"And, let's face it, newspapers and magazines aren't in trouble because people think they're committing shoddy journalism."

I don't think Hillary was complaining that newspapers were being too soft on Obama. It was about the TV "news" media. And in fact TV "news" media does commit shoddy journalism. Remember the summer of 2001, when the U.S. television "news" media was going ape over the deadly threat of shark attacks? When, it happened, shark attacks were actually down from the previous year? And meanwhile the world was going to hell to the extent that barbarians were about to sack America's greatest city? Even that summer, without the benefit of post-9/11 hindsight, people were complaining about the crap pretend-"journalism" of the shark-obsessed TV "news" media. And the situation has only worsened. I mean, shark attacks actually bumped Iraq off several TV "news" networks last summer.

Just because hating the media is an old pastime doesn't mean that the American people are wrong in their assessment of the media. At least where TV is concerned.

How do you know the resentment and/or loathing are directed at journalists rather than the candidate's campaign mode itself, specifically the vapid rhetoric and ridiculous tent revivals?

What makes you think that 60 year-old machinists and their spouses watch SNL or read Newsweek? Put yourself in the shoes of someone who's raised a family, helped build a community, managed matters for a school board or a union pension fund, and ask which candidate's coterie is more appealing: Bill Clinton, with all his flaws, and the Clintonites, or child-ravers and Scarlett Johansson. The votes for Clinton are more likely votes for a process that re-focuses on really difficult bread-and-butter economics issues, also f-p, instead of phony debates and vapid rhetoric.

Michelle, maybe you can start the trend by no longer appearing on Dan Abrams' horrific show.  Do you need to shower after that dreck?  It is the worst sort of addled political -unkfood pablum.  Perhaps because our media types trot out relentlessly anti-intellectual nonsense like that, we tend to get a little crabby and think the worst of those involved.

My problem is that HRC pitches herself as the tough-as-nails, seen-everything candidate who can take anything the Republicans can throw at her, yet she bitches and moans about Brian freaking Williams? You don't think she's going to get the worst of it in the media when she goes up against Mr. Navy Ace/POW/Anti-Pork Crusader in the General? If she can't handle it now...

Let's not overreact here. SNL is great and Tina Fey is funny and it was a good show. And the reaction warrants analysis but that's not what the Times piece gave us. Sure, Obama's press coverage went up since the show, as did Hillary's. But the piece didn't consider more conventional wisdom like front-runner status and what generally happens to the offense that starts to play defense. Michelle should be truer to her journalists-in-tow and assume the change in coverage dynamic is simply a part of the horse race and not fictionalized bully syndrome. Of course, covering the horse race is pathetic, too. Who knows?

Bravo Michelle!

Well, Chris Matthews is back to his old ways - I mean, I haven't seen him pulling any gender weirdness, but he went off on Clinton yesterday afternoon - repeatedly - for giving that weasel answer to Steve Kroft about Obama being a muslim. Keith Olbermann was likewise surly about Bill Clinton meeting with Rush Limbaugh. Their preference seems pretty clear. Jon Stewart, of course, was fawning to her on his show, Monday night. But Colbert seems to clearly be pro-Obama.

At least Abrams stuck it to that flag lapel pin idiot.

How many people still watch SNL? How many of those people are likely to participate in Democratic primaries?

The fault's not in your media stars but in yourselves, Obamamaniacs

What changed? The same people who have supported her up to this point continue to support her; there are just many more of these poor and poorly educated people in Ohio and Texas than in some other spots.

What has changed is accessibility:

Hillary does seem more approachable, less chilly.

And Bill is completely inaccessible, hidden away somewhere, which is good for the Clintons. The people who vote for her appear to be the kind of neighbors who when your kids are away at camp believe you no longer have children.

Fascinating...a wonk who appeals to people who don't think very much.

Some time ago someone, Nabokov maybe, noticed how light enraptures moths, and how watching them thus enraptured enraptures those watching them.

So, we have the all-encompassing glow. All the world a lava light, globs slowly rising and falling--formless smooth tangerine amoebic jism channeling Jerome Robbins. We tilt our heads, like puppies. The media can say and do whatever the hell it wants, which is whatever we'll pay for, which is whatever the hell it wants.

Truth? Turn off the TV and work in a soup kitchen one day a week, or tutor at an inner city school, or host a couple of laborers (as I happened to do for a few days last week) who, it turns out, came by way of the Rio Grande, or sit suffering in an emergency room for four hours, or enlist in the Marines, if you want truth. Which nobody in their right mind does.

There is more than enough truth to go around, thank you very much. But truth is not something one watches. Truth is something one does.

So don't ask the media to give us truth, which is something nobody expects it to do, in particular the nobody known as the media.

Example. CNN.com, right now as I type this, leads its list of "Latest News" with this headline:

Is Cindy McCain that perfect?

ac360.blogs.cnn.com/.../can-cindy-mccain-really-be-that-perfect

williamyard, that's noble advice, but I'm afraid telling us just to switch off the TV is just as facile as Nancy's telling kids just to say No to the dope pusher.  Like the dope pusher, TV -- mass media in general -- is not a passive agent but powerfully and deliberately acts insidiously keep us hooked.  The evidence for this is overwhelming.

Remember Cronenberg's Videodrome?  The reality is almost that monstrous.

jm_rice,

True. Still..

Long live the Dadaists' old graffito from the Paris uprisings:  "Be realistic--demand the impossible!"

"Scold us, and we immediately go into a shame-faced crouch, start lashing ourselves like medieval monks, and become desperate to win back your approval."

More like, "I've been such a baaaad one" with a wink.  

Got news for you Miss Cottle, the decline of newspapers and TV news began *before* the Internet.  It began with Vietnam and Watergate, as the public began rightly to perceive the media for what they are -- shallow, vindictive, prima donnas, more interested in the story than the truth and more interested in the byline than the story, for whom first-person has become de rigueur.  And this includes settling petty scores.

Of course, the Internet has accelerated the decline, but you delude yourself if you think the reasons are technical or if you opt for the old "kill the messenger" excuse, rather than that the public simply loathes journalists ad hominem and stampeded from them when an alternative  presented itself.  Sure, you put yourselves in good company -- lawyers are shysters and politicians are crooks -- but isn't it interesting that the relationship amongst the three is symbiotic?.

Of the three, I have the greatest sympathy for modern politicians, whose only sin -- and fewer are crooks than you let on -- is that of trying to please one constituent only to gain the enmity of another.  Which means that for the politician, being loathed goes with the territory.  Alas, while truly nice people can be politicians, and even lawyers, this is impossible for journalists, who by nature are bastards.  It's simply part of the job description.

What is pathetic is that HRC's press complaints were Orwellian to the extreme.  She was being treated worse because she was/is LOSING.  But that does not mean that she was being treated unfairly, i.e. differently.   In fact, I can't imagine that anyone other than a relative of a former president would have been treated so well after being repeatedly crushed in the primaries.  Look at how the failed Republican candidates were treated:  Giulliani - treated like a joke.  Huckabee - was assumed to be a joke.  Romney -treated similar to a leper and so on.  

HRC was treated with kid gloves relatively speaking.  But  the truth in front of the presses nose is the hardest for it to see.  (apologies to Orwell).

yard, hmm, which uprising was that, there've been so many?  And they usually go nowhere except extended resess at the Sorbonne and sometimes mass slaughter.

Pedantic note:  Since they were Dadaists, wouldn't it have been more correct to say, "Be surrealistic...?"  ;)

Listen Michelle Cottle, you try to be irronic but you personally are the best example of how stupid the media is. You used to be an OK journalist, but you haven't written anything else than fluff for along time - celebrity shit, pop-sociology, things from your marriage and other similarly inane things.

Your problem is not that you or your colleagues are liberal - don't try to mask your incompetence by making it sound you're judged as a liberal. No, you're judged badly because you are stupid, lazy and shallow. This has nothing to do with being liberal or conservative. Your colleagues at the national Review are similarly abysmally stupid. Jonah Goldberg, who is sooo loved by Peter Beinart, is a fine example.

When have you read what these candidates actually stand for, or what their political past is? How many decisions you they took you know about?

Aaaaah, but no, you'll talk about Obama's charisma, berate Clinton's "wonkishness" and other idiocies. No wonder you guys went for Bush - he was all about human touch, which, lazy and illiterate as you are.

Incidentally Michelle, it's because of you and Isaac Chotiner and Peter Beinart and other People-style writers that I am not renewing my TNR subscription. I suspect I'm not not the only reader who will do that. You'll remain with your fans and you'll have a great time conversion with them about the latest Britney Spears item.

Tough crowd here today, whew. Hang in there, Ms Cottle

Aw, hell yes! Michelle Cottle, you are my new hero.

I'd take it a step further. Not only must we exorcise the cringe impulse, we gotta take the fight straight back to illiterate douches like sleepyavl, above. (Cancelling your subscription, eh? Bye-byeeee, dork! Please do take your drooling friends with you, OK?)

In short, we've abandoned our traditional swagger just at the moment we needed it most. Too many of us are afraid to kick ass. That's what brought us to this pass. The management weenies who encouraged this idiotic state of affairs should be taken out and shot.

And by the way. jm_rice says: "... this is impossible for journalists, who by nature are bastards.  It's simply part of the job description."

And I say: Hell yes! You got that right, brother!

Michelle, I agree with what you say a lot of the time but this is pure drivel.  Is it really your opinion that the press has gone "all to pieces" since the SNL skit?  A few commentaries admitting the patently obvious - that Obama gets far better coverage than Hillary - and you call this "going all to pieces"?  All the things you listed - the shallow, subjective, horserace covering - are we supposed to just chuckle and say, "oh, that crazy national press of ours!"  Does it not matter that our political discourse is driven by lazy innuendo, half-truths and imaginary media narratives?  Is it all just a game to you?  

Michelle - sleepyavl has said some good things, but his latest (above) is not one of them.  I appreciate you and remain an admirer.

JackR - do you have any links?