The Old Media are in danger of losing even more audience members as long as they refuse to acknowledge news until after Democrats in Congress or the White House decide it’s news worth a public reaction. During the last administration, Newsweek editor Evan Thomas insisted: "Our job is to bash the president, that’s what we do." But in 2009, he proclaimed that President Obama was poised above the country, even above the world: "He’s sort of God."

The news media should not see its job as "bashing" the president, but in 2009, it should not have been their job to inflate him into a celestial being, either. They seem incapable of continuity – of assessing a Republican president and a Democratic president with the same sense of monitoring the rhetoric and operations of governing without "fear or favor." With Obama, the media have instead favored Obama, and feared that conservative journalism would ruin the public-relations effect of those favors.

As much as the Old Media has suggested the New Media is guilty of a lack of credentials or professionalism, their performance in 2009 suggests that providing political protection for Obama means more than demonstrating a measure of independence and professionalism that can be appreciated outside the rarefied air inside the White House bubble.

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