The national media watch group
O'Reilly was outraged by Sirota's point that the government's response would be very different–more costly, potentially more violent–if the perpetrators fit a certain profile. This is ironic, because O'Reilly had, the night of the attacks, basically made Sirota's point.
Since the consensus seems to be that Obama's inaugural address was actually a statement of a bold, progressive vision for his second term, it's not a surprise that some in the corporate media are upset. Obama's words were seen as particularly injurious to Republicans, who presumably already feel bad enough as it is.
The usual criticisms of the Iowa caucuses–that the votes of a small, demographically unrepresentative slice of America gobble up too much airtime–are basically correct. As David Sirota noted in Salon (1/3/12): The same journalism industry that pleads poverty to justify cutting big city newspapers' editorial staffs, gutting coverage of state legislatures and city councils, and eliminating every other critical topic not related to Washington's red-versus-blue fetish from news content–as writer Joe Romero recounts, this same industry has for months devoted a massive army to cover Iowa's small contest. Just one example of the absurdity: At least one of Rick Santorum's [...]
David Sirota has a new column (Creators Syndicate, 3/27/09) chronicling the nature of "newspapers' self-inflicted blows": First, financially strapped newspapers undermined their comparative advantage by replacing audience-attracting local exclusives with cheaper national content. Then the providers of that national content diverted resources from tough-to-report investigative journalism that builds loyal readership and into paparazzi-like birdcage liner that unconvincingly portrays politicians, CEOs and their minions as celebrities. Former journalist David Simon, "whose HBO series The Wire examined this trend," gives Sirota the awful truth: "In place of comprehensive, complex and idiosyncratic coverage, readers of even the most serious newspapers were offered celebrity [...]
