Rove and Time Magazine: Partners in Crime

Both AMERICAblog and Salon have short posts about this LA Times story that takes a deep look back through the Plame Affair and the timeline of events. Among the minor revelations is the considerably intriguing evidence that Time Magazine intentionally delayed an inevitable exposure of Rove's conversations with Time reporter Matt Cooper due to the timing of the election year. AMERICAblog asserts that this is a form of complicency on Time's part: they refused to run with vital information directly pointing at potentially very illegal activities at the highest level of The Administration because they didn't want to be percieved as participating in the political warfare of an election year.

This is a point that, as E&P notes, Vanity Fair makes in its current issue. The mainstream media was complicit in hiding this story for two years from the American people. And we now find out that TIME intentionally influenced a US election as a result.

It's one thing for TIME to do its job and ignore the effects of its reporting and overall work on US elections, it's quite another for TIME to make decisions BASED ON whether they'll influence US elections. That's about as journalistically unethical as it comes, and makes TIME no better than FOX News.

The vital point in the complacency of the New Media Corporations with the political process is this: That they are absolutely more concerned with the perception of their being involved in politics than they are about reporting on politics. The problem is that they are involved in politics. They don't care about the reportage of it, but rather the way that the shadow will be cast upon them, which will result in a series of political losses and disconnections from the Washington inside which will pull them out of the running from the deep political dish that they get. It will make them more in line with Glamour and People than with Newsweek. I should point out that none of the above mentioned rags carry much political clout- they all have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. In fact, Time already is on the same level as Glamour and People: they all require the most pedestrian complacency with the culture in order to maintain their high, corporate profits.

The fact that they became cowards when they were sitting on some of the hottest political scandals around based on their fear of their perception of political status simply proves this fact: their credibility lies solely with their being able to have a modicrum of access; not with any valid reportage.