Kevin Drum gets it wrong regarding the media's walkback on John Mark Karr:
Look. Any news channel that didn't cover JMK 24/7 would have seen its audience defect en masse to a channel that did. Any media star that ignored the story would have seen the public stampede to a competitor who was covering it. Blaming the media is a little disingenuous, no?
Ah, no. Look (to employ Drum's tough-guy realism): to give the media a pass for reducing news judgment to the act of wetting a finger and sticking it in the air is to ignore the same practice when the press corps ignores, en masse, stories of genuine national concern. Just because bad judgment is understandable - de rigeur, even - hardly makes it excusable.
Now if Drum's intent is to criticize the media for employing a "shocked, shocked!" stance on JMK worthy of Captain Renault, that's another thing altogether. But far from that, it seems that Drum seeks to defend the press for being blind to any consideration apart from ratings. No?
Related: Shakes' post on Karr and the media.
(Cross-posted.)
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