Political Punch

I just listened to this podcast over the last hour. I can't figure out if this interview is disturbing or not.

I really like your, Jake, candid and frank approach to your to your job not only in this interview but in your podcast universally.

Jake,

I've been on vacation for two weeks, so just today I was able to catch up on the two "Shuffle" podcasts that I missed. The first was this interview with Hugh Hewitt.

While I have been listening to the Shuffle since it's inception I have never felt compelled to write in on your blog as it appears many others have too. I felt I needed to send you some support like others (in droves) have already. You did a great job with that very ridiculous guest.

His techniques were tired and dull. However, he was well spoken, well read, and sounds authoritative which is why I'm sure he has a base of sheepish listeners. While you may not be a veteran of the talk show format, your speciality is more about writing and broadcast news packages, you did a very dignified and honorable job being a neutral journalist, while still expressing some of your appropriate opinions.

Hewitt was right about one thing, your listeners are very interested in hearing the entire podcast, however not for the reasons he had hoped. I think most of your listeners (and most sane people) got the idea that he's a complete and total, self-absorbed nut. His constant barrage of "loaded questions" and insistence on you airing every last second was not only played, and painfully obvious but also desperate. His listeners must be like Rush's ... sheepish, no-nothings, who believe everything they are told. Whom unfortunately, en mass, are a very dangerous group of people (to the American way).

While I've gotten off the topic a bit and given some of my personal opinions I just want to reiterate ... that you did very well and I was very proud of practice of the art of journalism.

Thanks,
Raven

p.s. I really hope you go back to the original format of this show at some point, the format for how this show is named. I do love the interviews too ... but maybe you can do both in the same show, or switch off.

Jake--

I find it interesting that Mr. Hewitt claims you had an agenda on your podcast, given that his questions clearly showed he did.

I disagree with Hewitt's generalizations about the media. Reporters, as human beings, do have a bias in their reporting-- it's naive to think they don't. However, it's not clear to me what that bias is. I would argue that some reporters *know* they are personally liberal and try too hard not to be in their reporting. In any event, I think it's fair to give reporters the benefit of the doubt, as you put it, and I DO NOT think all reporters can be clumped into some sort of category.

I also hope Mr. Hewitt would encourage his listeners to read and listen to coverage from a variety of news sources, including his own and those from what he calls the mainstream media. It follows his own argument that listeners *must not* rely only on his opinion. They should collect a variety of opinions from a variety of sources to make their own judgments. I hope Hewitt is concerned that listeners are abandoning mainstream media and that he would encourage them to return.

My mom is an avid Rush Limbaugh listener, as well as an avid Today show viewer (sorry ABC). She understands Rush's style and can see through what he says. She is also an independent who voted the exact opposite of what Rush was advocating in the last election. How about that?

On a side note, Jake, I enjoy your podcast very much. Keep up the good work.

Jake, you did an EXCELLENT, PROFESSIONAL, INTELLIGENT, COOL-TEMPERED job dealing with Hugh Hewitt's manipulative, paranoid, hugely and invalidly generalizing, ill informed, blatantly biased, sleazy used car salesman-like words, accusations and general kindergarten immaturity. I love your professionalism so much, Jake! And, yes, I hope he plays the whole podcast on his show to help enlighten listeners with similar attributes as his!

Wonder if the software is freaking out? Posts not following in any chronological order, etc.

HAven't watched any MSM news broadcasts in several years, got tired of the blatent (but undisclosed) bias in both script and story selection.

One of my exercises back when was to count intances of Peter Jennings' uttering "right-wing" "extreme right-wing" "extremely conservative" vs. "left-wing" "exteme (or radical) left-wing" "extremely liberal" during a broadcast. I usually could come up with several instances of the first, and ususally none of the latter.

It was also funny to hear Peter talk about how extremely conservative Bush (41) is. I always laughed at that assertion. Most conservatives find him to be middle-right at best.

Finally, Jake if there is one thing you could convince your collegues on, that would to eliminate the assertions of "some say...." when addressing issues. Really? Some Who? Name names or understand at least some of us out here substitute "media thinks" for "some say".

Wow. I have never felt the need to leave a comment about the podcast - or pretty much any podcast, but that was truly amazing.

First of all, I will declare my bias - I am a Democrat who has worked in several layers of government and politics.

With that out of the way, what an amazing blowhard Hewitt was on the podcast! I was fascinated to hear him spin innocent conversations and a memo asking him to speak into some sort of left-wing conspiracy. I have even less respect for him than I had in the past.

Mr. Tapper, you held yourself very well and I appreciated your posting the whole podcast. It was made an insight into him - and posting the whole thing made him look pretty bad when he seemed to believe it would vindicate him.

On the Mormon question - I grew up with Mormons and have a huge respect for the church. I will not vote for Romney as his stance on issues differ from mine, but I do support Sen Reid - a Mormon who shares my values

Jake,

Good to see your work again. I remember your coverage of the McCain candidacy in 2000 (which was in Salon, if I remember correctly). For better or worse, I don't watch ABC News since I'm still at work when it's on the air. One of these days I hope to watch you on This Week with David Brinkley (yeah, I stopped watching after Brinkley left).

Jake,

I found the latest podcast to be interesting and appreciate you posting the entire discussion, after having listened to the disagreement.

It is interesting that both liberals and conservatives, feel it is necessary to point out the left or right leaning media outlets. Why can't we rely on the consumer to decipher the news from the opinion, other than it would leave an entire segment of talk show hosts with even less content.

There is so much argument about the particular bias of a media source, why are we not more focused on the quality of information from these sources. The New York Times provides more coverage of international news than any other U.S. main stream outlet. The Wall Street Journal provides business and personal finance news at a higher level than most. Why is their respective, left or right- leaning editorial boards my concern. Can’t I and other readers translate the news from the commentary?

I may be interested in your or Hugh Hewitt’s political views, but those are not a substitute for what is fact and news.

I enjoy the podcasts, thank you.

carlitos; because this is what happens when the news media "supports" as in...does not question US foreign policy:

"
....Complicating matters for journalists, the accounts of these exiles were often eagerly confirmed by United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq. Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources. So did many news organizations — in particular, this one......

.....Accounts of Iraqi defectors were not always weighed against their strong desire to have Saddam Hussein ousted. Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all....."

-FROM THE EDITORS
The Times and Iraq

Published: May 26, 2004

Mr. Tapper:

I was not familiar with Hugh Hewitt before, but he sounds much like every other right wing radio talk show host who isn't Rush or Hannity. He could have been Mike Gallagher or Glenn Beck or Michael Reagan, who to me seem essentially interchangeable.

I greatly enjoyed your book on the 2000 election some years ago BTW. I've read almost every popular nonfiction work on that subject, and yours was far and away the most entertaining. And balanced.

In response to "host" who wrote the comment below...

That you would find distasteful the very idea of media supporting the US' foreign policy goals is quite telling. May I offer a suggestion - if you find the US' foreign policy goals so distasteful, perhaps you could relocate to a place with different goals, goals more harmonious with your world view?

Or, to be less extreme, why is it that the media should automatically be AGAINST our own nation's foreign policy? I mean, the media should be independent, not an organ for or against the state, right? Are there any foreign policy goals worth supporting? Those which agree with your world view, perhaps?

To prove the MSM is liberal just look at who is defending Jake on this thread. ALL DEMOCRATS and Bush hating libs.

Game over.

What a tiresome buffoon that Hewitt is. I grew weary of this goofball after only 10 minutes of listening to him drone on, but I'm glad you put the whole interview on the podcast just so you could expose this phony and his paranoid ramblings. He's by far the most impolite guest you've ever had on the podcast; where does he get off demanding to know who you voted for and what your religion is? How incredibly rude. (Oh, you won't tell him who you voted for? Well obviously that's evidence that you're a part of the secret MSM Democratic conspiracy! *rolls eyes*)

I think it's fair to assume that these Hewitt supporters posting here are NOT regular listeners of the ABC News Shuffle, so they're not familiar with your work here. But those of us who've been listening to the Shuffle for a very long time know how hard you try to stay balanced and objective as a reporter. In fact, for a long time I thought you were right-wing since you always balanced out Hari's leftish tendencies on the podcast. That's a fact. After Hari left, I realized I really couldn't figure out your political leanings. But Hewitt is absolutely clueless about this and doesn't care anyway, as it serves his own biased agenda to tar you as left-wing biased, no matter what the truth is.

Of course, the real reason people like Hewitt crow on about "Democratic bias" in the MSM is because the nation is rejecting the Republicans and their utterly disastrous war in Iraq. But instead of acknowledging this, they falsely scream "media bias!!" as the reason for the failure of the Republican agenda.

There are at least two problems with this "media bias" argument of Hewitt's:
1)Nobody who lived through the Clinton impeachment can say with a straight face that the media is biased towards Democrats. Clinton was torn apart by the MSM during the entire Lewinski affair.
2)People who claim Democratic bias in the MSM forget that after Sept. 11, the President and Congress were given a free pass by the media to do whatever they wanted without much resistance from the media. The MSM offered no opposition to the Administration's rush to war in Iraq.

Jake, good job in staying professional and composed in this interview despite the impoliteness you had to deal with. Keep up your fine work as a reporter and I look forward to many more great podcasts from you.

Dear Jake,

Judging by the lengthy list of comments I'm guessing you now know that not only was the podcast not boring, it was fabulous. Please take a moment to question your judgement on the issue.

It is my impression that MSM journalists consider allegations of bias to be personal insults and that is why they react so defensively.

It is not an insult, it is a simple statement of the human condition. Please consider that the human inside a judge's robes is not and cannot be impartial. That person is transformed into an impartial judge by the donning of his robes, the requirement that he abide by the laws of judicial conduct and procedure as well as the appeals process. No such structure exists to enforce journalistic impartiality and without it, none can be achieved.

It is possible that you really think you are being impartial. Part of the reason you may be comfortable in this belief is the environment within which you operate.

There was a front page article in the LA Times on the 30th aniversary of Roe v Wade. As you know, each side in the debate is known by two names. Each side considers one of those perjorative and the other not. In the article, to which four writers contributed, the term "pro-abortion" never appeared, only "pro-choice". In the article the term "pro-life" never appeared, only "anti-abortion".

I am willing to bet that each of the writers and editors who participated in the publication of the article would argue until blue in the face that they are objective reporters of the news and I am sure they believe they are.

That their personal biases seep into their writing is inevitable and invisible to them. That they don't see it is simply the result of the myopia that results when everyone in your environment shares your beliefs.

What a great podcast! It was though-provoking and informative. At first I was finding myself sympathizing with Mr. Tapper's annoyance at Mr. Hewitt's control of the content of the interview, but after reading the email to Mr. Hewitt, I heartily agree with him. This was an attempt to sandbag Mr. Hewitt, and Mr. Hewitt handled it with grace. If Mr. Tapper sincerely wants to engage in objective journalism, he should stop worrying about feeling conflicted about voting in presidential elections, and spend more time with the older and wiser Hugh Hewitt.

Jake -

In the interest of Mr. Hewitt's full disclosure, I am (1) a Christian, (2) a republican, and (3) apalled at how he acted. Kudos for you for standing your ground on the disclosure issues without getting ugly. I thought he was petty & off base on the e-mail issue, and the repeated request to air the issue without editing.

I'm grateful you did, because I got a good look at both of you - and you came out on top in the character department.

Unlike him, I do believe - and appreciate - that you make every effort to maintain no oppinion.

I've always liked your reporting, which is why I subscribed to the podcast in the first place. Now, I trust you even more.

Thanks -

Tom

Tapper, had he done his "homework", would have been able to point out the "interviewee" and the "MSM" critic was

Council for National Policy's Stuart W. Epperson's and Edward G. Atsinger III's Salem Radio Network's Hugh Hewitt..... (Salem owns townhall.com, too....)

How is it that Hewitt can "front" for two CNP billionaire's 1200 station, Christian radio propaganda network, and it's "web presence", townhall.com, yet not even be asked about the influence on politics of the secretive Council for National Policy, and the "things" assembled by it's members...Eric Prince's "Blackwater", and Hewitt's employer...also owner of "Salem News Network"...Salem Media...huge...but not MSM?

Read the other posts...Hewitt's affluent audience of "well educated", etc..etc.., haven't a clue about who Hewitt fronts for, and obviously, neither does Tapper.

Here is their goal, from Brett Bozell III in a 1992 speech to Heritage Foundation:
"Imagine, if you will, a future wherein the media willfully support the foreign policy objectives of the United States."

Unfortunately, that is the "vision" of the MSM that CNP, Hewitt, and most posters here want to happen, too!

None more righteous than the self-righteous.

Why do liberals bleed for others while the social conservatives bleed for themselves?

Sorry you got rolled by that blow-hard's well-practiced and transparent manipulation, but I think your discomfort at his mellifluous vitriole was honest and honorable.

On the other hand, once your courtesy had been exhausted, you had proved you were open-minded and a gracious host, and you were far into receiving an abusive brow-beating, it might have been a moment for less defensiveness and a little calling out of the bullying invective that sustains the marginalized audience of Rush/O'Reilly/Hewitt.

What dull, monotonous, uninspired, content-lacking, evidence-disregarding, repetitive tripe. Sound like my kids--if you wish it and say it often enough, you can convince yourself there is a chance it may become true. Magical thinking, I believe it is called.

If humor is the highest form of intelligence, why are there no funny social conservatives? Except the entire Bush administration, in an unintentional and scary Kafkaesque sort of way. Is this another conspiracy of the liberal MSM to surpress faith in laughter?

The memo is either indicative that you have a terrible staff or that you simply lied and misled your prospective interviewee. He didn't go too far. He showed the rest of us that you and your staff either act in bad faith deliberately, or are so used to doing so that you don't even recognize it when you see it. 60 Minutes' style journalism, to get the victim to tie the noose around his own neck, is part of what made MSM disliked, and you don't even know that.

But based on the simple, basic, obvious questions you asked Hugh Hewitt about Mitt Romney's faith being a fair topic for debate, it's obvious that neither you nor anyone on your staff ever read Hewitt's book. His point, laid out in the introduction, in every chapter, and in the conclusion is: discussions of individual candidate's theology are out of bounds, and if they become considered open for debate, all non-secular candidates will lose. You acted like you'd never heard nor thought that before. Couldn't you at least have the producer who pretended you'd talk about his book have read his book, and briefed you on it?

And if you had read it, I'm at a loss. Truly. What did you take away from it? Nothing at all?

Jake, thanks for doing what you have done. I agree with Hugh just about 95% of the time, and I definitely agree about liberal bias in the media, and even agree with him that you are probably a liberal. However, at least you are trying to engage Hugh and other conservatives on this and other issues, and it looks like you are genuinely trying to be objective. That is more than we conservatives get from most of the MSM. I don't give a damn about most of the MSM because they really don't care about conservative views, but I will watch your stuff from now on.

By the way, I don't blame you for not admitting your biases or who you voted for. In the unwritten rules of conventional, MSM journalism, that would probably be career suicide.

One other thing, it was great that you hung in there with Hugh even though he was being tough on you. Turnabout is fair play, and journalists should be ready to take it if they are so willing to dish it out.