How journalism has become an exercise in pie throwing

An interesting piece in Atlantic Monthly from Mark Bowden who looks at a case study of what he considers to be the way that journalism is going.

It concerns the events surrounding the day back in May that President Obama nominated U.S. Circuit Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

According to Bowden the journalistic events surrounding the announcement show that

With journalists being laid off in droves, ideologues have stepped forward to provide the “reporting” that feeds the 24-hour news cycle. The collapse of journalism means that the quest for information has been superseded by the quest for ammunition

He describes how

First came the happy announcement ceremony at the White House, with Sotomayor sweetly saluting her elderly mother, who as a single parent had raised the prospective justice and her brother in a Bronx housing project

.but

then, just minutes later, journalism rose to perform its time-honored pie-throwing role. Having been placed by the president on a pedestal, Sotomayor was now a clear target.

Ht-Richard Sambrook