Remember back in 2007/2008 when Democratic candidate Barack Obama was being called an elitist? Well, if you miss that kind of media coverage, the Washington Post's Dana Milbank has got you covered (9/18/09) here, writing up Michelle Obama's visit to a D.C. farmers market:

The promotion of organic and locally grown food, though an admirable cause, is a risky one for the Obamas, because there's a fine line between promoting healthful eating and sounding like a snob. The president, when he was a candidate in 2007, got in trouble in Iowa when he asked a crowd, "Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?" Iowans didn't have a Whole Foods.

Guest Women In Media & News blogger Adele M. Stan (8/5/09) has some more to say about the WashingtonPost.com's "now-infamous 'Mad Bitch' video":

Last Friday, Talking Points Memo's Brian Beutler shone a light on a video produced by the Washington Post that featured one of the two columnists hosting the piece suggesting that, at a future White House beer summit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton be given a brew called "Mad Bitch." Then all hell broke loose.

The Post apparently thought it could fix the problem by simply pulling the video. A note was posted above the hole where the video used to be, reading that the piece had been removed because it contained material that was "inappropriate" for the Post website. As if it had landed there from Mars. As if it hadn't been written and produced in the Washington Post building by Washington Post staffers.

Then, yesterday, the two columnists, Chris Cillizza and Dana Milbank, had the effrontery to post what amounts to a "screw-you" response video to the criticism they had received from bloggers.

Stan reports that, in the fallout, "the series has been canceled," but "Milbank remains pretty unrepentant, instead whining about the drubbing he took at the hands of blogosphere denizens."

Even after receiving a critical letter signed by Stan, Jennifer Pozman, Katha Pollitt and many others, Post executive editor Marcus "Brauchli, for his part, did not exactly apologize," and "it does not appear that there will be any disciplinary action."

Howard Kurtz recently offered fellow Washington Post reporters Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza a chance to apologize for having, in an online Post feature, "implied Hillary Clinton was a 'bitch.'"

But American Prospect's Tapped blogger Adam Serwer (8/5/09) has a question regarding Milbank's aside that "it's a brutal world out there in the blogosphere.... I'm often surprised by the ferocity out there, but I probably shouldn't be":

What's the sound of a million hands facepalming? No one who goes around using obscenities to describe other reporters and administration officials should be complaining about the "ferocity" of blogs--if Milbank is bothered by it, he might start by admitting his own complicity in creating that kind of discourse.

Serwer's reiteration that "Milbank's unique place in the journalism world entails him making fun of people for a living" yields a simple maxim: "If you can't take it, don't dish it."

I wrote a short item on Dan Froomkin's firing for FAIR's radio show CounterSpin today:

One of the bright spots at the Washington Post media enterprise was Dan Froomkin's column, "White House Watch," for WashingtonPost.com.  It often struck us that Froomkin had a whole different attitude--skeptical of those in power, and critical of their journalistic enablers--than most of his colleagues at the Post Co. So it was perhaps not too surprising to hear that Froomkin, one of the Post's most popular online writers, had been fired--not long after his column was placed under the authority of editorial page editor Fred Hiatt, who's one of the journalists who best exemplifies the Post's dominant ethic of service to authority.

Those who had accepted the premise that the purpose of journalism was to advance the agenda of official Washington were understandably resentful of Froomkin, who was a constant reminder that that was not, in fact, the only way to report the news.  Post ombud Deborah Howell wrote a column back in 2005  complaining that Froomkin was "highly opinionated and liberal"--hilariously quoting the Post's then-national political editor John Harris as saying that Froomkin's column "dilutes our only asset--our credibility."

Let's be clear--it's not that they don't like you injecting opinion into the news at the Washington Post; in fact, they do that so much that economist Dean Baker refers to them as "Fox on 15th Street." But they have to be the right opinions--if, like Post columnist Dana Milbank, you think single-payer advocates are pathetic and ridiculous, that's an opinion the Post Co. is happy to showcase.  If your opinion is, like Froomkin's, that torture performed by the U.S. government ought to be called "torture," well, that might be putting at risk what the Washington Post calls "credibility."

I was struck in writing this item by what I couldn't do, which is quote Froomkin's powerful statement about the importance of journalists pointing out when officials aren't telling the truth--because Froomkin repeatedly refers to this key journalistic function as "calling bullshit"--and if we had quoted that on the air, the stations that run our show would risk being fined by the FCC.  (I could have translated that to "calling BS," but somehow euphemizing Froomkin's unvarnished call for journalistic forthrightness didn't feel right.)  Just a reminder that the petty censorship policies of the FCC do have political consequences.

In his June 11 Washington Post column about a Capitol Hill hearing featuring single-payer advocates (imagine that!), Dana Milbank sheds no light on the policy debate, but manages to reveal just how deeply enveloped he is inside the Beltway bubble.

"Socialism is not dead," smirks Milbank. "It has, however, been confined to a House subcommittee." The columnist oozes condescension for single-payer activists at the hearing for harboring the quaint presumption they might get any real attention in Washington with their unpopular policy. Writes Milbank:

President Obama said it would be a "huge disruption." Democratic lawmakers ignored the single-payer crowd so completely that 13 activists got themselves arrested last month protesting at Senate Finance Committee hearings.

Since single-payer is such a non-starter, Milbank explains, the hearings are really no more than a safety valve, a token bone thrown to angry advocates in need of blowing off steam. In the end, he explains, little of substance was aired because "it was a day for venting, not answers."

In the world outside Milbank's bubble, of course, single payer is quite popular. For years, polls have consistently found majorities supporting tax-financed national health insurance. A January New York Times/CBS poll found 59 percent in favor of government-provided national health insurance. The same goes for surveys of medical professionals; for instance, a 2008 poll of U.S. doctors, published  in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found 59 percent supported a single-payer plan.

Milbank might have used his valuable column space to probe the disconnect in American democracy, where the public and relevant professionals favor a policy that can barely get arrested in official Washington. While he may think he's made good fun of healthcare activists, what he's really done is reveal how profoundly alienated he is from basic notions of democracy and the open debate of ideas.

Washington Post columnist David Broder has made a career out of advocating a certain type of corporate centrism--earning him the honorary (?) title of the Dean of the D.C. Press Corps. The formula is pretty simple: Argue that Democratic politicians should move to the right. So with healthcare reform a major issue, Broder's formula is easy: Barack Obama should reject his party's support for a "public option" government plan that would compete against private insurance companies.

Why should Obama do this? Well, according to Broder, the appealing thing is that some lawmakers--mostly Republicans, though he mentions Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and Utah Republican Bob Bennett--are against setting up a public plan. Hence, advocating one isn't very "bipartisan." And therefore there is virtue in tossing the public option overboard:

The time may come--either before or after the House votes on its bill--when Obama may have to demonstrate his flexibility on the issue of a government-run option. Wyden and Bennett are potential allies if he removes what Bennett calls "the rock" blocking a bipartisan bill. And the president couldn't wish for better partners.

This is virtually the same thing Broder always advises: "flexibility," meaning giving up on something Democrats support. And what they would give up is an idea that seemingly has widespread public support-- as does a single-payer plan, but the David Broders of the world can't be bothered to take that seriously. (Broder's Post colleague Dana Milbank lampooned single-payer activists elsewhere in the same day's paper.) What's important to Broder is what's always been important-- for Democrats to be more like Republicans, or at least tailor policy to their liking. The columns write themselves.

In a column attacking Google and other "accused newspaper industry killers," the Washington Post's Dana Milbank (5/7/09) doesn't present much of an argument for why newspapers are dying--but he provides an excellent example of why journalism like his deserves to die.

[Marissa] Mayer, who oversees Google News, explained how "Google is doing its part" to preserve journalism--by keeping the lion's share of ad revenue before directing readers to newspaper sites. "Google News and Google search provide a valuable service to online newspapers specifically by sending interested readers to their sites," she said.

Oh? Let's plug in "Senate Commerce Committee 'Future of Journalism' hearing" into Google News and see what comes up. After a link to a wire story, the second headline is "Google's Mayer to Dispense Advice to Newspapers at Senate Hearing."

One obvious feature of journalism that's worth preserving is that it makes sense, which this passage clearly does not.  What is the relevance of the fact that a headline about Google comes up when you do a Google News search on a hearing whose most newsworthy aspects include a Google executive's testimony?  It seems unlikely that Milbank is advancing a conspiracy theory that Google is rigging its search results to get more publicity for itself, because he plainly thinks Mayer's testimony was newsworthy as well.

Milbank instead seems to be saying that this link turning up somehow disproves Mayer's contention that Google News provides as "valuable service to online newspapers"--but how does it disprove this, exactly? The link goes to a Wall Street Journal blog post--and the Journal is presumably happy to have Google sending people to it, because the Journal gets paid every time someone sees the ad sitting next to the post.

The one intelligible point that Milbank makes here is his complaint that Google is "keeping the lion's share of ad revenue before directing readers to newspaper sites."  Yes, it does--it does keep most of the revenue that it gets for selling ads on its own website, revenue that would not exist if Google did not exist.  That's wrong, in the eyes of Milbank and other self-pitying newspaper pundits,  because Google is getting paid to find things that belong to newspapers.  It's not fair!  You can almost hear Milbank's foot stamping the floor.

This is unpersuasive on a few counts.  For one thing, quoting newspaper headlines and a minimal amount of text, as Google does, is plainly fair use--anyone has the right to do this without asking the newspaper owner's permission or paying them anything.  FAIR often quotes Milbank's copy--generally to point out how inaccurate, misleading or servilely devoted to power it is--and we're not about to start paying him for the privilege. Google has no more obligation to pay newspapers for directing Internet users to their stories than tour guides have to pay the owners of the landmark buildings they point out.  Or, for that matter, than newspapers are required to pay newsmakers for creating the events that newspapers profit from reporting.

But Google, as we've pointed out before, does not rely on what would seem to be a strong fair use claim; it allows newspapers to opt out of Google News by adding a simple line of code to their websites.  If the Washington Post thinks it's being killed by Google News, it can immediately stop Google News from directing readers to it. Clearly, the Post doesn't want to do that--it wants Google to keep sending readers to the it, and it wants Google to send it a great big check as well.  That's not the way the capitalist system works, but you can understand why Dana Milbank wishes it were.