Mark Halperin & The Real Elitist Problem

Today the Times' Brian Stelter profiles Mark Halperin and his web invention The Page, a "concise collection of up-to-the-minute political news" that has come to drive "the political agenda." The positive article credits Halperin's business acumen, since he built a bloggy tip-sheet from scratch that cuts through the political clutter online, drawing a million monthly visitors to his multi-colored outpost. "The Page" is Time's answer to the Drudge Report -- fast, salacious, superficial and offensive. Whatever it takes to drive traffic. Oh, and that's Halperin's analogy, not mine. "Matt Drudge rules our world," Halperin wrote in his book about political journalism, dubbing the chronically inaccurate entrepreneur "the Walter Cronkite of his era." The article makes a similar point:

The Page may be the mainstream media's closest thing to Drudge, with 24-hour updates and the no-frills design. Unlike Drudge, though, it comes with the imprimatur and credibility of an 85-year-old newsmagazine.

Fine, Drudge and Halperin draw visitors; they influence our politics; and The Times is covering that dynamic. But the article provides no alternative viewpoints on this high-traffic/low-integrity juggernaut -- or any information about Halperin's questionable record. (It only quotes Halperin, his boss Richard Stengel, and a current campaign operative, who really should be conflicted out of disinterested analysis, since he depends on Halperin for coverage.)

Yet readers would have no idea about how Halperin leverages The Page -- and Time's credibility -- to stoke gossip, innuendo and even advise politicians on dirty tricks. Here are three recent examples:

Halperin advised McCain to "play dirty" and use "race" against Obama, telling the Republican candidate to "[a]llow some supporters to risk being accused of using the race card when criticizing Obama."

Halperin falsely accused the Clinton Campaign of pushing opposition research onto a columnist, without checking the accuracy of the claim.

Halperin advised McCain to traffic in smears that the Senator had already disavowed, including this imperative: "Emphasize Barack Hussein Obama's unusual name and exotic background through a Manchurian Candidate prism."

That is part of what Halperin writes for Time at The Page. So Time pays reporters to advise candidates on how to "play dirty," exploit race and spread falsehoods based on bigotry and treason. And The Times can report on how popular Halperin's recipe is -- though it really ought to give readers the entire list of ingredients. The rest of the media-political culture laps it up. The article correctly notes that The Page drives not only Halperin's traffic, but his influence among fellow media elites -- from his positive, incomplete profiles in The Times and The New Yorker to his longstanding leadership of the "Gang of 500." (See Eric Boehlert's great article). And that tells you everything you need to know about our broken political media.

The only encouraging sign, evident in long-term opinion data and the recent ABC Debate fallout, is that the public strongly rejects this superficial, smear-driven journalism. The fact that some of the country's top journalists continue to practice it, in defiance of professional ethics and the public will, is a striking display of actual elitism on the campaign trail this year.

From The Nation.

Comments

[Durango]

Why does ABC News have a "political director" anyhow?

I thought they were in the NEWS business. Hey ABC. Report the stories. Let us decide the meaning.

I don't need any corporate apologist to tell me what the stories "mean."

It is not that the Corporate Media is biased (although they are). The problem is that they are superficial and lame. And on many occasions over the past years corrupt. But mostly incompetent.

[uhappytoo]

Good question. Maybe the job title is more informative than we want to think.

News people used to be called reporters, and their duties were to find and report news. Today they prefer to be called journalists, which might be quite accurate in describing how the tend to keep journals for themselves and pundits rather than report much of anything.

But "director" takes on the implication that the incumbent's job is to direct the outcomes rather than simply report, or take notes about them. Arianna's column today describes this MSM role completely.

[Snowball]

Charlie Rose regular and ABC political director Mark Halperin is one of the worst Corporate Media hack empty suits there is. While it may be that Halperin himself holds no real political agenda, he has on numerous occasions demonstrated his over-eagerness to do the dirty political work on behalf his corporate paymasters. He promised to make ABC a news outlet Republicans could love. Under his guidance, the only "alternative" politics allowed by ABC is the fanatically pro-corporate Libertarian John Stossel, essentially corporate astroturf posing as alternative politics. Since Halperin made his promise to deliver ABC to the Republicans, the network has performed numerous partisan disinformation campaigns for the Bush regime, the Republican party and corporate interests. Consider the ABC special on 9/11 designed to shift blame onto the Clinton administration, their abysmal conduct during the Democratic debate featuring right wing falsehoods posed as questions and countless instances of journalistic malfeasance which consistently favors the Republican party and corporate interests.

Read up on Mark Halperin's numerous distortions:
http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/search_results?qstring=mark+halperin

Mark Halperin promises to"balance" news in favor of Republicans
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/25/0748/6332

[WAstateliberal]

Thank you for this comment. Mind if I shamelessly plagiarize this in fights with my mom over the "liberal bias" of the media?

[DMHendrix]

This is the same guy who claimed he had insider information on the non-existent John Edwards endorsement...his boss even went on Sunday talk shows spouting off about it..and unless I have been in some sort of media induced coma...I don't think that endorsement ever happened.

[verlaine]

Mark Halperin's Page has the intellectual content to rival a coloring book or Dick and Jane story.

Halperin is a major league airhead who told Barbara Walters on her radio show that John Edwards thought Obama was a pussy. He later posted a lame, half hearted apology on his Page.

Brian Stelter writing about Mark Halperin is like the blind leading the blind.

Stelter created tvnewser a blog with the intellectual content of cotton candy and is now writing about Halperin's whose blog also has the intellectual content of cotton candy.

With Brian Stelter, Bill Kristol, and David Brooks on its payroll, the intellectual content of the NY Times is more and more like cotton candy.

[Ari Melber - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks, Verlaine, and Halperin's apology for that remark was covered here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/13/times-halperin-_n_86504.html

To my knowledge, however, Halperin has yet to apologize for the "race card" advice cited above.

[LCA]

What I have noticed about The Page is how shallow it is, literally. Almost any link you click on only takes you to another page that has the same information as the "front page." If you want to inquire more deeply into the topic in question, you must link from that second page. I'm wondering if those needless second pages artificially drive up Halperin's "view" statistics? I visit his blog occasionally, but I find it a real time waster in terms of navigation.