84 Stories
by digby
That’s how many Politico ran — on the breaking news and important analysis of the White House Correspondents dinner:
This gathering has about as much to do with covering the American presidency as a beauty contest has to do with — well, let’s just leave it as a beauty contest. Each year, the dinner, according to press coverage, seems to grow in size and glamour, flooded with beautiful and handsome Hollywood stars and television entertainers as guests of journalists, who have also grown to become stars, and news organizations. It is a testimonial to the celebrity culture that dominates much of Washington and New York journalism. (The New York Times, to its great credit, in my opinion, does not attend.) It is also, in my opinion, an embarrassment, just one more brick on the pile that buries confidence in the U.S. press. The hot new face of American journalism and political reporting, Politico, posted 84 stories about the dinner by my last count. All of it great stuff, no doubt.
This year for some reason was the giddiest I’ve ever seen the press act publicly about this thing. (For all I know they always behave like fools in private over the stupid thing.) The fans of teen dream Justin Bieber — who attended by the way — actually behaved in a much more restrained manner.
The DC press should be embarrassed to be seen by the whole world as giggling school girls but they aren’t. They actually think people like this stuff — they covered it like it was the Oscars and they were the stars. But what Michael Getler says is correct; it’s just another way in which they are eroding people’s trust in journalism. But then sometimes I think that’s the Politico‘s real mission.
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