Karl Rove and the Religion of the Washington Press: "In territory where conscience forbids others"

[DeepModem Mom]

Pressthink, by Jay Rosen
August 14, 2007
Karl Rove and the Religion of the Washington Press
"Savviness--that quality of being shrewd, practical, well-informed, perceptive, ironic, 'with it,' and unsentimental in all things political--is, in a sense, their professional religion. They make a cult of it. And it was this cult that Karl Rove understood and exploited for political gain."

....I believe that the real—and undeclared—ideology of American journalism is savviness, and this is what made the press so vulnerable to the likes of Karl Rove.

Savviness! Deep down, that’s what reporters want to believe in and actually do believe in— their own savviness and the savviness of certain others (including operators like Karl Rove.) In politics, they believe, it’s better to be savvy than it is to be honest or correct on the facts. It’s better to be savvy than it is to be just, good, fair, decent, strictly lawful, civilized, sincere or humane.

Savviness is what journalists admire in others. Savvy is what they themselves dearly wish to be. (And to be unsavvy is far worse than being wrong.) Savviness—that quality of being shrewd, practical, well-informed, perceptive, ironic, “with it,” and unsentimental in all things political—is, in a sense, their professional religion. They make a cult of it. And it was this cult that Karl Rove understood and exploited for political gain....

***

(Josh Green, a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly) was all over the talk shows yesterday because of his recent article in the Atlantic on what went wrong with The Rove Presidency. But it’s his study from three years ago that tells the tale about Rove and the press. He noted that close readings of Rove’s methods are relatively few. “Yet as I interviewed people who knew Rove, they brought up examples of unscrupulous tactics—some of them breathtaking—as a matter of course.” Rove had the “he said, she said” press figured out, according to Green:

"He seems to understand—indeed, to count on—the media’s unwillingness or inability, whether from squeamishness, laziness, or professional caution, ever to give a full estimate of him or his work. It is ultimately not just Rove’s skill but his character that allows him to perform on an entirely different plane. Along with remarkable strategic skills, he has both an understanding of the media’s unstated self-limitations and a willingness to fight in territory where conscience forbids most others."...

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2007/08/14/rove_and_press.html