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The recent White-House-pays-journalists-to-talk-up-pet-programs revelations are yet another example of the moral bankruptcy of this administration, and Frank Rich's column in the NYT is appropriately outraged at the administration, Armstrong Williams, and the TV punditocracy as a whole. It's well-written stuff, but to me was most notable for featuring another installment of "Dick Cheney displays jaw-dropping chutzpah, cynicism, and contempt for common decency":

But perhaps the most fascinating Williams TV appearance took place in December 2003, the same month that he was first contracted by the government to receive his payoffs. At a time when no one in television news could get an interview with Dick Cheney, Mr. Williams, of all "journalists," was rewarded with an extended sit-down with the vice president for the Sinclair Broadcast Group, a nationwide owner of local stations affiliated with all the major networks. In that chat, Mr. Cheney criticized the press for its coverage of Halliburton and denounced "cheap shot journalism" in which "the press portray themselves as objective observers of the passing scene, when they obviously are not objective."

This is a scenario out of "The Manchurian Candidate." Here we find Mr. Cheney criticizing the press for a sin his own government was at that same moment signing up Mr. Williams to commit. The interview is broadcast by the same company that would later order its ABC affiliates to ban Ted Koppel's "Nightline" recitation of American casualties in Iraq and then propose showing an anti-Kerry documentary, "Stolen Honor," under the rubric of "news" in prime time just before Election Day. (After fierce criticism, Sinclair retreated from that plan.) Thus the Williams interview with the vice president, implicitly presented as an example of the kind of "objective" news Mr. Cheney endorses, was in reality a completely subjective, bought-and-paid-for fake news event for a broadcast company that barely bothers to fake objectivity and both of whose chief executives were major contributors to the Bush-Cheney campaign.

Buying a journalist in order to complain about the lack of objective journalism? Staggering cynicism.... As my wife said, "And conservatives wonder why liberals are so paranoid about the media?"
| posted by Alex at 8:15 PM