Invisible Americans

There are times when we look at the topics our colleagues in the broader media choose to cover, and then look at the topics regular Americans across the nation care about, and we have no trouble at all understanding why some Americans simply ignore news and information-based media.

We can guarantee you that today some in the media will still be talking about Rep. Michele Bachmann's announcement that she won't run for re-election in 2014, or how Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee has chosen to join the Democratic Party. Likewise, there will still be those trying to stir up ratings with "scandal" stories about Eric Holder or new stories about James Comey, President Obama's nominee to head the FBI.

There may even be a few stories about the economy, though they will likely focus on how a strong stock market and steadily rebounding housing market are helping America's recovery, even in the face of austerity.

What you're far less likely to see - other than here - are stories about how millions of Americans still need decent paying jobs, since both Republicans and Democrats continue to walk away from the issue, a story many in the media still don't find "sexy enough" to cover very often.

You're also unlikely to see piles of stories talking about the still-growing inequality in America, and how tax cuts for the rich actually make it worse. There also aren't many stories about how poor Americans are getting screwed by both Republicans and Democrats as Congress pushes towards gutting food stamps, or about how women are now the primary "breadwinners" in forty percent of American homes - not because they want to be, but often because they have to be.

Don't look for many stories on the sequester either, since statistics say it really hasn't hit DC that hard - or, more specifically, it hasn't hit people who work in the national media in DC, New York, and LA that hard.

We almost feel that the pessimistic opinion a friend of ours has been repeating for several years may be on the verge of coming true: that the news has, in fact, been cancelled.

We're willing to admit that news gathering is incredibly difficult today - especially when blind, ignorant executives in corporate media continue to gut their own companies of the people who actually create the products they're trying to sell.

Further, many of the stories we've referenced above are worthy of reading, both on their own, and as parts of larger narratives about topics like politics, government and the economy.

However, the core of those larger narratives still needs far more reporting, from media organizations much larger and more well-staffed than ours, so that issues like the millions of Americans still out of work won't be ignored by both major political parties. After all, as the Quinnipiac poll released this morning proves, what Americans really care about are jobs and the economy.

It's true that President Obama and Ben Bernanke have done a surprisingly good job keeping the economy moving forward in an incredibly difficult environment - and things are significantly better than they were four years ago.

That said, both major national political parties are still walking away from millions of Americans who are still out of work - and the media isn't paying enough attention either.

The First Step...

As the adherents of just about any twelve-step program will tell you, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.

For the past half-decade, we've been among the voices trying to coax the modern Republican Party toward step one, multiple times - even before our current archive system existed. Unfortunately, to the detriment of both their own political party and the American people, the only steps the Republican party seems willing to take are off the edge of an ideological cliff.

When we read Greg Sargent's headline Tuesday - which echoed one we wrote two years ago this week - we realized parts of today's Republican Party have been on their current version of a political death march since before this century began.

With both GOP legend Bob Dole and recently retired Senator Olympia Snowe calling out the GOP as desperately in need of rethinking their priorities, we were once again reminded that the current Republican Party is in almost exactly the same position as the Democratic Party was in the mid-1980s - a comparison we've been making for years now.

Indeed, it's the same comparison Molly Ball outlined last week in The Atlantic. While the parallels between then and now are both eerie and startlingly sad, the differences remind us even more how far the GOP has fallen into their own madness.

It's not just that no progress can be made in Washington anymore, regardless of what President Obama does or says, as Steve Benen pointed out on Tuesday.

It's that even when President Obama goes so far as to put on a purely symbolic "charm offensive," the Republicans in Congress - led by the ideological extremists in the tea party wing - destroy any potential for actually governing. Greg Sargent made this point abundantly clear to anyone who may have still doubted - today's GOP is fundamentally unserious about governing.

If it weren't both a painful spectacle to behold and deeply damaging to the nation, we would almost be tempted to sit back and laugh as the Republican Party keeps on marching right over the edge, into political oblivion.

The problem is, like any other addict, when the GOP keeps falling down, they also drag down everyone else around them - and as with any other addict, until the majority of members of the Republican Party want to make things better themselves, we can keep pointing the way to the beginning of  a political recovery program but they have to take the first step themselves.

For now, we're just hoping they hit bottom sooner rather than later.

Light Over Heat: Credibility Matters

Today we hope you were able to return to work refreshed and recharged - though maybe a bit sunburned - from an extended Memorial Day weekend. We also hope you took a moment to remember the reason for the holiday, and honored America's fallen heroes, as President Obama did Monday at Arlington National Cemetery.

The world didn't stop though, even if you took an extra day off. Fighting in Syria heated up, even as matters regarding Syria became even more complicated. Sequestration cuts are really starting to bite, even as House Republicans ignore the sequester, and instead insist they're going to push forward on the IRS mess during Congress' break this week - even as it appears that IRS staffers were right to give a second look to many of the applications from politically oriented groups.

In fact, as many of our colleagues in media struggle back to work today, we're almost certain that a sub-section of our lazy cohorts will attempt to fire up the "scandal" machine instead of tackling a fresh new subject, or sharply recapping what readers may have missed over the weekend. We'd be willing to bet that many in the media will be covering the James Rosen/DOJ "scandal" again this week, just as many kept busy last week trying to shove Jesus off the cross so they could put Rosen in his place.

Sadly, many of those we respect in the media have blindly gone along with Rosen's cries of persecution.

Too many people running around with their head on fire also seem to have forgotten - even if the Justice Department's treatment of Rosen has been ugly and unethical, the DOJ’s actions appear to be legal. The same can’t yet be said about what Rosen may have done.

As the case stands now, the Department of Justice announced Saturday that it notified News Corp. more than two years ago about its seizure of Rosen's phone records. Sources at Fox News have since come forward saying they've known about the Justice Department investigation for least three years. Meanwhile, Fox's parent News Corp. is both denying they have any record of the DOJ's subpoena, while at the same time obliquely acknowledging that the Justice Department sent them a subpoena.

In the Washington Post, Walter Pincus clearly laid out a timeline of the known facts in the ongoing Rosen media scandal that anyone concerned with honest media should read. The DOJ could have acted unethically in this case - and we wouldn't be surprised if they did. But, as Pincus points out, "…the First Amendment covers the right to publish information, but it does not grant blanket immunity for how that information is gathered."

Meaning that Rosen, the reporter from Fox, may have easily broken the law in his hubris -which is what the Department of Justice is tasked with prosecuting.

A media organization's credibility is a key factor that changes the organization from simply "media" to "news," in the same way a member of the media becomes a "journalist" in the eyes of his or her peers. Simply being first doesn't add credibility, if the individual or organization isn't right. Further, organizations that have proven records of violating the law to gather information - like News Corp., the parent of Fox - have less credibility because they've been proven both liars and lawbreakers in the past. Finally, as it stands in America right now, having the right to publish or broadcast doesn't mean one can violate the law to obtain their source material.

Which, of course, is Rosen's problem. He can set his head on fire screaming about his First Amendment rights - and we'll stand behind his right to do so, no question, even if those he works for and with are vile and lack credibility.

However, if Rosen broke the law and the DOJ did not, it's not just Rosen's credibility that will be up in smoke - it's the credibility of all those in the media who blindly supported Rosen, and attempted to paint him as a symbol for everyone in the media, before they had all the facts. To us, Rosen's mere association with a discreditied organization like Fox is reason enough to doubt his credibility. That Fox and News Corp. can't seem to get their story straight lends even more doubt to Rosen, in our minds.

The DOJ doesn't always have to be ethical about what they do.

To have credibility, journalists always do.