The Note, in memoriam

A few weeks ago, the single most important public political analysis, ABC News’ The Note, ceased publication. It was at that time replaced with the “mini Note”, a collection of links to other’s stories with no meaningful commentary. It promised a return without explanation.

Well, The Note is once again being published, but a few minutes reading it revealed there’s nothing left worth reading. Confused, I went to googling. According to Mediamatters.org, Mark Halperin, the person who made The Note different and a must-read, has moved on. It’s likely that that move wasn’t voluntary, though no one at ABC is talking.

The new Note is subdivided into oblivion, forcing readers to wonder through 3 divisions in the morning and another evening edition–only to discover that in addition to losing it’s one page, one stop clean format, it’s lost all substance as well. What was once a must-read for everyone in politics, from Karl Rove and James Carville on down to people like me, is now gone. It survives in name only.

Since I’ve linked to media matters, I may as well let you know that they’ve covered The Note and Halperin especially, as a right-wing hack. Mark Halperin was one of the first mainstream media sources to acknowledge the blindingly obvious–that reporters were overwhelmingly liberal, and that it affected their coverage. In doing so he both noted the observations of former CBS employee Bernie Goldberg and criticized similar observations. He kept off-hand track of the Rush Limbaugh show (inasmuch as it reaches millions of people each week–that makes sense)–actual mentions were rare, but true politicos don’t avoid major influential outlets that they’re uncomfortable with. In his book, The Way to Win, Halperin ‘idolizes’ two political genuises, Bill Clinton and Karl Rove (Media Matters makes it sound like it’s just a Rove-fest). His criticisms for both were also considerable. He wasn’t unbiased at all, and his own liberal bias was legendary, for instance, noting and 2004 that reporters needed to stop treating “the lies” of Bush and Kerry as if they were equal–Bush’s ‘lies’, Halperin noted, were much worse and needed to be viewed with much more criticism.

Halperin’s gift was not that he was unbiased, or biased towards the right, it’s that he was an excellent writer and had a gift for bringing “inside politics” to the masses. He knew the field of both politicians and those that cover them in ways no one else does, and he covered them with insight and poise. He wasn’t perfect. He was irreplaceable. The Note is now just as much meaningless blather as every other also-ran political summary (e.g. MSNBC’s “First Read”). ABC just lost the one thing that separated them from the other two worthless broadcast news outlets.