Quote of the Day

"Could you explain Wisconsin? It's all political, isn't it? This is just 100% politics... There is no budget crisis in Wisconsin... Have you looked at the list of the top ten donors to political campaigns in America -- the top ten highest? Seven of those ten donate to Republicans; the other three that remain of those top ten, they all donate to Democrats and they're all unions. Bust the unions -- it's over. I'm not taking a side on this -- I'm telling you what's going on... These are the facts but people don't want to hear the facts. Facts are troublesome creatures from time to time... To pretend this is about a fiscal crisis in the state of Wisconsin is malarkey."

-- Shepard Smith

As usual, Shep is the lone voice of reason at Fox News. He and Juan Williams, during this exchange on Studio B, hit it on the head. Regardless of your thoughts on unions -- whether you love them or loathe them -- everything he's saying about what's really driving the battle in Wisconsin from the Republican side is absolutely true.

Speech Impediment: Addendum

One quick thing I wanted to add about the whole Juan Williams debacle. As expected, the second Williams got the axe from NPR, Fox jumped at the opportunity to publicly piss all over its radio nemesis by opening its arms and its wallet to Williams and offering him an extension on his contract worth a cool two million. What this essentially adds up to is something I've written about before: the fragmenting of the media based solely on political affiliation. In other words, say something the liberals will suck up like Soma, you've got yourself a sweet gig on MSNBC or NPR; throw a little red meat to the conservative crowd -- welcome to your new home at Fox. In the end, the one who suffers from this kind of homogenization is you.

"Across the Great Divide" (Originally Published, 9.10.09)

Well, here's the least surprising media-centric news item ever: John Stossel is leaving ABC for Fox News Channel.

For the uninitiated, Stossel is a multi-Emmy-winning investigative reporter with an amusing Harry Reems moustache. He calls himself a libertarian -- a designation which these days, unfortunately, is almost exclusively the property of the right -- and has spent the past several years doing his best to debunk manmade global climate change, bolster the notion of the wonders of unfettered greed and the ultimate good of the free market, and assail anyone who complains about the current health care model. His slot on 20/20 has been little more than his own personal Hyde Park-style soapbox ever since his conversion from serious journalist to silly dogmatic populist.

Stossel's been a regular guest on Fox for some time now; he generally appears as an analyst (which at Fox is code for someone who has even less obligation to the truth than the correspondents in the general assignment pool). Given his tendency to egomaniacally showboat, his departure probably isn't much of a loss to ABC. But it does underscore in no uncertain terms just where the business of journalism is heading: Hume, Beck, now Stossel -- they all skew hard to the right and they've all wound up at Fox. At this point, Fox is the bright light on the porch that attracts all the insects. The problem is that what we're witnessing is the homogenization of the news media. It was admittedly inevitable. With so many choices out there, narrowcasting was always the future. But the fewer dissenting opinions at each outlet -- with Fox essentially saying, "If you're a conservative, this is where you belong" -- the viewers, readers, and people simply looking for a well-balanced vision of the world will suffer.

Then again, the battle lines are so clearly drawn these days, with people believing only what they want to believe and refusing to hear any evidence to the contrary, that it probably doesn't make any difference anyway. For God's sake, last night a congressman stood up and shouted that the president is a liar (a lie itself, at least insofar as what that congressman was protesting at the time). The damage is done, and we may never reach a point again where this country's various political factions listen to each other without prejudice, let alone treat each other with respect.

The people who like what Stossel has to say are already waiting for him at Fox.

Welcome home, John.

(By the way, one more thing worth adding: Williams is dead-on when he says that NPR CEO Vivian Schiller's insinuation that he needs to discuss his supposed issues with Muslims with "his psychiatrist" was way below the belt and entirely uncalled-for. That, incidentally, is what I was referring to when I said last night that NPR made a spectacle out of canning Williams.)

Speech Impediment

I'll make this quick because I feel like if you've followed this site long enough you probably know which side I'm going to take on this issue.

No, Juan Williams doesn't deserve to have lost his job at NPR. In fact, NPR management comes off as arrogant, myopic and petulant as hell, not only for firing Williams for a relatively innocuous comment he made on Fox News but for going out of its way to make a public spectacle of doing so.

I'm not really going to bother getting into whether I agree or disagree with Williams's statement to Bill O'Reilly that it's understandable to get a little nervous when someone who identifies himself as Muslim boards the plane you happen to be on. I won't argue with it one way or the other because Williams was speaking only for himself and, what's more, wasn't justifying his feelings when he's in that situation so much as admitting that they exist. In other words, he didn't say it was right -- he just said it happens and that that kind of gut reaction doesn't necessarily make him some sort of animal. No matter how evolved each of us may think he or she is, everyone is capable of involuntarily reacting in a way that the brain would find primitive were it not for the fact that it hasn't had time to actually kick into gear and add things like reason and context.

What I will say, though, is that regardless what I think of Williams's comments, he had every right to voice them and not feel like he'd lose his job over it. We've entered a really dangerous era where it seems like journalists are regularly expected to speak authoritatively on the issues they're covering -- and Lord knows they have far more time and space and a greater number of outlets from which to do it than ever before -- but they have to always be on their guard that if they say the wrong thing, they'll be thrown out on their asses. You can either have a completely open forum as a news operation, where the intelligent exchange of ideas is welcome and encouraged, or you can slam the door shut on any and all analysis and interpretation. You can't have it both ways because the people you pay for their big brains and big mouths will never know when something coming from either of them crosses that imaginary and often completely arbitrary line dividing the acceptable from the forbidden.

NPR allowed Juan Williams to moonlight as a Fox News contributor; to suddenly freak out over the fact that he has it in him to say something ever-so-mildly controversial in the service of that gig seems entirely disingenuous.

Enough is enough, already. Either let these people speak their minds or don't -- but stop with this half-assed nonsense. Keep one thing in mind, though: The media world these days is too massive, too quickly evolving and too transparent to keep anyone locked in an ivory tower anymore.