Saturday, June 20, 2009

Greenwald on the Froomkin Firing

Froomkin was one of my regular reads during 2006-2008, and I get the impression that his firing now has to do with the fact that, with Bush out of office, the act will not be as obvious a cave to the right. But that's what it is. As usual, Greenwald explains it well.

That's why this Froomkin firing is so revealing. The fact that one of the very few people to practice real adversarial journalism in the Bush era was decreed not to be a real "journalist" -- and has now been fired by the Post -- is one of the most illustrative episodes of the past several years regarding what the real function of the establishment media is. Along those lines, Harris might want to consider also acknowledging that Froomkin was absolutely right when insisting (and Harris wrong when doubting) that Froomkin was not acting as "liberal opinionist" when criticizing Bush, but rather, was as an "accountability journalist" because he was merely pointing out facts, and would subject the actions and claims of a Democratic president to the same journalistic scrutiny. Froomkin's tenacious criticisms of Obama leave no doubt about that.

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