Covering the coverage

Since the media is only interesting in self-examination to the extent that Howard Kurtz practices it, which is to say in the prurient and titillated way that frat boys are interested in breast self-examination, most modern coverage of politics is more about covering us in bullshit than in uncovering us from bullshit.

Celebrity journalists defend themselves and their cohorts from any accountability, at least by going along with the bullshit, often by generating more. If they didn't, they wouldn't get admitted to the fraternal order of the vacuous that leads to ever more visible televised inanity.

Eric Boehlert, along with stalwarts Eric Alterman and Bob Somerby, has been diverting rivers into the fetid barns of the media for some time. I've echoed the themes of all three from time to time, for example here, here, and here.

In the last several years, all three have written important posts (and books). Yesterday's post from Boehlert is one of them. It's a deft encapsulation of the insane consequences for our politics of irresponsibility in journalism.