Heaven Forbid Journalists Report Facts

Barrett Brown wrote a lengthy and hilarious post over at Vanity Fair about conservative reaction to Michael Hastings’ blockbuster Rolling Stone piece that brought down McChrystal. Couched in an attack on National Review (too easy!), it’s a rather damning indictment of the media in general. To wit:

Unlike many of this country’s most respected commentators, Hastings did not spend the better part of a decade repeating conventional wisdom about our allegedly unprecedented success in two wars that have already proven to be abject failures, and thus he has no reason to simply take the word of some or another confused presidential administration that everything is under control, or will be after some additional expenditure of blood and treasure.

Another taste, for color:

I myself am a subscriber [of National Review] and find myself constantly distracted by the ads, many of which are written to look like articles and which routinely conjure up dubious global financial entities in order to convince the publication’s readers to buy coins in exchange for some unspecified number of payments in order that they might also receive a free safe. Advertisers know their audience, naturally.

Read the whole thing.