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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Media Hypocrisy and James Fallows 

In 1997, James Fallows wrote a damning treatise on the media titled "Breaking the News."  Fallows outlined six problems why the American public had turned on the news media in the US.  1) Treating politics like a game, 2) The revolving door where people in partisan politics moved into the media (Stephanopoulis), 3) Punditry that was more like professional wrestling than reasoned debate, 4) No mechanism to hold the press accountable for the mistakes they make, 5) Reporters were more like the elites they cover than the public they are supposed to represent, and 6) They were hypocritcal--for instance, they were quick to condemn politicians who go and speak before lobbying groups--while getting handsomely rewarded--while not holding themselves to that same standard.  This was something Fallows referred to as "Buckraking."
I write this because this hypocrisy reared its head just this week.  If you are following the Republican nomination fight, you know that Mitt Romney has gotten into a bit of hot water for not releasing his tax records.  This past Tuesday, ABC News's Diane Sawyer was speaking to Jonathan Karl, who informed her that Romney had earned "374,000" in speaker fees alone.  Here is what Sawyers said in response:
Sawyer: "Nearly $350,000, Jon?"
Karl: "374,000."
Sawyer: "Wow!"
If you go to the talent agency representing Diane Sawyer, you find that her appearance booking fee range to be "$30,001-$50,000." Now Romney claimed that he made his money in 8 speaking engagements, which means, on average, he made about $47,000 per speech.  That falls within the $30k-$50k that Sawyer commands. For the same 8 speeches, she would make anywhere between $240k to $400,000k--possibly $25k more than what Romney made for his eight speeches. 
Like Sawyer said: "Wow!"

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