Dr. Melissa Clouthier writing about An Indictment Of Right Leaning Journalism By Ben Domenech:
Here’s the nutshell: The Left-leaning journalism investigates the right. The Right-leaning journalism provides commentary and (and Ben doesn’t say this, but I am) when they do rarely investigate, investigates the right after being given oppo research by someone on their own side…..So much of the investigative work is being done by bloggers and they are under-funded and often over-worked.One thing Ben doesn’t mention is how the right-leaning DC journos don’t want to be hated. They hang out with other journalists and want to be included. The social pressure in DC is liberal. Always.Journalists are people (most of them). They want to be liked, included and respected. The way to be a skunk at a garden party is to criticize Democrats or investigate them.Note also: bloggers and commentary from outside DC tends to be a lot more strident, and, I’d like to add, truthful. That social pressure isn’t there. It’s difficult to write about friends.
That’s what so infuriates me. We pile on and investigate ourselves, and in some cases just regurgitate Democratic talking points.
A good example is Tim Carney’s post at The Washington Examiner insisting that Newt Gingrich was a lobbyist even though Carney admits that Gingrich was not a lobbyist as defined by the law.
This whole focus on lobbying and lobbyists is nonsense Democratic talking points. Mitt Romney‘s campaign has hired them and received substantial contributions from them, so all the Romney supporters who think that Newt’s alleged non-lobbying lobbying is a negative should prepare for it to come around to their candidate.
Petitioning government for redress is a constitutionally protected right. The issue is not whether Newt Gingrich or any other candidate lobbied or hired lobbyists, but whether there was anything improper about the way it was conducted.
Stop playing the Democrats’ game.
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