Clearly, there's something different going on here, and by that I mean White House journalism in general. As has been noted elsewhere, White House correspondents are behaving in a lazy and toothless fashion. The greatest risk they present to the current president is that they may lick and gum him to death. The necessity of the mainstream media competing with nonjournalists has had a profound effect on the ideological balance in this country. Point being, it's important to remind ourselves, again, that the tabloid mentality isn't confined to the National Enquirer and News of the Weird.
Talk radio is a critical component of our metastasizing tabloid culture.
Traditional journalists are generally quick to dismiss the influence of talk radio in setting mainstream news agendas. It plays to the same 20 percent. The same choir of hard-core conservatives. And that's true, as far as it goes. But in an age when the New York Times and any network news show would kill for a 20 percent share of any audience, the 600 talk stations carrying Rush Limbaugh reach that many every day.