They all want to be in Karoline Leavitt's good graces.
This curious skeet that popped up on BlueSky without warning....
Why would a member of the ostensibly impartial press make such a public statement, especially for the departing press secretary when her administration is subpoenaing Lipton's fellow reporters from The New York Times. At this point his vitriol towards the Times constitutes a pattern.
Later, after controversy predictably ensued among BlueSky's users, NPR's Peter Sagal chimed in, supporting Lipton though apparently missing the point completely.
Karoline Leavitt is not resigning as press secretary in disgrace. She lied like she breathed, but in this she was not atypical from any other Republican administration official over the past few decades at least. Of the current administration officials she perhaps has the easiest path back into the private sector. It's not a stretch to imagine her hosting her own program on Fox News, or winding up as a contributor on CBS News or 60 Minutes. She's just the kind of Right Wing voice that CNN or NPR would slot onto a panel for their much vaunted balance.
On those grounds it's not confusing why Lipton or Sagal would risk jeopardizing their standing as journalists to publicly praise Leavitt. They aren't talking to an architect of America's slide into authoritarianism. They're addressing a future colleague, one that may even be a future employer.
The mainstream media ecosystem is shrinking, while a diffuse ecosystem is struggling to be born on the internet, the big money and prestige will remain on network and cable TV for the foreseeable future. Leavitt will likely be a gatekeeper to those opportunities. So then for an ambitious journalist looking to maintain their quality of life, praising her publicly is of no real risk at all.
We have been failed so many times by the mainstream press over the prior decades. The press were cheerleaders for the War on Terror. They helped build the mystique of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. The heroic glow of the halcyon days of the Watergate investigation has receded almost entirely.
If journalism ever was a higher calling, it's not that now. For many it's the job of staying in the good graces of the Karoline Leavitts. Objective journalism is just a role played for the cameras.
