Sarah Palin: Why No Amount of Newsweek Reporting Will Hurt Palin
Who's up for another Newsweek take on Sarah Palin?
Newsweek’s latest effort to unravel the mystery that is Sarah Palin is about what readers have come to expect.
NEWSWEEK WONDERS: WHY DON’T THE HIT PIECES WORK ANYMORE?
ANSWER: MORE AMERICANS TRUST SARAH PALIN THAN TRUST NEWSWEEK
Newsweek has an article on its website on Sarah Palin titled Why No Amount of Reporting Can Hurt Sarah Palin. The article is extremely informative–only not in the way intended by its author, Ravi Somaiya.
The headline is mostly correct even as the rest of the piece fails.
Michael Joseph Gross’s stories, headlined “Sarah Palin: the Sound and the Fury” and “Sarah Palin’s Shopping Spree: Yes, There’s More …” are filled with the kind of detail that sets the political press frothing (with outrage or glee, depending on the outlet). She’s a bad tipper, he reports; she abuses staff and throws things; she is vengeful, perhaps “unhinged”; her aides are amateurish and vindictive; she displays signs of paranoia. Gross found, he says, a “sad and moldering strangeness” as soon as he looked under the surface of her world.
After repeating choice tidbits from the two above hit pieces, Somaiya admits that “It is hard to know whether what Gross reports is true—many of his assertions are based on opinions, and anonymous ones at that.” But that doesn’t stop Somaiya from dutifully repeating what he doesn’t know to be true and expanding upon it.
The author also claims “Palin is insulated in ways that other public figures can only dream of. Her supporters defend her like so many lionesses surrounding a cub.” Perhaps, if Newsweek spent as much time speculating why that might be as it does repeating claims “it is hard to know” are true, Somaiya might have done what he set out to do: inform his readers.
Think back to 2008. Palin is just named to be John McCain’s running mate. JournOList members are plotting how best to coordinate their attacks in the media for which they write. Within days of the Palin VP announcement, the same press that couldn’t ask Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards about his mistress and love child–after the National Enquirer gift-wrapped names, dates, photos, and a mind-boggling array of details–descended like wolves on Wasilla, Alaska, in an effort to dig up dirt on the Alaskan governor.
Both of these opposite reactions demonstrated that Newsweek and it’s MSM brethren were engaged in more than just bias. They were engaged in full-fledged content management. Instead of merely reporting the news, they wished to shape the news, to manufacture it.
The attacks didn’t stop when the campaign ended. Newsweek might have some problems with reporting, but they can sniff out an ideological threat. After Palin returned to private life, Newsweek ran their infamous Palin cover story, pictured below.
Back to their latest effort.
As stated, Newsweek got the headline mostly right while Somaiya stumbled around what was another tired Palin hit piece from the $1 newsweekly. The headline alluded to “reporting.” But “reporting” is not what we get from the magazine and its bedfellows at Vanity Fair. It’s a mish-mash of whispers, gossip and cluelessness and third-hand anonymous sources.
Somaiya can’t come out and pen an article that argues the merits of his ideology. He’d rather try to be clever about it. The only thing is: after seeing the same trick over and over, even the most dim-witted eventually figure it out.
The answer which Ravi Somaiya couldn’t fathom?
The answer why pieces like his, as well as the two from Vanity Fair, have almost no effect is simple: we don’t believe you any longer.
There’s a reason Newsweek fell on hard times. Sure, it lost readers and was managed horribly, but it long ago squandered its credibility producing Obama hagiographies and attacking those it disagreed with ideologically.
So, knock yourself out, Ravi. Serve up one, two, ten more Sarah Palin hatchet attacks masquerading as “analysis.” It doesn’t matter.
Those who read you are already convinced. Those who don’t?
They take what’s printed in your pages–at least when it comes to American politics–with a giant-sized block of salt. Newsweek’s attacking Sarah Palin again? What’s so special about that? That’s not news: that’s policy.
One of the few institution Americans trust less than the Mainstream Media–which includes Newsweek–is Congress. Somaiya should thank his editors that Americans can’t vote media organizations into oblivion like they’re about to do to Congress.
Oh wait, they can. That’s what put Newsweek into its current situation. At some point, one would bet that Newsweek would figure it out before the next sale comes down.
But that’s not where the smart money is.
by Mondo Frazier
image: dbkpf file
Something that I wonder about – Democratic Representative Jane Harman bought NEWSWEEK, (or rather her ninety-one year old husband did,- wink wink). Doesn’t that somehow or other violate at least the spirit of campaign finance laws? Newsweek doesn’t make money, in fact will cost Harma an enormous amount of money to operate. Isn’t that unregulated, unreported campaign spending? It has been a defacto political campaign organ for a long time – certainly not a legitimate newsmagazine. So, if a gazillionaire wants to fund a campaign, can he now just buy a semi-defunct news outlet, pour his billions into it, and thereby avoid all campaign disclosure laws, all limits on spending?
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admin Reply:
September 2nd, 2010 at 19:02
Dante,
What an interesting question!
…wonder how many MSM news organizations will look into it?
thanks for your comment.
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LBG1 Reply:
September 2nd, 2010 at 19:42
Dante:
And guess who bought Business Week?
Bloomberg LP. (Mayor Bloomberg owns 85% of Bloomberg L.P., a privately owned company.)
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Nice job, Mondo!
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Yes, it’s true you don’t believe the press, and that’s one reason Palin has acquired a Reaganesque teflon coating. But you don’t disbelieve the press because they lack credibility; if so no one on the right would watch Fox News, which hasn’t a shred of credibility. You disbelieve the press because they disagree with your preconceptions. You believe Newsweek has no credibility because they have said things counter to your belief system. If you only believe what you want to believe, then you will only trust the sources that tell you what you want to hear. Palin’s fanbase is made up entirely of the purposely ignorant.
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LBG1 Reply:
September 3rd, 2010 at 13:39
Charles Herold,
And yet another well-thought assessment of Sarah Palin’s fanbase being made up the “purposely ignorant”. At first, lefties who fear Palin called Palin and her fanbase ignorant and morons. Now it’s “purposely ignorant”. Can’t wait to see what you’ll come up with next. Speaking of purposely ignorant, in the last election Palin wasn’t running against Obama. It was the MSM who chose to turn the election into Palin versus Obama. Palin was running for Vice-President. It was apparent Palin scared the beejezus out of Obama’s fanbase in the MSM press. What’s still apparent, as long as liberal political pundits and the MSM try to smear Palin, their actions are based on their FEAR OF SARAH PALIN.
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admin Reply:
September 3rd, 2010 at 14:16
Charles,
Why is it when specific shortcomings of the MSM are brought up, the first thing Progressive Libs do is yell, “FOX NEWS”? It doesn’t lead to a discussion or further one that others might want to have.
Thanks for including us in your your spot-on analysis and gratuitous slap at Palin.
Are you sure you don’t work for Newsweek?
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The problem with the media is that they are afraid of Palin. They are constantly attacking her and her family. They are showing just how pathetic they are. Actions speak louder than words. The only networks I watch anymore are the ones that aren’t bashing Palin. All the others can kiss my rearend.
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Palin gets a lot of guff, but she’d be an infinitely better president than the marxist-in-chief. You know, because she actually has American values.
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The saturation point of anti-Palin tirades was reached a long time ago. It’s been 2 years now, we’ve heard all the rumors, all the gossip, and a ton of outright lies. It’s time for the the likes of Newsweak, Vanity unFair, MSNBC, CBS (the Levi Johnston Network), and all the others, to just give it a rest. If they can’t help themselves, maybe they could, every single day, just make one big “WE HATE SARAH PALIN!!” announcement, and move on to other things. That way they would get it out of their system, and we wouldn’t have to sit through all their childishness.
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Why do so many people not believe these stories? Because they are written by the same people who told us that Barack Obama was uniquely qualified to be president, that he had genius intelligence and an ideal temperament. As we witness the disaster that is the Obama Administration, we realize that they were totally wrong about him–he is perhaps the most unqualified person ever elected as president. It is the people who still have not figured out that Obama is a disaster, despite a 9.6% unemployment rate and an enormous deficit that is out of control, who are attacking Palin. These Obama cheerleaders were totally wrong about Obama so why should we trust their judgment about on Palin?
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