Dem
47
GOP
53
There was a time when someone like Ruth Marcus was a dream hire for a newspaper. Bachelor's degree from Yale, law degree from Harvard, a talent for the written word—it's not too much a surprise that The Washington Post poached her in 1984, while she was finishing up her law degree. She's been at the paper ever since, and has covered campaign finance, the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice and Congress, among other beats. She became an opinion columnist, and an associate editor of that section, in 2006.
As of yesterday, however, her 42-year career at the Post is at an end. Over the weekend, she submitted a column that was critical of owner and publisher Jeff Bezos and his new editorial policy. The column was spiked, and in response, Marcus tendered her resignation. But hey, at least they still have Marc Thiessen!
The text of the spiked column has not been made public, but there is no way a battle-hardened newspaper veteran like Marcus did not foresee this outcome. It could be, at 66 years of age, she's ready to retire, and so she decided to go out in a (small) blaze of glory. Alternatively, maybe she will be the latest journalist to make the jump to Substack, or some other platform like that. If so, however, she does not appear to have announced her future plans. Certainly, there's nothing on her eX-Twitter or Bluesky feeds. One would imagine that if she planned to start "Ruth's Rants," or some such, she would make sure to have that in place before falling on her sword, knowing full well that people would be looking for it.
But while old-school folks like Marcus are "out" these days, folks adapted to the new media landscape are definitely "in." It was difficult not to think of the shift in the journalistic establishment when the news of Marcus' demise came in the same hour as the news that CNN pundit Scott Jennings just signed a new contract with the network, one that gives him a hefty increase in pay.
Jennings' job, ostensibly, is to be the talking head who gives the "conservative perspective." Here are some of the conservative perspectives he's shared in recent months:
This is not serious, thoughtful commentary. Heck, it's often not even commentary that Jennings actually believes in. He's a Mitch McConnell-type Republican, having worked as an aide to the Senator for many years. If you watch carefully when Jennings talks, you can tell when even he doesn't really buy what he's selling.
What we have here—and we thought of this parallel independently, but then saw others draw it, as well—is basically a pro wrestler. Specifically, what pro wrestling fans call a heel; a person whose job it is to be the "bad guy," nearly all the time, and ideally in a manner that is as over-the-top as is possible.
We're not sure which group of viewers to whom this is more insulting. Liberal-leaning viewers, who apparently need a foil who is a total clown in order to feel righteous? Or conservative-leaning viewers, who are supposed to think Jennings is playing it straight, and isn't putting on an act? What we do know is that CNN has just slashed budget and gotten rid a bunch of staff, including a bunch of actual journalists. Meanwhile, they had no problem finding the money to give a hacky entertainer like Jennings a nice raise. There are still a few folks of reasonable quality there—a Jake Tapper, a John King—but we're getting closer and closer to the moment that one cannot take CNN any more seriously than one takes Fox. (Z)