Andrew Sullivan on the Problem with Washington Journalists

The problem with Washington journalists, writes Sullivan in this excellent post, is that:

they value one another by the proximity of their ties to the powerful. In a business sense, they can also brag about their close ties to Cheney as a way to get major corporations to buy ads under the impression that the powerful read the Politico. This is the model. And it’s a problem.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with the notion that journalists are really accountable to their readers, that the powerful should be afraid of them rather than their best buddies, and that the goal is to challenge government, not act as its informational tool. Politico is to the US government what Blackwater was for the US military. It acts as an ancillary privatized forum for the powerful to express themselves outside of the box of, say, releasing statements to the press in general.

It’s a really excellent point. And increasingly, it’s the way mainstream journalism works in Washington. It’s a good thing those Cheetoh-chomping bloggers in their mothers’ basements didn’t die off as the “fad” the jealous MSM kept predicting they would. With a few exceptions, bloggers are the serious journalists now, while the MSM are the toadies.