Bad Biking

By Baxter

One of our humans was wondering why he didn't receive Eric Boehlert's regular media-commentary newsletter this morning. Sadly, it turns out that it's tough to crank out new content if you're dead.

With all the awful news lately — from Ukraine to Tennessee to Oklahoma to the upcoming French election, which we've just decided we're worried about — we cats had been feeling lately that the bad guys were winning. Now, hearing about Boehlert, it seems even worse.

Lazy journalists everywhere must be cheering, because Boehlert constantly harangued them for their failings, tirades that they richly deserved. We can only hope that to honor his memory, some eager young blogger-critic will pick up Press Run and, well, run with it.

Meanwhile, in a Boehlert salute, The Atlantic's James Fallows has taken on the media's insidious penchant for framing, and explains how corrosive it is to both the public discourse and the country itself. He gives us four examples:

"The best description of an economy is what makes it look worst" — Or, why the press is mysteriously refusing to give President Biden credit for creating record numbers of jobs. 

"Being independent boils down to acting hostile" — How journalists ask over-the-top adversarial questions of elected officials to generate sound bites and viral videos, but never to illuminate.

"The system is broken (but no one in particular broke it)" — The media's puzzling refusal to acknowledge that the Republican Party no longer believes in democracy.

"We're terrible at predictions, but let's talk about the midterms!" — Nobody knows what's going to happen in November, but everyone seems content to pronounce it a Democratic wipe-out. Really? Redistricting hasn't favored the GOP nearly as much as everyone expected.

We thank Fallows for picking up the Boehlert baton today. And to anybody who's out biking in Montclair, New Jersey, right now, please watch for trains. We cats HISS.