DU's own "Maha" on the state of the press....

[chiburb]

Snip:

Dukakis was hounded by a small group of anti-abortion rights activists who made noisy demonstrations at most of his speeches. And the television news would show footage of the demonstrators, then mention in passing that Dukakis had delivered a major policy speech on thus-and-so. This would be followed up by man-on-the-street interviews of random voters, who complained they had no idea how the candidates stood on the issues.

Even then, it didn't hit me that most journalists were nothing but cheap streetwalkers until the the race for the Democratic nomination in 1991-1992. I watched a particularly lively debate among Democratic candidates featuring sharp exchanges on several critical policy issues. Immediately after the debate, the cameras turned on a gaggle of pundits watching from a television studio. As I watched, expecting analysis of what had just happened, an obviously bored Cokie Roberts turned to the others and asked if they thought Mario Cuomo might decide to run.

The whole pack of them spent half an hour in gossipy chatter about Mario Cuomo, who wasn't there, ignoring the actual candidates, who included the future President of the United States, Bill Clinton.

And the quality of political journalism keeps getting worse.

(You can read the whole, insightful piece here (slow loading for dial-up):
http://www.mahablog.com/