To think that we’ve gone from giants like Brinkley, Cronkite and Chancellor to pygmies like Blitzer, Todd and Lauer is to despair for the future of journalism.
Andrew O’Hehir@Salon (9/10/16): “Why haven’t journalists done their jobs with respect to Donald Trump — easily the least qualified presidential candidate in the history of everything? … What if some journalists have done their jobs, and it’s just that the public hasn’t noticed or doesn’t care? What is the media’s job in 2016, anyway? How has that changed, and why? Are we entertainers, public servants, speakers of truth to power or flunkeys on the outer edges of celebrity culture? Are we responsible for inflicting this dangerous buffoon on the country in some significant way, or are we just along for the ride? … There’s no question that Trump coverage has driven ratings and page views, which has driven more Trump coverage. … But that didn’t happen because I decided, or because Jake Tapper and Megyn Kelly decided, that we couldn’t possibly get enough Trump and wanted to cover nothing else week after week. It happened because we have a sick democracy, a debased standard of public discourse and a deeply damaged culture. All of that came together in one awful man and his awful presidential campaign, and none of us can look away.”
