Lamestream media' defends Palin

[Neil D]

Politico:By Molly Ball | Politico – Fri, Sep 16, 2011

They kicked her around, victimized her, tried to destroy her. But all of a sudden, the lamestream media is coming to Sarah Palin’s defense.

Faced with a barrage of negative portrayals — a much-hyped investigative book, a Levi Johnston memoir and a new movie — Palin is finding support in the unlikeliest of places.

Film reviewers have slammed the British documentary “Sarah Palin: You Betcha!” Newspapers have refused to run comic-strip excerpts of Joe McGinniss’s rumor-mongering tome “The Rogue.” Johnston’s accusations have been consigned to the gossip pages. And none other than The New York Times has angrily taken Palin’s side in a brutal takedown of the McGinniss book.

Reviewer Janet Maslin called “The Rogue” a work of “caustic, unsubstantiated gossip,” accusing its author, who rented a house next door to the Palins for a time, of sloppiness, attention seeking and a lack of neighborliness.

“‘The Rogue’ is too busy being nasty to be lucid,” Maslin concludes, describing its many accusations as “indefensibly reckless.”

In a statement issued through a PR representative, Todd Palin trumpeted the Times review, pointing to it as proof that the book was so reprehensible that “even The New York Times” disdained it.

But it wasn’t the first time in recent weeks the Palins have found the Times — the print voice of East Coast intellectualism — in their corner. The Gray Lady also recently published an op-ed praising Palin as a person of ideas and calling for her to be taken seriously.

The column by Anand Giridharadas — impeccably credentialed as an Aspen Institute fellow and Cambridge, Mass., resident — accused the media of “ignoring the ideas [Palin] unfurled” in her recent speech at an Iowa tea party rally. “Ms. Palin may be hinting at a new political alignment that would pit a vigorous localism against a kind of national-global institutionalism,” he wrote.

It’s a lot of love for Palin from the news outlet she decried back in March in a Facebook post titled “NYT, There You Go Again,” wherein she speculated that the paper’s “false reporting” was the source of its “economic and reputation woes.”

And it’s not the sort of treatment Palin generally perceives from what she loves to call the “lamestream media” — because, as she explained in another Facebook post, “The ‘mainstream’ media isn’t mainstream anymore. That’s why I call it ‘lamestream,’ and the LSM is becoming quite irrelevant, as it is no longer the sole gatekeeper of information.”

“The Rogue” hasn’t yet been widely reviewed — the Times defied the publisher’s embargo to publish its take, and the Los Angeles Times followed suit with a less acerbic take that nonetheless called the book “tame” and said it lacked credibility. But many of its accusations have been aired over the past several days in “Doonesbury,” which received McGinniss’s permission to weave excerpts from the text into the strip’s narrative.

Once again, though, media outlets haven’t played along with the anti-Palin gambit. The Chicago Tribune and other newspapers have declined to publish the “Doonesbury” strips, with the Trib explaining, “The subject matter does not meet our standards of fairness.”

And then there’s “You Betcha!” a cheerfully ruthless documentary about Palin from Nick Broomfield, whose past subjects have included Kurt Cobain, Margaret Thatcher, Heidi Fleiss and Tupac Shakur.

The film premiered last week at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it wasn’t exactly a critical darling.

Variety called it “a sarcastically toned, strategically timed character assassination” that “lacks sufficient humor and insight to make it a must-see for anyone outside the Brit muckraker’s fan base.” Other critics called it “obnoxious” and “unnecessary.”

When reviewers turned their noses up at “The Undefeated,” the pro-Palin film that came out in July, Palin’s fans cried foul and blamed critics’ presumed liberal tendencies. But the critics faulted the anti-Palin movie for the same flaw they noted in “The Undefeated” – clumsy one-sidedness.

Now that the enemy has crossed to their side, Palin’s fans don’t quite seem to know what to do.

The pro-Palin Conservatives4Palin website acknowledged Maslin’s review only in the context of Todd Palin’s statement. It linked to the Giridharadas column without comment.

A C4P commenter on the Giridharadas post wrote, “OMG! Are these city Liberals beginning to see the light?” But other commenters speculated that the Times must have some sinister anti-Palin ulterior motive in publishing it.

Even as Palin become the unlikely darling of the media elites, some in the conservative media have turned against her. Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter recently said she shouldn’t run for president; RedState founder Erick Erickson, in a post titled “Enough,” unloaded on Palin and her most die-hard fans, calling them a “cult” and “kooks.”

To Mark McKinnon, the GOP consultant, former George W. Bush adviser and onetime Sarah Palin debate coach, there’s a simple explanation for the mainstream rejection of the new works of anti-Palinism.

“Sometimes trash is trash,” he said, “and you have to call it for what it is no matter who it comes from or who it’s about.”

[Tom Wetmore]

Maybe, just maybe, the so-called mainstream media is not quite os afflicted by some sort of liberal bias as the critics of it believe. Just maybe the tinted lens of bias is being worn by the critics instead.

[bonnie]

Maybe, just maybe, the so-called mainstream media is not quite os afflicted by some sort of liberal bias as the critics of it believe. Just maybe the tinted lens of bias is being worn by the critics instead.

Mainstream nedia disagrees with you as they have admitted to a liberal bias.Are you calling them deceitful

[Tom Wetmore]

No, I chose the red pill... Down the rabbit hole...

[Dr. Shane]

I think the new media (talk radio, FOXNews, internet blogs, etc.) have had a great impact on the mainstream media. I still won't trust any once source and try to get informed through various news outlets.

[Neil D]

I think the new media (talk radio, FOXNews, internet blogs, etc.) have had a great impact on the mainstream media. I still won't trust any once source and try to get informed through various news outlets.

With all due respect, Shane....mainstream media finds sensational journalism, [FoxNews, internet blogs, ect] an eyesore on the landscape of reporting....

[Dr. Shane]

That maybe so but the dollars get their attention. When the mainstream media sees all the ratings that the alternative media gets, it becomes motivated to do something. I think that has happened. The mainstream media still has a liberal bias but it gives more and more time to the other side. The View is one example. Of course there are more liberal women on The View than there are conservative but the fact they have a conservative woman goes to show a change that is happening in the mainstream media.

[phkrause]

I disagree, the mainstream media changes with the wind. They were all for Pres Bush after they fled Clinton, than when people started to turn against Bush they fled him infavor of the Democrats, than latched onto Obama and now that things have not really gone the way they thought, they are leaving him in droves, but really haven't pick an opposing candidate as of yet. I would say as soon as one is better defined by the wishy washy public than they will be for that candidate.

[Dr. Shane]

They go where the money is. I think there is substantial evidence to show a liberal bias in the media going back to the 1960s. However, as the alternative media has discovered it profitable to give conservatives a load voice, the mainstream media has been trying to get in on that market too by moving their coverage more toward the middle.