Newspapers vs. TV

Matt Yglesias reminds me of a point I want to make when he says this:

But that assumes that the cable networks are making some kind of good-faith attempt to inform their viewers and falling short, an assumption that I don’t think holds much water.

This is in contrast to newspapers, which (with the exception of tabloids like the New York Post, etc.) do make good-faith attempts to inform their readers and occasionally fall short. But too often, both liberals and conservatives group all TV networks and all newspapers together, when, really, each media organization should be considered separately.

Furthermore, it's important to remember that, at this point, TV networks drive news. The New York Times probably would have mentioned the Jeremiah Wright tapes twice (once in a story, once in a news analysis) if MSNBC/CNN/Fox hadn't been replaying the videos again and again and again. This is in contrast to the pre-CNN days, where newspapers (and the NYT and WaPo more specifically) drove news. Basically, a story would appear in the NYT in the morning and the nightly newscasts would follow up on it that night. However, today, this dynamic only exists locally, where newspapers break most of the news and then TV stations simply echo their reporting.

UPDATE: See Ezra Klein make this mistake. See TV. See newspaper. Also, see nifty internet.