NY Times and 'Serious' Journalism
Dan Gillmor is a BoingBoing guest-blogger.
I pick on the New York Times a lot for its flubs, not because I hate the paper or because I own some nearly worthless shares in the company. I do it because the journalism done there still matters.
Over the weekend and yesterday we saw examples of the organization's better and lesser sides. Let's start with the good stuff:
The better came in the form of a richly detailed magazine story about Cleveland's housing and neighborhoods -- left a shambles by the deflated bubble that has done so much damage around America and the world. The story is a ground-level look at the disaster, and it's as grim as you can imagine: a city, pillaged by greed at every level, but almost totally outgunned by the pillagers.
The writer, Alex Kotlowitz, is a university professor, author and former reporter. He's as good as they get, and the Times surely paid plenty for this piece, in its freelance fee plus expenses plus the editing talent inside the newspaper itself. More on this in upcoming posts, but if we don't find ways to support this kind of journalism we'll all be worse off.
Also in the Sunday edition, however, was the paper's long-demanded interview with Obama, which the Times somewhat arrogantly considers its birthright with every new president. The reporters used the opportunity to learn a few things about Obama's work and goals. But in the process one reporter, Peter Baker, asked one of the most idiotic questions I've ever heard from a reputable news organization. He asked if Obama was a socialist, and then, when Obama said no, followed up with, "Is there anything wrong with saying yes?" Obama, for his part, called the paper later to say he couldn't believe the paper was "entirely serious." That's more polite than the journalists deserved.
The Washington Post, in a rare case of one news organization asking hard questions of another about its journalism, followed up on this and got the following from an unnamed NYT editor who quoted an email from Baker:
The goal of the question was to get at the same issue your sister publication, Newsweek, was addressing with its recent cover story, “We Are All Socialists Now.”
The point is not the label, per se, but the question of whether the times and the solutions under consideration represent some sort of paradigm shift in our national thinking about the role of government in society. In a moment of taxpayer bank bailouts and shifting tax burden proposals and exploding deficits and expansive health care and energy plans, what is the future of American-style capitalism?
We were also interested in exploring how a new president defines his political philosophy, something that has been the subject of intense debate. We wanted to draw him out on all of that and I think his answers, both in the interview itself and the follow-up phone call, were interesting and important.
If the goal was really what he said, he could have asked the question in that context. He could have simply said, "Given the paradigm shift in the view of government's role amid all the bailouts, stimulus, health care and all the rest, Newsweek's cover story recently said, 'We are All Socialists Now.' Do you agree?" An exchange prompted by that question would have been legitimate.
But the real context, as everyone else in the world knows, was the right wing talk machine's collective decision to brand Obama as a socialist who wants government to take over just about everything. Given how Baker asked his question, and his snarky near-demand that the Obama answer yes, he embarrassed his newspaper, badly. Give the Times credit: It didn't delete this stuff from the transcript, which might have been a temptation given the vacuous nature of Baker's queries.
Speaking of giving credit to the Times, several of its writers and editors are hanging out more often in public places where they can be part of a larger conversation about what they do. This is a hugely important recognition on their part that their audience has something useful to offer, and that they have a duty to that audience to be a genuine part of this emergent conversation.
Which accounts for some small disappointment in an exchange I had yesterday on Twitter with a Times editor who's one of the more open members of his clan and who's doing a lot to make the place seem more human and less institutional. It started when he posted a Tweet announcing, "NYT e-mail interview with Ann Coulter. SHE WRITES IN ALL CAPS!!!! http://bit.ly/yf9Eq"
The rest of the exchange went this way (I removed our screen names and re-quotes of the other's Tweets for clarity):
Me: serious news org doesn't interview Ann Coulter
Him: A serious news organization doesn't declare things off limits.
Me: nothing off-limits for NYT? GMAB - there's stuff the Times will never do, properly so..
Him: If Coulter didn't sell books or have a following, I might agree. We try to explain the world, even parts you don't like.
Me: so notoriety and book sales trump all other judgment. disappointing.
Him: That's not what I said. Have a nice day.
To be fair, no, I didn't repeat back precisely what he said, but I do think I reflected the gist of it. Also to be fair, Twitter is probably the worst place to have a serious conversation. You can't do nuance in 140 characters; at least I'm no good at it.
Most of all, there was no way I should have expected him to denounce his own employer's decision to engage in a public conversation with one of society's best-known spreaders of political poison. But his ultimate brush-off struck me as just the kind of thing Big Journalism folks do when asked to justify things they've said. Maybe I deserved to be shut down there, but he never did fully address the issue he'd raised in the first place by promoting the paper's email exchange with the odious pundit.
News organizations are complicated places, filled with people who want, by and large, to do the right thing. More than almost any other, we expect the Times to reflect the best in American journalism. At least I do.
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The Gray Lady is a whore. It printed all of Judith Miller's lies about WMD in Iraq, which played no small part in the propaganda that got us into an illegal war--and more to the point, never came clean on it. Sulzberger, Keller--all of them have blood on their hands.
Yes, news organizations are filled with people who want to do the right thing. The problem is, the NYT (and the WaPo) think they know what the right thing is, and everybody who disagrees is a dirty f'in hippie.
By the way, a few years back they did a hearts and flowers profile of Coulter in the Sunday Style section. That should tell you a lot.
I think "would you consider yourself socialist" is a fair question. The correct answer would be something "No, but I'm a left leaning moderate, who will incorporate both socialist and capitalist ideals into a policy which I believe will most benefit the American people." Of course, he would never say something like that, since the word socialist has become as tainted as communist. And Obama is a politician, which means he won't say what he means. It's a sticky question, but that's the NY Time's job, to ask sticky questions.
Find me an unbiased news organization, and I'll find you a hobbit riding a unicorn.
A good journalist, as I see it, knows how to ask the right questions. A layperson could ask 'R U A socialist LOL?', but a journalist could ask a question that gives the context as well as goals of answering such a question. Do I think this is a left-wing right-wing thing no... I think its a professionalism thing.
Yes, you deserved to be shut down, and in fact guaranteed it from the statement of your initial biased, and deeply-flawed thesis: "Me: serious news org doesn't interview Ann Coulter"
The editor was perfectly right: just because someone out there finds a interviewee odious doesn't negate their interview. You came off as some left-wing crackpot striving to censor opposing viewpoints from your newspaper of choice, and were properly dismissed. This is exactly why an organization like NYT deserves to survive, because as you state: they reflect the best in journalism
"Serious" seems too thin a reed to support such a complex apparatus of approval and disapproval.
Well if they can defend that question, why didn't they go the full nine yards and ask him if he's a Muslim, and whether he's a legal citizen of the U.S.?
I really liked this story about drag racing in Saudi Arabia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/world/middleeast/08drift.html?_r=1&hp
The conclusion that people who race cars are depressed, suicidal, homosexuals boggles my mind. I'm going to go put on a dress, take some prozac, play some Russian Roulette, and hit the gay bars now.
The article reeks of arrogance and self-importance, from the first word ("I") to the end. The author clearly sees himself as the arbiter of political correctness and good taste. Without a trace of self-irony. What a twit.
I agree with your assessment of the socialist questioning. But I don't see why you think the NYT shouldn't interview Ann Coulter. I don't agree with her view of politics, but I don't see why that should mean she should be discounted. (And besides, she is funny from time to time.)
I love the New York Times. I know they're not perfect but I honestly feel like I can visit the NYT site a few times a day and find something meaningful, interesting and newsworthy to read.
It's not possible to please all the people all the time - someone will always find something that doesn't suit them to gripe about.
I hope The Grey Lady survives and thrives.
Re: Obama socialist question
Your critique is spot on, but in America isn't the dictionary definition of 'socialist' n. baby-eating god-killing monster? America has never been completely without socialism, but even if they became moreso than the rest of the world, it would be the policy that dare not speak its name.
Re: Ann Coulter
It is extremely difficult to interview someone who refuses to answer questions, dodges corrections, and then becomes extremely defensive, to the point of sticking their fingers in their ears. Having said that, hope springs eternal and there always seems to be someone willing to try... the only point to criticise here is the signal-to-noise ratio. That reporter will get one line out of hundreds that is useful, unless he chooses verbatim transcript, so let him try. We all have to learn our lessons sometime, right?
Sans serif, eh?
I'm all for critiquing poor journalism, but this seems like kind of a nit-pick. It's a sticky question, but since everyone the right-wing has been calling him a socialist, might as well get it from the horses mouth. if Obama can't handle it, he shouldn't be sitting down with a reporter. much less should his handlers be calling the paper afterward to whine about it.
instead of complaining about an obama interview, why don't you take a gander at the Styles section? now THERE'S some worthless journalism.
As much as I dislike Ann Coulter, she IS an important political voice to many Americans.
Also, speaking of picking on an organization for it's flubs... referencing a Twitter conversation has all the merit of referencing one's text messages, in my mind. You, Dan Gillmor, even admit "Twitter is probably the worst place to have a serious conversation" and yet you still made the reference.
All that said, I appreciate constructive criticism of the NYT. Too many people either dismiss it outright or revere it as holy gospel, often with no middle ground.
Have you read the Coulter piece? I'd say a) she should get coverage just like any other cultural phenomenon should; and b) I'd say the piece was fair in shining a pretty bright light on the fact that the Coulter phenomenon is a show-biz one.
If only sports got as much attention as fashion & lifestyle . . . then the NYT would have the perfect combo of mental meat & fiber. I'd be a regular reader.
The "are you a socialist" question was downright stupid, because as discussed previously by others, there was no real context... and it's not like he hasn't already been asked this question and already refuted it, repeatedly.
Not to mention the fact that every time someone utters the word socialist in regards to Obama, it makes them look really ignorant to educated people who know history and who know what socialism is, what "European socialism-lite" or social democracy is, and how these 2 different systems compare to American capitalism as it exists within our constitutionally-limited democratic republic.
As for Coulter, well, there is a point in saying just because you don't like it doesn't means its not serious journalism. But Coulter is to political discourse what Fred Phelps is to theology. The problem I have is that news outlets continue to treat her as if she's a respect-worthy pundit, and not just a sideshow.
here on BB News:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1100/1394391177_f97a77a80a.jpg
Anyone who calls someone else a socialist is anti-social... ist
It's so refreshing to have an actual intellect as guest blogger here.
Dan, I'm a little stunned at you saying Coulter doesn't deserve coverage by a "serious" news organization. She is part of how the national discourse is set. However horrible you find her (as I do), casting her aside because she's extreme would only make sense if no one listened to her, like lesser-known white supremacists or splinter black nationalists. She, Rush Limbaugh, and Fox News set a tone of discourse and debate that is repeated, sometimes verbatim, by elected officials.
On the ALL CAPS front, I often receive replies from people who want to ensure there's no confusion about their response and my original email in ALL CAPS or in brackets or what have you. Silly New York Times.
What about their recent write up on U2's pending album release? I guess because Bono is a guest contributor to the Times the reporter negated to mention that the album had leaked 3 weeks before and his "pre-release" musings were of little interest since we've all heard the record. Then he goes on to print verbatim Bono's ridiculous statement that the new tour will be "in the round to give more fans the chance to see the band!"
A shill for U2 and Live Nation.
Serious news organizations don't limit their stories to 140 characters.
She [Coulter], Rush Limbaugh, and Fox News set a tone of discourse and debate that is repeated, sometimes verbatim, by elected officials.
Do you think it's a good thing that our 'leading journalists' AND elected officials in the minority party are parroting the same voice? It doesn't make you wonder if they actually have the same hands up their collective asses?
You're confusing a resounding voice of leadership with an amplified echo from behind the curtain.
I don't see the "bad journalism" here. As an Obama supporter and a self-described socialist, I'd be fascinated to hear Obama's critique of the term. What does it really mean? What does it mean in common political discourse? Why is the right wing so eager to make the term stick to anyone who doesn't think we can dig out of this thing with tax cuts alone?
If Obama had brought his A game, he should have been able to spin those questions into such a discussion.
As for Ann Coulter, I more than disagree with her. I think she's scum of the lowest sort. But I read the interview, and I think it will help readers understand where she's coming from. That is to say, the seventh level of Hell.
Gillmore's response -- "so notoriety and book sales trump all other judgment. disappointing" -- was perfectly worthy of a "good day". It didn't "capture the gist" of anything, and in fact it seemed to me like a deliberate mischaracterization, the sort that makes you wonder if it's worth responding at all. I'd have g'dayed him too.
I'm with Gillmore on this one. Giving serious news coverage to Ann Coulter is like giving the same column inches to someone who believes in a flat Earth, a 9/11 truther, a Holocaust denier, or the guy ranting on a street corner. The whole point of having a "serious" news organization is that there are (supposedly) standards to what's covered by their limited journalistic resources. Simply handing a microphone to whoever has the loudest voice is not what I would consider newsworthy.
It's been said, but there's a lot to say for statistics, so I'll say it anyway. The reporter asking him if he was a socialist and his terse followup question were, at the least, poorly communicated. It's possible that he wanted to start a discussion about pundits labelling Obama a socialist and whether that label should even be perjorative. It's also possible that he was immediately labelling Obama as a socialist (in all of its negative connotations) and then accussing him of actually being a socialist whose refuses to admit it. With such terse questions and no context through which to interpret them, it's really hard to say, and that makes for bad journalism. Such an ambiguous question makes it difficult for the interviewee to answer honestly and it leaves the audience open to misinterpret what was meant by both sides.
As for Ann Coulter (may she meet a quick and timely end), I don't see any reason the NYT shouldn't interview her. Personal judgements aside, it's hard to deny that she has a significant following. Just like Paris Hilton, she may not be a great role model, but she's definitely popular, so she should be covered in the media like any other talking head. To argue that she shouldn't be allowed to speak because of her extremist views would be to censor her in the same way that Ron Paul was censored on the other side of the spectrum. It's not up to the newspapers to decide whose ideals are correct, just whose are newsworthy.
So, you had a public exchange of 140-character bumper sticker slogans via Twitter, which failed to reach a nuanced consensus on the ethics and nature of applying serious journalistic effort to an influential but morally reprehensible character, if such journalism risks increasing the influence of that character.
Colour me shocked.
@#27: That's not a fair comparison. There aren't a lot of flat Earth believers, 9/11 truthers, or Holocaust deniers that are of significant noteriety. These ideas just don't have the kind of mindshare to make them newsworthy. On the other hand, Coulter has quite a media presence already between a weekly TV spot and a new book. Her ideas may not be any more logical than any of those other groups, but her noteriety is certainly more significant. She's newsworthy in the sense that there are enough people out there who want to know what she has to say. If nothing else, her popularity means that there are enough people out there listening to her that whatever she says just may have a significant political influence.
I remember learning in Journalism school that it was not the media's job to interpret the world for the reader. It is a Journalist's job to get the facts and report them as such regardless of how odious they may be to others. I also remember being told I should assume the audience has an eight grade education.
There aren't a lot of flat Earth believers, 9/11 truthers, or Holocaust deniers that are of significant noteriety.
Phil Donahue and Bob Edwards' careers were not ended (coincidentally at around the same time Ann Coulter's career took off) because they lacked an audience, and they're not flat-earthers or 9/11 truthers.
so to paraphrase:
good journalism mirrors your political strategies, bad journalism does not.
"oh hitler? he's crazy, just ignore him. no reputable paper would ever interview HIM!"
"THAT PAPER WON'T TAKE MY ADVICE -- WAAAAAHHHHHH,"
also, so TACT, is now a requirement for good journalism?
if something is controversial AND popular, it just might be even more news worthy than something that isn't.
aw :(
Maybe you should hate Our Pradva...
Haha, I like how some people treat Coulter like some new face to the scene with fresh, influential thinking that needs to be looked into.
She's been around since the Clinton years. Almost two decades. At this stage in the game, any press for her is just a platform for her tired act.
The NYT was basically complicit in the crimes the bush reich perpetrated on the american people. It had a responsibility to the people to question all things and to inform the public when the gobberment decided to strip us of our rights. They sat by and let the reich rape us. F'em. They are not in the least real journalist and cannot be taken serious on any matter. They are nothing but a filthy tabloid rag not fit for use as training paper.
It's news. The lady is a social twat that everyone listens to. She deserves her day like every other wacko, murder, rapist or 3rd world dictator out there. Media coverage doesn't neccessarily mean the NYT find her particularly enlightening, but that people need to watch out for what's going on. You'll thank the the next time some neocon blindsides you with half witted dribble about abortion and gay marriage when real republicans ought to be worried about getting with the times.
But you know what, wasn't it just 4 years ago that we said the Democrats needed a rallying icon, a message, a goal? Amazing how quickly politics can swing.
This is not a very non-biased write up of the nyt. Your approach to this story is predicated heavily on your specific worldview.
The biggest failing of the NYT in recent memory was the role it played in the invasion of Iraq, allowing itself to become a tool for Cheney in exchange for "exclusives". If someone at the Times had called out that asshole back in '03 we might have avoided the whole war.
At #3. Don't be silly. Unicorns aren't real and hobbits can't ride very well anyway.
hey nice thread about ann coulter, was expecting answer to why NYT ought to be read by anybody, got a defense of the social importance of ann coulter (maybe social importance = # of newspaper articles? rather self-referential, eh?).
nice.
no big NYT reporting on the massive military fraud re: iraq re-construction $$?
ann coulter? WTF?
BDewhirst:
Pravda?
Perhaps the NYT can "take a page" from Cryptome:
http://www.cryptome.org/
Specifically: why so little in the NYT re: the NYPD Spy Department? (see link!)
And its singular ineffectiveness re: Wall Street criminal $$ conspiracies?
Dan: A thoughtful piece on journalism's nuances. Your points are well taken. The flat question "Are you a socialist?" - is sophomoric - it sounds like the reporter is fishing for a sound byte. There are responses to these questions and for those who know something about economics- the question could take several hours - or possibly a semester - to answer the question properly. I'm always disappointed when reporters go for the ten cent question - it reveals a lot more about the reporters background and depth.
I can agree with your stance on Ann Coulter. I don't consider myself squarely under the "liberal" umbrella - I also vote Republican from time to time - but individuals like Ann Coulter do not elevate the national dialogue in any way except to inflame and sensationalize the partisan political divergence.
She, like some of her peers don't contribute ideas, policy initiatives or otherwise. You would' think she would contribute to her cause by careful debate and proposed solutions - like William F. Buckley did.
I suspect she is part of the carnival that the legacy media engages because "it sells." Without liberals - she wouldn't exist - she has no grist for her art without an antithesis.
As far as understanding the NYT response to Coulter -I suppose it is consistent with their policy that they might defend interviewing people like Joe McCarthy or Father Coughlin but I agree with the question "where do you draw the line with people who take on a pathology?".
The columnists from the times - be they conservative (Brooks) or liberal (Rich) would probably wince at an Ann Coulter interview. That's my guess.
#30:
"These ideas just don't have the kind of mindshare to make them newsworthy. On the other hand, Coulter has quite a media presence already between a weekly TV spot and a new book."
But that's my objection -- mindshare apparently equals newsworthy. And as several people have pointed out upthread, it's self-fulfilling prophecy: She appears in a bunch of newspapers, so she must be important, so she appears in more newspapers, etc. It's like the Paris Hilton Theorem of Celebrity as applied to what is supposed to be actual reporting.
#37:
"It's news. The lady is a social twat that everyone listens to. She deserves her day like every other wacko, murder, rapist or 3rd world dictator out there."
Yeah, but that's the point: Not every wacko, murderer, rapist, or 3rd world dictator is interviewed by the NYT because they don't have the journalistic resources and those subjects are not worth the journalistic interest (okay, excepting some 3rd world dictators). If you could send a reporter to interview Ann Coulter or Steven Chu, which would you pick? One of them is "popular," but the other is a Nobel prize-winning scientist who may influence the course of technological progress in the US.
Unfortunately, I have a feeling I know the answer most news outlets would choose.
TRR
Pravda |ˈprɑːvdə|
a Russian daily newspaper, founded in 1912 and from 1918 to 1991 the official organ of the Soviet Communist Party.
ORIGIN Russian, literally ‘truth.’
Sometimes I'm baffled by the Times, but in terms of newspapers it's basically all we've got in this country (there are one or two other contenders, but barely).
As someone who grew up in Cleveland, it's nice to see national coverage of the poverty and conditions there.
It's a shame the weather & culture is so bad there, there are tons of really nice houses, lakefront, music...
I'm just grateful this thread has`supplied an appropriate appellation for Sideshow Ann.
"serious news org doesn't interview Ann Coulter"
who the hell are you to say a)what a serious "news org" is
and b) what it does/doesn't do.
!?
I'm no fan of old media, merely because of their bizarre sense of entitlement (the lingering myth of a righteous third estate). But... then again, I don't really care because they're going the way of the dodo regardless of their "seriousness."
What's just gross about your post here on boingboing is the ridiculous assumption that
a) there are rigid and tangible standards that "good news orgs" must always follow
and
b)that you know what they are (shockingly they seem to be inextricably linked to your liberal political views... "obama a socialist?" OFF-LIMITS --letting nut-job conservatives self-eviserate in print-- OFF-LIMITS)
I'm sorry, but for a guy who purports to understand and support new media.... you are pretty dense. Limits aren't a part of new media... if people don't want to read the crap that those who don't self-limit write... THEY WON'T because there are twenty-thousand other voices available.
Saying what writers/news orgs should/shouldn't do is absurd in a modern information market.
I don't know... Journalists SHOULD ask the hard questions to the Right or Left. I would have applauded someone asking George if we were all Fascists now?
How can it be 'investigative reporting' when they don't mention the controversy surrounding her whopping adam's apple?
I agree that a serious news organization should have better things to do than interview Ann Coulter.
By the same token, a serious discussion about the merit of the New York Times should include other topics than whether or not they ought to have interviewed Ann Coulter. I for one think the Twitter angle is interesting... anybody else following "Doonesbury" these days?
I'm not hiding my identity, this post just isn't important enough to warrant registering.
I think this entire post is symptomatic of a ridiculous and illogical tendency in the USA, a vilification of the word "socialism." The USA has been socialist to some degree for most of the 20th century. Medicare, Medicaid, both of these are socialist ideas made manifest. I would love to meet someone who gets payments from either of those two bodies, and yet still associates "socialism" with soviet-style communism.
As I know someone is going to say that socialism is communism, please note than in Europe many of the major parties are socialist parties. That doesn't mean that they want to create neo-soviet states (Contrast Die Linke to the SPD in Germany).
This hatred of words, without an understanding of the idea behind them is what disgusts me most about the USA. In other countries such dislike is hardly so ingrained, and I think it reflects badly on the USA in the view of other countries (and people wonder how Americans got the stereotype of stupid attached to them ...).
Itscalledliberty: Not twenty thousand, but twenty million. Fixed that for you.
Dan--Thank you for the examination of newspaper journalism in this country at this time in history. It's about time. Correct me if I'm mis-characterizing your intentions, but you're doing this in an attempt to try and figure some things out--you're not doing it because you already have a set of opinions formed about the subject. Is that right?
Assuming I'm correct, some notes:
--I don't know that the Obama interview was all that illuminating. Socialist question aside (which is not example of "bad" journalism (which I'd define as outright lying or deception or news-less fluff) but as "lazy" journalism or "trendy" journalism), the interview didn't really achieve anything. It is not required reading for the day, much less the era. And, let's be honest, it was positioned as a discussion rather than an interview, which I usually like, but it tends to fall short of hard questioning in such a setting, and that seemed the case here. But what did the NYT expect from Obama? He's been president less than 2 months. What could they have expected him to say to any of that? Give him a year or so and then we might get a good interview.
--Coulter is worth interviewing, but only if real questions are asked. In this case, there was a slant that was interesting, though Coulter's responses were not really. And I loathe the woman. But I recognize she entertains people, and I like to see sensationalistic entertainers dissected. This article almost did that. And I haven't seen any other news org try it that way.
--Is the Washington Post's covering of the NYT's coverage really "news"? I don't think so. I think, 50 years ago, we would never have seen that. At least not so blatantly.
--Finally, Twitter is a wonderful tool, but using it as a basis for analyzing a NYT Editor's attitude isn't really fair. Truth be told, I don't think ANYone knows the best way to use Twitter yet. But that wasn't it at all. Invite him to read this blog entry and respond, and then you get much closer to fair. And if he doesn't respond, you have more ammo for you argument. So it's really win/win. And I would really like to hear more details on the situations and locales in which NYT editors are "putting themselves out there in the public". I haven't noticed this in the paper's coverage itself.
I'm really, REALLY enjoying your ongoing analysis/quest/muddle into newspapers. Please keep it up. I hope you'll eventually tell us, at the end, what, if any, conclusions you reach and invite us to see what ours are as well.
The socialist question was probably just the NYTimes gunning for a juicy Obama-label, and, admittedly, going a bit too far in the process.
Coulter herself may be useless, but the circus that surrounds her is, unfortunately, newsworthy.
I was disappointed to see Obama say that he rarely reads blogs. With his administration portraying itself as so tech-savvy, you would think they would have prepared a better answer, without having to brand him as a reader of any specific blogs.
I second Biffpow's sentiment on your newspaper and media analysis, and hope to see more on this topic.