Sunday, July 06, 2008

"On The Media" takes down NY Times' fluff piece on Limbaugh

I read less than half of the NY Times Magazine piece about Rush Limbaugh before giving up. It was about Rush as a person, and I really don't care about Rush the person.

Today I heard NPR's On The Media segment questioning how the "liberal" media's journalist, Zev Chafets, actually got to interview Rush. The takedown of Chafets was beautiful. Chafets said he was simply friendly and persistent. But when Bob Garfield asked why the piece failed to cover any of Limbaugh's lies, Chafets asked for an example and claimed Limbaugh was no worse than people on NPR. Fortunately, and unlike Chafets, Garfield was prepared and gave example after example, leaving Chafets speechless.

We actually learned two things from the segment - first, that Chafets doesn't know much about the person who he profiled extensively in the Times. Second, we found out that Chafets got in the door with Rush because Chafets is in the tank with Rush.

And one more thing, I guess - the Times isn't doing a good job of spotting the biases of its journalists, or maybe it doesn't care as long as there's a story.

Anyway, the OTM piece is worth a listen.

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