August 1, 2006 8:27 PM
Why Editor & Publisher has become irrelevant
If you read Greg Mitchell's columns on Iraq and now the Israel/Hezbollah conflict it's clear why Editor & Publisher has become increasingly irrelevant.
Mitchell, the editor of the trade magazine and web site, spends a lot of time taking on the press from a liberal/left viewpoint.
Here are a few examples:
"Blood on Our Hands
One month after pundits and editorialists, following the lead of the president, declared (yet again) new hope in Iraq, the death toll is soaring and alleged atrocities mount. Who, now, will dare speak up?"
"Few Editorials Find Fault with the Bombing of Beirut
It's one thing to endorse Israel's right to defend itself and retaliate. It's another to remain silent on the crime of causing mass destruction and civilian deaths in neutral areas of Lebanon."
And the latest:
"Endorsing More Death in Lebanon
As dozens more die in Lebanon, and much of that nation lies in ruins, David Brooks, The New York Times columnist, calls for more of the same, while admitting the policy probably won't work -- partly because of the war in Iraq, which he strongly supported."
Now David Brooks doesn't need any help defending himself.
But I think Mitchell is mistaking standard opinion journalism for media criticism. There are plenty of places to debate the right approach to Iraq or to the current Mideast Crisis, but what he's doing is not media criticism.
Even if he's going to wear his politics on his sleeve, he should be taking on the quality of the reporting, not recounting his unhappiness with the editorial positions of journalists or newspapers. At a minimum, he should have his Web site provide an opposing view. But what he should really do to make his publication relevant is critique journalism, not tell us what he thinks newspapers should be saying on their editorial pages or in their columns.
August 3, 2006
2:47 PM
jay writes:
E&P's problem isn't politics, it's competence. That magazine (is it actually still a magazine, or just a blog) is put out by a truly amazing collection of self-regarding gasbag columnists, none of whom I'd trust to cover a brush fire. It reads like an Onion parody.
August 3, 2006
2:52 PM
dan writes:
What a bizarre set of notions. Recognizing that Iraq is a fiasco is "liberal/left"? Editorial pages and columns aren't "journalism" to be critiqued?
Mitchell may be "liberal/left" or he may not. But it seems to me that his call in general is not for newspapers to become liberal (or "liberal/left") ideological rags, but for them to --among other things -- rediscover their nads and start speaking up when they see powerful people committing appaling acts. Because if they don't, newspapers will surely die. As you can see from your own circulation, it's already happening.
August 3, 2006
3:01 PM
Cronin writes:
Amen to Temple's point. I have found it bizarre that Mitchell and E&P have annointed themselves the ones to tell newspapers what opinions they should have. Irrelevant is right. Arrogant too.
August 3, 2006
3:06 PM
R'Rich writes:
Right. Mitchell is clearly a member of the Reality-Based Community and this unambiguously partisan stance is antithetical to good, patriotic reporting for the Homeland. Treason!
August 3, 2006
4:32 PM
Spencer writes:
Mitchell's analysis has clearly shaken Temple. Why shouldn't he opine for E&P about the media's coverage of this conflict? Isn't Mitchell calling for a balance that he doesn't think has been there? Certainly Temple is offering the other viewpoint, such as it is. I see the AP photos of Lebanese civilians that are available for use and I see what runs in the American media vs., say, the Egyptian press. Recently I saw a clip of al-Jazeera's coverage of the rescue workers in Lebanon sifting through the rubble and thought about the decisions their editors made to run the images of dead children. Imagery spared from American families for a variety of reasons. The question is, should Americans see what the rest of the world sees?
August 3, 2006
5:29 PM
Greg Michael writes:
John Temple has just put in focus how the media elite talk to themselves. Though Greg Mitchell's opinion is in line with "liberal speak," the large dailies don't need his advice or prompting, they know what the agenda is, destroy the free-market Republican party, promote PC "Big Brother/Big Sis knows best" government.
The small market papers are influenced by E&P and their second title, "The Fourth Estate." Isn't that name a bit arrogant in this age of blogging and citizen journalisim?
Can you imagine how shallow an editor in a cheap suit at Cam-Glo newspapers in New Jersey is, to actually read E&P's Greg Mitchell? And have respect for his politics?
Ironically, Editor & Publisher hasn't been in print for more than five years. That was one of the few bright ideas coming out of the sad trade magazine for newspapers.
August 3, 2006
5:42 PM
dan writes:
Say, Greg, don't you have a radio show to do?
August 3, 2006
7:55 PM
Jay writes:
Greg Mitchell has been on an anti-war, anti-Coulter, anti-Bush jihad for years. I am glad someone has finally noticed. His and EP's "Coulter'-columnwatch," chronicling how many editors have nixed her column, is nauseating. Grow up, Greg. It's a trade magazine, not the bathroom wall of a liberal coffee house in Soho.
August 3, 2006
8:04 PM
Jay Lane writes:
Temple has verbalized what I've been thinking for years. Actually, I thought that Mitchell had been taking payola from the ACLU and was actually a stooge for the Democratic Party. Can't the owners of E&P (whoever they are this week) get a real editor instead of political operative? The industry needs a thoughtful analyst, not a hack editorial writer pushing a creepy agenda.
August 3, 2006
8:04 PM
William Murchison writes:
With all due respect to Mr. Mitchell, who, I am sure, is a worthy journalist, E&P is a trade publication, not a forum for the expression of Mr. Mitchell's crotchets. I have lately learned to tune out E&P entirely. If I want a partisan screed, I can turn to my beloved New York Times.
August 3, 2006
9:57 PM
Wenalway writes:
E&P hasn't become irrelevant. It's been irrelevant for some time. It defends penny-pinching publishers who slash staff in their newsrooms while hoarding money to buy (and ruin) more newspapers.
E&P, like the Poynter Institute, is a joke. It's a sleeping watchdog that should have been put to sleep some time ago.
August 3, 2006
9:59 PM
Conrad writes:
Earth to Temple and most of you other blinders-clad partisans: Being anti-war or pro-war is is not "left" or "right."
August 3, 2006
10:06 PM
Robert C. writes:
Good grief, Mr Temple, why not cast a critical eye on your own paper's "media critic," who spends all his time whining about coverage that's not right-wing enough for his liking.
August 4, 2006
12:07 AM
steve writes:
Kudos to John Temple. Greg Mitchell, the former editor of Crawdaddy magazine, is trying to revive his halcyon days as an antiwar activist. Why he thinks that a trade magazine is the vehicle to do that baffles me. Maybe it was the only place that would hire him after Crawdaddy collapsed.
August 4, 2006
7:08 AM
Bernard Lunzer writes:
I applaud E&P - for years they just parroted the industry line. I think somebody has forgotten that we really should comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable. Is anybody talking about why newspaper's are not being read by the key demographic, 20-35? This group wants truth, even if Comedy Central is the last place left to find it.
August 4, 2006
8:27 AM
JP writes:
Wake up, Mr. Temple.
Critiquing opinion journalism is media criticism. All Mitchell has been doing is pointing out the huge disconnect between conservative editorial pages and their readers. Read a poll sometime: Mainstream America is fed up with conservative "government," the Iraq war, Bush, etc., yet right-wing editorial pages often continue to defend the indefensible.
Mitchell is a common-sense moderate, if anything. If you can't see that, you've swallowed the right-wing Kool-Aid.
By the way, what the heck is an editor, president and publisher of a newspaper doing writing opinion columns? That's a huge professional conflict-of-interest when you have power over the objective news content. Clean up your own act.
August 4, 2006
2:18 PM
Bart Sizeman writes:
Hmm, a rich Republican conservative would like to see opposing views obliterated from the marketplace of ideas. Keep trying, Temple. One day we'll have media that tell both sides of the issues -- conservative and right-wing.
August 4, 2006
5:00 PM
Greg Michael writes:
Temple, you seem to have struck a nerve. And your blog and readers have shed more light on Greg Mitchell, a former edtior of the failed Crawdaddy! One banner tells a thousand words. Mitchell is a bitter, broken lefty who is using his position on E&P to spread his politics of socialist big government to the "farm teams" of up and coming journaiists at little papers in the heartland. And the publishers are actually paying his salary. It's not NPR. Read more at sadbastards.wordpress.com.
August 4, 2006
6:26 PM
WRR writes:
Gee, Temple, you sure have a lot of one-note readers, from both the right and the left.
Funny how nasty they all are, and how stupid they sound as a result.
But nobody sounds as nasty as Mitchell. This short-tempered bully -- and he's on vacation, yet -- is the editor of what's supposed to be an important industry journal? No wonder I've never been bothered to see it.
August 6, 2006
7:21 AM
rivlax writes:
E&P became irrelevant moments after Mitchell became its editor. It took a leftist swerve immediately, which is why I, then an ME of a daily newspaper, just quit reading it. It was all divesity and multiculti all the time. The clincher was when Mitchell wrote a column admitting that he had, as a young journalist, made up a story and had it printed. He did this almost proudly, in defense of some lefty journalist who got caught doing the same thing.
August 8, 2006
8:43 AM
Greg Michael writes:
Elitists like Mitchell can justify printing lies for the common good. They know what's best for the masses. The Mitchells of journalisim ironically are the ones accelerating the demise of the media. There is much more truth coming out of blogs and citizen journalists. His printing of a false story and his constant liberal agenda laced through everything he writes is on par with the Reuters photographer who Photoshopped his photos from Lebenon to promote his anti-Israel agenda.
October 18, 2006
11:35 AM
J. David Huskin writes:
Ritter TV ad Tells Where He Stands on Taxes.
In an often aired TV commercial, Ritter accosts Beauprez for advocating a 23% national sales tax. What the ad does not say is that Beauprez supports the FAIRTAX. If enacted, the FAIRTAX would eliminate the income tax. The present income code is merely a way for gevernment to manipulate citizens. The FairTax would bring great prosperity to America plus save us 4 billion manhours every year spent to comply to existing income tax laws for reporting. When you vote, support the candidates who wants to free the American economy to zoom and be leary of those who advocate more governmenet and taxaton. To not see the benefits of the FAIRTAX should be an indication of a lack of fiscal knowledge.