of mainstream media’s political coverage. Only the New York Times, McClatchy (home to fine, often prescient coverage that is often underplayed by the mediasphere), and the Wall Street Journal at or not too far below their traditional full strength in staff and clout.
Except, er, that now the WSJ Washington bureau is apparently caught in the tractor beam of Murdoch’s Death Star. I feel for the journalists there, because this “death tax” business and increasingly blatant bias will hurt their credibility in DC and in journalism. The WSJ’s rightward lurch will also hurt the public debate, because it will have lost an important honest broker. There will be a lot of heat, not much light. It will be that much harder to tell what is really going on. And that’s just the type of environment in which Thompson and Murdoch thrive.
Not By MAUREEN DOWD
