Breaking: Jay Carney is good at his job

Which is more than can be said for Yahoo!'s hit piece on the PressSec. Sure slow news cycles breed some lame non-stories to feed the insatiable maw of the 24/7 media beast, but this interactive compilation of Carney's verbal tics is dumber than the most inane BuzzFeed list ever posted.

I'm down with Wonkette's critque. The interactive is pretty much just an excuse for unjustified mockery. It serves no useful informational purpose. A comparison between former PressSec "evasions" might have had some value, but not much. Every PressSec does this. It's in the job description. I would have found an interactive of how times the media elite asked the same damn question in one briefing after Carney has already answered it the first time much more enlightening.

I imagine this is supposed to taken as lighthearted mockery meant to while away the summer doldrums but there's an underlying meaness to these pieces that's vaguely disturbing. I watch these journos on the twitter, ever alert for the "phrase of the day" they can turn into a snark competition. What you rarely see is much focus on the substance of what Carney, or Obama, say about the policy.

The snark barely masks the media's dislike of this administration. It's hard not to think the media hates them because they're too good at their jobs. Neither Obama nor Carney often deliver easy soundbytes that can be quickly transformed into a click-baiting fauxtroversy. Makes the journos work harder. Which is not to say journos are lazy but they do love an easy narrative.