Stay Classy NY Daily News!
And now for a little, well needed, levity.
On Monday, while guest hosting a Tri-State area Sports-Talk radio show, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie called New York Daily News Jet’s beat writer Manish Mehta an “idiot” and a bunch of other names over Mehta’s coverage of a Jet’s press conference.
Yesterday, the Daily News swung right back:
Mediaite has a good writeup of the tits-for-tats.
Before anyone decries this as “the death of American Journalism”, let me point out that this type of back-and-forth is actually a better representation of the contentious relationship between the American Press and politicians than folks realize. It goes all the way back to colonial times. If anything, the relative politeness of the last fifty years is the actual aberration.
You’re looking for trouble aren’t you.
I generally think we could use a heck of a lot more civility in public discourse, but I also strongly believe that when one is hit it’s ok to hit back harder.
Yeah, there’s something to be said for the days when newspapers where right in-your-face about their political leanings. I suppose they were more like the radio personalities we have today. Now they have a cloak of neutralitythat is just riddled with bullet holes.
For those interested in a historical look at some of the more contentious moments in Press/Political relationships, I suggest Geoffrey Stone’s most excellent and easy to read: “Perilous Times: A history of the 1st Amendment during wartime.”
Seems fair to me. Christie should expect that kind of retort when he, ah, throws his weight around.
This is actually the opposite of the battle between the press and politicians. This is two guys getting in an argument over sports. It’s the most natural thing in the world.
Nobody’s telling me what I want to know. Namely, whether Mehta is in fact an idiot.
/We already knew Christie had a weight issue … not sure why that’s front page news.
Give the Daily News some credit. They’ve got to compete with the NY Post’s headlines and those are a mighty hard act to follow.
I’ve got a question: Is the New York Media part of the so-called “Main Stream Media’?