Journalism Is in a Disastrous State -- But for a Handful of Millionaire Pundits, It's Wonderful

http://www.alternet.org/media/media-millionaires-journalism-and-001-percent

Journalism Is in a Disastrous State -- But for a Handful of Millionaire Pundits, It's a Wonderful Life


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Thomas Friedman

New York Times foreign affairs columnist Tom Friedman has written a number of bestsellers, and regularly holds forth on outlets like public TV’s Charlie Rose show. All of the globe-trotting and yearning for a “radical centrism” in American politics—where sensible climate policies could be paired with cuts to social spending—have paid off handsomely.

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David Gregory

As host of NBC’s Meet the Press, David Gregory is paid to quiz politicians on the tough issues of the day. But he offers his own opinions on the show, too; he’s encouraged the Obama White House to propose “big spending cuts” in order to confuse Republicans (1/27/13; FAIR Blog, 1/29/13). He thinks the White House should have done more to have a “moment in the Rose Garden” with a few corporate CEOs (11/11/12; FAIR Blog, 11/13/12), and demanded to hear more from the White House about the “hard choices” Americans must make to get by with less ( 1/29/12). He worried about the problem of Occupy activists “demonizing Wall Street” ( 10/10/11). He expressed concern that the more people criticize big banks, “the closer you get to wiping out the shareholder completely”—a person “who is not just a fat cat” ( 2/22/09).

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Fareed Zakaria

What’s the “single biggest threat to the U.S.’s fiscal health”? If you’re super-pundit Fareed Zakaria—columnist for Time and the Washington Post, as well as the host of a weekend CNN show—the answer is pensions for public sector workers. That was his message in a Time magazine column ( 6/25/12) that cheered on Democrats willing to stand up to labor unions.

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Chris Matthews

As the political winds at MSNBC have shifted, longtime Hardball host Chris Matthews has tried to go with the flow, adopting a somewhat more liberal outlook in order to keep current.