Mr. Miller was more than happy to explain his N.S.A. segment, which he said he would not change if he had the chance. As a reporter, he has a blend of insider knowledge and careful inquiry that has been lauded by many, including me, especially during the school shootings in Newtown, Conn. He is nothing if not confident, dismissing his critics as ankle-biting, agenda-ridden bloggers who could not be compelled to get out of their pajamas and do actual reporting.
“I fully reject the criticism from you and others,” he told me. “The N.S.A. story has been a fairly one-way dialogue. There has been no conversation and when you do hear from the N.S.A., it is in a terse, highly vetted statement.”
“We went there, we asked every question we wanted to, listened to the answers, followed up as we wished, and our audience can decide what and who they believe. As we constructed it, the N.S.A. was a story about a debate, not a villain, and we added to that debate with important information. I fail to understand how a shrill argument for the sake of creating televised drama would have accomplished anything.”
Seriously, are we not done yet? I know in terms of measuring the lifespan of media we’re larval, but is this asshole really unaware that the Interwebs contain reporting? And that even if they did not, media criticism is older than the Interweb blogging machines, and is or should be raising questions when a major news program is less critical of a presidential administration than that administration is of itself.
But no, we’re still in this stupid YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE A COLLEGE DEGREE place, where your name tag and e-mail sig are more important than whether you’re correct. I keep waiting for it to get old — and we’re better, don’t get me wrong, I used to have to explain “blog” every time I went to a party — but it seems this is still the go-to defense whenever somebody points out you’re full of shit.
As if WHERE DID YOU GO TO SCHOOL HUH is an actual argument.
A.
I don’t wear pajamas.
What drives me nuts about this is that it is completely antithetical to having a thriving public debate and a marketplace of ideas. They want an oligopoly of ideas. People throughout history have put their lives on the line to publish. How effective would Common Sense have been in our current media landscape? “What, that trash written by the corset maker? Bah.”