Gotcha Journalism

Reader comment on: Dan Henninger on the 'Permanent Smackdown'

Submitted by ben (United States), May 6, 2010 11:01

It really is no surprise that politicians and other leaders behave this way now, and I place most the blame for this on the media, which is so quick to trumpet anything negative (the Politico-ization of politics). Also, the fact that media outlets compete on a minute by minute basis to break stories, the fact checking seems is not what it used to be. People print things that turn out to be false (the story during the last days of the healthcare debate that talked about a secret memo comes to mind), and then even if a correction runs later, attention is no longer on the issue.

I have no idea how to solve this, other than for people to stop rewarding blogs/shows/programs that peddle this kind of stuff, but that isn't likely to happen anytime soon - I just came from Politico myself!

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