BEYOND HOOKERS,
HAMAS AND HAGEL
ited the offices of The American
Conservative on the morning of
Feb. 28, McCarthy didn’t mince
words when describing the current state of conservative media:
“It’s a shipwreck.”
McCarthy praised reporting by
Costa and the Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney, but had a less
positive take on newer outlets
that, to him, appear more focused
on sensationalism than legitimate
scoops. While McCarthy described
The Daily Caller as “somewhat
qualitatively better” than Breitbart or the Washington Free Beacon, he said all three appear to be
trying to mimic the hyper-activity
of BuzzFeed while wanting to be
“hyper-partisan.”
On Mar. 3, MSNBC’s Chris
Hayes brought together four conservative writers and strategists
to weigh in the state of conservative media, and more specifically, Erickson’s critique. Bloomberg View columnist Josh Barro,
like McCarthy, cited Costa’s
“outstanding work,” while saying
The Daily Caller does both good
and “really bad” journalism and
that “everything that Breitbart
runs is stupid.”
“Part of the problem though
for the right trying to develop
HUFFINGTON
03.24.13
these media outlets is that they
haven’t realized, in some cases,
when you do bad reporting, its
not just not useful, it’s actually
brand damaging,” Barro said.
One Republican communications strategist, who spoke on
the condition of anonymity, given
ongoing dealings with reporters,
complained to The Huffington Post
that quality reporting on the right
often gets overshadowed by work
that lacks basic journalistic standards and professionalism. For
that reason, the strategist said,
Republican sources were inclined
to approach mainstream or left-ofcenter news outlets, more trusted
for getting facts straight, when
trying to move an item.
“It ends up in this echo chamber because of a lack of credibility, perceived or not, when one of
these conservative outlets breaks a
story,” the strategist said. “It stays
in the conservative echo chamber
until that information is verified.”
‘I’M NOT HIRING WINE STEWARDS’
The complaints are hardly new.
Four y