Puzzled

I confess i am baffled by this post from Buzz Machine

I've said before that I worry less about the impact on the Times -- there'll always be a Times -- and more about other outlets, which will become safer and thus duller and thus less read and thus less important. Perhaps that's part of the reason the grave-dancers are doing that cha-cha; they think that if the big news outlets are diminished, they are enhanced. But that's wrong; the competitor in the news business isn't other news, it's other, more fun things to watch and do. And if one big purveyor of news suffers in credibility or compelling interest, all news suffers. In this pond, falling water grounds all boats.

Now i am hardly a grave dancer-- ramble through the posts from the last two weeks and you will see that i am more critical of Kaus and Sullivan than almost any other conservative blog.

But if it is true that the Times's loss of credibility hurts all media outlets, then we have a problem. Because that suggests that the system has a powerful bias toward bias, sloppiness, and fabrication. If criticizing bad news coverage at a rival outlet means that their own outlet gets hurt ("all news suffers"), then editors won't do much criticizing or correcting. Which means that the worst excesses will go unchecked. So news outlets will have high credibility, but it won't be deserved.

And the consumers of news won't notice?

Incidentally, couldn't the same argument be applied to political coverage? Reporting on dishonest or corrupt politicians lowers the public's trust in all politicians. Which makes it hard for government to rally support for good programs. Therefore, a liberal reporter or columnist should not write about Bush/Enron because it will hurt the chances of health care reform.

Put that way, it sounds absurd.

Lastly, if this point is true, is that not even more reason to be angry at the Times's managers whose actions hurt the credibility of all news outlets and lowered the overall consumption of news from all sources?