Media takes well-deserved hit

Top billing comes with a heavy responsibility. If journalists do nothing else, we must assist the public in sorting through the candidates and policies. To do this, we have to be honest brokers. To master what we need to know, we sit through night meetings of school boards, county commissions and city councils. We read the complex bills, ask for the records and play watchdog. We ask tough, informed questions. And like McDonald’s, we do it all for you.

Before I get all sanctimonious — and I will — let me make it plain that we also do it all because we like this stuff. Loving documents and public meetings is a mild disorder that afflicts many of us. Wonky stuff makes us nearly as happy as sharing something we’re not supposed to know.

When my wife leaves me home alone, I draw the shades and watch CSPAN’s account of some Congressional budget hearing or the Prime Minister’s question time in Parliament. I’m not necessarily proud of this.

When it comes to covering politics, I expect our reporters to edify and enlighten while suppressing their own political views whatever they are. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution expends a lot of ink – and whatever it is we expend in digital – detailing candidates’ platforms, positions and resumes. We do this even in the knowledge that many of our readers and neighbors don’t vote. (I’m looking at you, folks. Do you even know we have municipal elections Tuesday?)

I won’t argue we’re perfect. Some readers believe all “mainstream media” are so far in the tank that the inanity of the CNBC team’s performance was typical and predictable. And they don’t distinguish between their loyal local newspaper and everyone else.

Fred Crigler, an AJC reader and frequent critic, was unsurprised by the CNBC panel’s performance.

“The point is that there is very little journalism practiced today, including in your newspaper,” he said in an email. “What is practiced today by ‘journalists’ is mostly sensationalism and left-wing propaganda; it certainly is not journalism.”

To be clear, his complaint about the AJC is rooted mostly in the fact that we get our national news from services such as the Associated Press and New York Times, which he sees as part of the tainted “mainstream” media. Fortunately, he keeps his subscription because his wife makes him.

When Marco Rubio says the mainstream media is no more than a Hillary Clinton super PAC, folks like Crigler nod in agreement. (Nevermind that the New York Times has been far from cuddly with Clinton, even reporting in error that she was the target of a criminal investigation over the whole email mess.)

Nevertheless, our newsroom works very hard to attain balance. Our investigations are equal opportunity affairs targeting Republicans and Democrats alike. We obsess over the way we play political stories _ if we use a story about Hillary Clinton on the front page, we weigh it against the way we played stories about Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, et. al.

We sweat over how we frame and write our stories – checking words for hidden bias and making sure we represent the variety of points of view available in this breathtakingly diverse market.

We’re not perfect, but we’re nobody’s super PAC.

Balance is hard work, and it does us no favors when CNBC panelists pose callow, stupid or mean questions. Wednesday night, they posed all three.

When John Harwood asked Donald Trump if his wasn’t really a “comic book” campaign, I cringed.

Really, John? That question matches the dignity of the presidency? No matter what you think of Trump, he is well along the way to acquiring the Washington real estate that housed Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.

And could you imagine the same folks showing Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton such disrespect? Who can blame conservatives for suspecting his motives? It all confirms every dark suspicion people have about reporters, even mine, even though I can’t say that John Harwood is fit to share the job title with the hardworking reporters at the AJC.

And I get that Republicans in particular have found that their core pretty much hates “the media.” I understand the value of their pushing back against even legitimate questions.

But it’s hard for me to retain the will to live when these TV panelists hand them so much ammo.

Steve Brown, the very-Republican Fayette County commissioner, believes the debates are now useless. “The national debates in current times are more about ‘got you’ moments than thoughtfully discussing the issues,” Brown told me in an email. “Unfortunately, the media appears to be looking more for political on-air bloopers than meaningful content.”

Take a look at a question asked by Carl Quintanilla:

“Sen. Cruz, Congressional Republicans, Democrats, and the White House are about to strike a compromise that would raise the debt limit, prevent a government shutdown, and calm financial markets that fear another Washington-created crisis is on the way.”

Fine. Legitimate issue. Please continue.

“Does your opposition to it show that you’re not the kind of problem-solver American voters want?”

Really, Carl? Why can’t you just skip the snark and ask him where he stands on the compromise?

And he green-lighted Cruz to lay into a fat, slow softball to trash us all.

“The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media,” he said to rapturous applause.

“This is not a cage match. And if you look at the questions: Donald Trump, are you a comic book villain? Ben Carson, can you do math? John Kasich, will you insult two people over here? Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign? Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen? How about talking about the substantive issues.”

Well, hell, he’s right. Why aren’t these “journalists” sticking to the issues, and enlightening us on how to distinguish these candidates?

Worse, why are they giving the candidates such easy escapes from answering the rare piercing questions?

Wilting under the righteous assaults, the discredited panel is reduced to unveiling little more than talking points.

In fact, the panel discredits us all and failed at the basic job of enlightening us.

I wish I could fire them all.