I'm not all that anti-MSM, for lack of a better term. My thinking runs more toward the idea that we do everyone a disservice when our media critiques don't separate political journalism from the rest of the work in the field like, say, the recent New York Times group-reported series on the diseases -- like polio, guinea worm, filariasis, and river blindness -- that most affect the world's poor and are most vulnerable to eradication. Or this set of stories by reporter Diana Henriques on the legal exemptions (from zoning laws, day care regulations, property taxes, and so on) given to religious groups in America.
On occasion, however, a member of the political media corps writes/says something that their institutions then publish/air that can make me doubt the whole professional press. It can be something like MSNBC's Chris Matthews's recent one-two punch of (1) asking John Edwards of Elizabeth, "does she bust your balls like this when you come home?" and then (2) wistfully musing "what‘s this with the equal marriages?...it used to be different..." This week it's the Washington Post and Lois Romano. Romano was the original writer of that paper's Reliable Source column way back in 1992 -- she's been at this big-paper gig for a while. On the same day Pelosi was sworn in as Speaker, Romano starts her piece with "Catfight aftermath:..." That lead might be appropriate when referring to the morning after a sorority party gone horribly wrong. But instead, she's writing about lingering tensions stemming from a battle for control of one of the more war-critical committees in our federal legislature, between the Speaker of the House and a Harvard Law-educated former Defense Department special counsel.
We know enough to expect this sort of talk from Fox News or Maureen Dowd. But the Washington Post is the paper of record in DC, and Lois Romano does not have the place in the national consciousness that gives Dowd the right to write like an ass on occasion, like when she describes Pelosi as "girlishly churlish." (Even Dowd objected to "catfight" when applied to the conflict between her and Judith Miller.)
Am I wrong? Is there a way to take terms like "catfight" lightheartedly, and not see them as means by which to make petty, vindictive, capricious and sexual what women do? I ask the question, but I'm fairly convinced that in the political context it's a way to trigger our latent feelings about the place and nature of women. I believe it enough, in fact, to fairly beg every reporter, pundit, and editor out there to actively train themselves out of relying upon such cheap and easy ways of framing powerful women.
And with the first Democratic Speaker in 12 years a woman and the possibility that the Democratic nominee might indeed be one too, it behooves us to help break them of the habit.
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