National Journal Death Spiral Watch
Back when I was in the government, I enjoyed reading the National Journal. Its coverage of lobbying and influence peddling was the best. Its coverage of legislative process was very good. And its coverage of policy substance was OK--handicapped by he said/she said journalism and the fact that it took every Republican claim seriously, but OK.
Since then it has gone downhill. And now it has jumped the shark: IMHO, nobody should be reading the National Journal. Nobody should be paying a cent to the National Journal--you can get better, more reliable, more sophisticated information from less dishonest information brokers from other places.
Steve Benen:
The #1 most liberal senator is … Barack Obama?: Be prepared to hear about this, over and over again, for quite a while....
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was the most liberal senator in 2007, according to National Journal’s 27th annual vote ratings. The insurgent presidential candidate shifted further to the left last year in the run-up to the primaries, after ranking as the 16th- and 10th-most-liberal during his first two years in the Senate....
If all of this sounds a little familiar, it’s because in 2004, National Journal named John Kerry the most liberal senator of 2004 (John Edwards was fourth), which became one of the principal talking points of the Bush-Cheney campaign.... But before anyone takes the National Journal rankings at face value, it’s worth noting... the methodology... was misleading in 2004, and it’s equally misleading now.... Obama and Joe Biden were both considered more liberal than Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders. This, alone, should make one wonder....
What’s more, Obama was the 16th most liberal senator in 2005, and the 10th most liberal in 2006, before racing to the front of the pack in 2007. National Journal suggests this has something to do with Obama moving to the left to curry favor with Democratic primary voters. But... Obama missed a whole lot of votes in 2007.... The rankings use an amorphous meaning of the word “liberal,” and the percentage doesn’t take missed votes into account at all (which also helps explain why Kerry nabbed the top spot four years ago)....
As Brian Beutler noted, [T]his is philistinism masquerading as social science — it’s the U.S. News College Guide of Washington politics. Journalists ought to understand that. And those of conscience ought to ignore it, or lay it bare...”
Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?
