Important tweet from @jaketapper. One amendment: mainstream media will try to change the subject too. It's not a new criticism, the deferential spirit among the political press corps has been noted since Didion wrote about it in the 1990s.

"Those who talk to Mr. Woodward, in other words, can be confident that he will be civil (“I too was growing tired, and it seemed time to stand up and thank him”), that he will not feel impelled to make connections between..." 1/ https://t.co/tnb2lbKpMZ
"what he is told and what is already known that he will treat even the most patently self-serving account as if untainted by hindsight..." 2/
"In this business of running the story, in fact in the business of news itself, certain conventions are seen as beyond debate. “Opinion” will be so labeled, and confined to the op-ed page or the Sunday-morning shows." 3/
"'News analysis' will be so labeled, and will appear in a subordinate position to the 'news' story it accompanies. In the rest of the paper as on the evening news, the story will be reported “'impartially,' the story will be 'even-handed,' the story will be 'fair.'” 4/
"The genuflection toward 'fairness' is a familiar newsroom piety, the excuse in practice for a good deal of autopilot reporting and lazy thinking but a benign ideal." 5/
"In Washington, however, a community in which the management of news has become the single overriding preoccupation of the core industry..." 6/
"...what 'fairness' has too often come to mean is a scrupulous passivity, an agreement to cover the story not as it is occurring but as it is presented, which is to say as it is manufactured." 7/
"Washington, as rendered by Mr. Woodward, is by definition basically solid, a diorama of decent intentions in which wise if misunderstood and occasionally misled stewards will reliably prevail." 8/
The takedown by Didion is epic, but it resonates still. There is an enormous pull towards making the terrible things out to be an exception, a departure from the usual, calling out anyone who says otherwise as being "unfair." It's already happening as @jaketapper suggests. end/

More from Gregg Gonsalves

I think @SamAdlerBell in his quest to be the contrarian on Fauci gets several things wrong here. 1/


First, the failure last year actually was driven by the White House, the #Trump inner circle. Watch what's happening now, the US' scientific and public health infrastructure is creaking back to life. 2/

I think Sam underestimates the decimation of many of our health agencies over the past four years and the establishment of ideological control over them during the pandemic. 3/

I also am puzzled why Tony gets the blame for not speaking up, etc. Robert Redfield, Brett Giroir, Deb Birx, Jerome Adams, Alex Azar all could have done the same. 4/

Several of these people Bob Redfield, Brett Giroir, Alex Azar were led by craven ambition, Jerome Adams by cowardice, but I do think Deb Birx and Tony tried as institutionalists, insiders to make a difference. 5/
And this pathetic move by @JDVance1 isn't what is so odious about him. He's just a phony, all ambition, no real interest in public service. He made a big show out of moving back to #Ohio to start a group to work on the #opioid epidemic. 1/


I work on the opioids, on research on the epidemic, its relationship with HIV/HCV, overdose. I work with data from Ohio, so care deeply about what is going on there. I was excited. Until I started digging. There's no there there. 2/

More here. 3/

You can even read their IRS-990-N filing. Sure looks like @JDVance1 tried real hard on combatting the opioid epidemic in his state. Um. Not. 4/

Now he's moved on to venture capital. Money is more interesting than the suffering of the people of #Ohio I guess. 5/

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