The Press Is Despicable

Todd Gitlin wrote an article this week in which he reviewed some of the major failings of journalists over the last fifty years, and which struck me as being very accurate because I lived through those failings and remember them very well. There were a very small number of journalists who were true, like I.F. Stone, but the hatred with which they were treated at the time is as remarkable to me still as it was then. I remember vividly each one of those incidents that Gitlin mentioned and the reaction when the truth about them first started coming out.

The reaction to Patrick Kennedy's “the press is despicable” speech, given just before he left the House, strikes me as being almost the perfect example. There are new examples appearing constantly of the phenomenon but “the press is despicable” example is pure.

I remember the reaction to that speech perfectly: remarks about his father's failings, booze, the Kennedy family, assertions of moral superiority, all the usual kind of personal hatred and dismissal. The fact that every word that Patrick said was absolutely true was mentioned only by a very small number of people, and the delightful thought for me was that this small number included equally both conservative/Republicans as well as liberal/Democrats.