Journalism

The joint appearance by President Obama and Hillary Clinton on “60 Minutes” wasn't about the Democratic nomination in 2016, as some analysts have insisted this weekend. Watching the actual interview Sunday night, I am certain it was about something both much more immediate and long lasting. It was President Obama using TV - and the folks at "60 Minutes" happily allowing themselves to be used - to write the first draft of history on Clinton's performance as secretary of state.

Timorous after having been hammered for years by cries from the right of leftist bias, and hampered by a simple-minded understanding of objectivity that gives sober attention to cranks and zanies, American journalism often winds up serving a bland gruel. But those cries of political bias (which often boil down to "You're not biased in the direction I prefer") are exaggerated and far from the whole story of the limitations of our journalism. The biases are both more widespread and subtler than is generally recognized or acknowledged.

While much is being made of Karl Rove's post-election return to the air this week on Fox, I don't think that's really the news that matters these days at Rupert Murdoch's channel. Reflecting in a way the very post-election GOP malaise that they discussed, both Bill O'Reilly and Rove seemed off their games Wednesday night on "The O'Reilly Factor. " Two of the most self-confident blowhards in American media and political life seemed less confident, less energized, less animated than I have ever seen either when it comes to saying bad things about President Obama.

After spending Saturday night listening to and writing about a Baltimore blogger who webcast and tweeted throughout a five-hour standoff with a police S.W.A.T. unit, I promised myself at least 24 hours to try and coherently think through the meaning of the event. Beyond the things I said Saturday night about the webcast and Twitter conversation being two more great examples of the way the Internet and social media continue to change so many aspects of American life, there are a couple of other media takeaways that stay with me and are worth thinking about.

Alan Rifkin, outside counsel for the Orioles and owner Peter Angelos, said Monday that reports of a possible MASN sale are innacurate. "There has been no contact," he said. "There has been no offer. There has been no discussion of it. MASN is not for sale. " According to John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal, Fox and Comcast have had negotiations with Peter Angelos about acquiring his majority share of the television network and the rights to both Orioles and Nationals games.

Outside of Barack Obama, one of Tuesday's biggest winners was CNN, which not only presented the best journalism but also finished first among cable channels in viewers. According to Nielsen's Fast Ratings, CNN was seen by an average audience of 8.8 million total viewers from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. election night. It also had audiences of 4.4 million adults ages 25 to 54 and 2.7 million viewers between the ages of 18 and 34. That topped perennial ratings winner Fox News, which had an audience of 8.7 million total viewers, with 3.5 million and 1.2 million in the key demos.

The rapid decline in health and ultimate death of a woman from fungal meningitis at Johns Hopkins Hospital after she'd received a tainted steroid injection was outlined by a team of Hopkins doctors in a medical journal article released online Thursday. The article, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, says a 51-year-old woman arrived at a local emergency room at the end of August with a headache "radiating" from the back of her head to her face. She'd received the steroid injection a week earlier.

Is anyone disturbed by the current trend of journalists reporting on social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, as if their contents were important breaking news? Does The Sun not aspire to be a respected, award-winning purveyor of serious journalism? If so, then please explain the purpose of reporting on one lone individual's tasteless tweet about Torrey Smith. Drawing any attention whatever to this inane tweet led to more reporting on Twitter's apology and Johns Hopkins' statement of disavowal.

Forget the broadcast networks of ABC, NBC and CBS. And forget PBS, too, unless you are part of the minority that doesn't have cable or online access. Public television simply doesn't have the resources any longer to do any kind of original, first-rate coverage of hardly anything -- even a pre-planned event like a national convention. If you want to use TV to get the best information and to engage as fully as possible with the Republican convention that begins Monday in Tampa and the Democratic convention next month in Charlotte, go with cable.

Newsweek publishes a cover story by Niall Ferguson severely critical of President Obama. That is fine; there is ample ground to criticize the president from both the right and the left, and the First Amendment makes criticism of public officials a sacred right. The problem, as Paul Krugman painstakingly pointed out , is that Mr. Ferguson's article is open to repeated challenge on factual accuracy. Evidently Newsweek thought that anything written by a Harvard professor would be beyond reproach, and besides, the magazine dismantled its fact checking staff in 1996 . Instead, Newsweek spokesman Andrew Kirk told Politico, "We, like other news organisations today, rely on our writers to submit factually accurate material.