Salon.com > Hack List 2012

Hack List No. 1: Politico

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 21:59:00 +0000

This year, my annual list of the worst of political media highlights not just individuals, but the institutions that enable those individuals. The 2012 Hack List will be counting down the 10 media outlets that are hurting America over the next two days -- stay tuned! (Previous Hack List entries here, here and here.)

Surprise! It's Politico.

I have written tens of thousands of words on what, precisely, is wrong with Politico. But I can put the case much more simply here: It's Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei.

Hack List No. 2: The Washington Post

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 20:25:00 +0000

The Washington Post is the hometown paper of the city that everyone in America hates, usually for good reason. And the things Americans hate about that city and the people who work there are reflected in its pages.

The newspaper itself is an ever smaller and more starved-looking thing. The people running it used to actually compete with the New York Times, for readers and writers and national influence. Now they can't really decide if they even want to try.

Hack List No. 3: Newsweek

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 18:15:00 +0000

One shouldn't speak ill of the dead, I know. But if Newsweek has taught me anything this year, it's that death is not truly the end, because Heaven Is Real, According to Science.

Yes, that was an actual, for-real Newsweek cover this year: "Heaven Is Real." It was the dumbest, probably, but not actually the worst. This year's Newsweek covers also included naked bondage lady, and sexy lady about to fellate asparagus (a stock image that had also quite recently been used in at least two other magazines). There was "what if Princess Di was alive and my friend," too, but that was from 2011.

Hack List No. 4: The Sunday Shows

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 17:15:00 +0000

Every Sunday morning, the big four broadcast networks all air their FCC-mandated "public affairs" programming, which consists of a host (a white guy) interviewing the same dozen lawmakers, journalists and pundits in a rotating order. The lawmakers are usually not the most powerful members of Congress -- often they're somewhat marginal figures in terms of influence, in fact -- and the pundits and journalists all generally share the same, or very similar, worldviews. The only people I actually know who watch these things do so out of professional obligation.

Hack List No. 5: The Drudge Report

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 15:47:00 +0000

Shortly after noon on Nov. 6, Time's Mark Halperin posted this on Twitter: "When John Harris & I wrote 'Drudge rules our world,' we were describing what IS, not what ought to be. Doubters already proven wrong today." A few hours later Barack Obama won reelection, which I assume came as a shock to people who do get most of their news from Matt Drudge.

Here's a brief tour of 2012 as the Drudge Report covered it.

Hack List No. 7: The Huffington Post

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 20:30:00 +0000

Arianna Huffington is brilliant. Her intellect is usually ignored by her detractors, who focus on her relentless ambition. Old-fashioned sexism taints so many pieces critical of Huffington that one sometimes feels a strong urge to defend her from the charge that she's cannibalizing and destroying American journalism.

Hack List No. 8: MSNBC

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 19:48:00 +0000

MSNBC, we're told all the time, is the liberal Fox News. That's reductive and stupid. It isn't. MSNBC isn't the liberal Fox News for two very important reasons: It usually demonstrates a greater respect for the truth than Fox News, and it's not as good as Fox News. It's not as good at being liberal as Fox is at being conservative. Fox is rigidly ideologically consistent, with its "straight news" programs echoing the same talking points and pushing the same slanted stories as its opinion shows. While there's no doubt that MSNBC is more unapologetically liberal than it used to be, it's still all over the place, with a conservative anchoring its flagship morning show, objective Beltway "straight news" proponents like Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell dominating in the daytime, and weekends full of ... prison shows. But more important, it's not as good as Fox at being compelling TV, which is why millions more people watch Fox every day. (There are demographic reasons for Fox's advantage, too, but it's still a huge number.)

Hack List No. 9: The Atlantic

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 16:30:00 +0000

Magazines are great. I am a big fan of magazines. The Atlantic does a lot of things right, as a magazine. First of all, it makes money. Most magazines don't, really. I also give them credit for "figuring out The Web." Here is the secret of The Web: People like to read thoughtful people writing about and debating the issues of the day, and also they like really infuriating trolling. The Atlantic gives them both.

Here are some pieces from the latest issue: Jeffrey Goldberg on why more guns will solve gun control (counterintuitive!), Jessica Bennett and Rachel Simmons on how writing "xoxo" in emails is "feminizing the workplace," something on wacky Silicon Valley workspaces and offices. This is a fairly representative sample of the sort of thing in your average issue of the Atlantic.

Hack List No. 10: New York Times

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 15:15:00 +0000

The New York Times is America's Last Newspaper, and because of that it is the recipient of a lot of grief that it doesn't always entirely deserve. Conservatives think it's the Daily Worker. Liberals blame it for Iraq and Bush's second term. Young people refuse to pay to read it.

The truth is, it is a good newspaper. It has great reporting that it spends a bunch of money on. It has a crossword puzzle. It has David Carr.

Hack List No. 6: CNN

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Maybe we beat up on poor CNN too often. I have previously bemoaned CNN's inability to get breaking news right, offered advice on how to save the network and offered constructive criticism of their decision to hire Jeff Zucker. CNN was also well represented in 2011's Hack List, with Wolf Blitzer, Piers Morgan, Erick Erickson and Erin Burnett all making appearances.