MediaReview

Judge Posner's Incorrect Verdict - He hacks on and on about the "crisis" in old media in the Times Book Review. By Jack Shafer: "Deploying four words where one will do (perhaps that's the secret to his productivity), Posner asserts that the arrival of the new media (by which he means cable news networks, Web sites, blogs, et al.) has forced the established media to move stories faster, hence sacrificing accuracy. Also, in a panic to attract a share of the fractured audience, the conventional media have embraced sensationalism, he writes. Likewise, economic pressures posed by the new media have caused media polarization, 'pushing the already liberal media farther to the left.'

He ignores journalistic history as he spots emerging 'trends' and gets basic facts wrong. A 4,600-word piece about the decline of journalism should cite numerous specific transgressions, yet Posner is too lazy to collect the evidence. He names only Newsweek's Quran retraction, CBS News' mishandling of the Air National Guard story, and the media's saturation coverage of the Michael Jackson trial. Dismissing as horse-race coverage most of the press corps' speculations about who would replace Sandra Day O'Connor, he doesn't bother to name the offenders."