In the final part of his interview with The Daily Caller, Mark Leibovich, author of “This Town” and correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, discusses the state of journalism today.
“People slice it and dice it in the way they are.” Leibovich said “but, I mean, I think that what’s interesting now is there’s certainly a much greater formed conservative media. I don’t know who is leading it but there are a lot of very powerful conservative media entities today that didn’t exist 30, 40 years ago. Before, it was just newsletters, and so I think the playing field is different, but I don’t subscribe to the notion that the mainstream media is over here and then there is the right. … The packs are very diffuse now, there are a lot of different packs, and it’s not as singular as it might have been.”
Leibovich also feels that the truth is “probably” getting lost in this sort of environment. “I mean it has to. It’s selective. You watch all these cable shows and read these blogs. They are almost all, in some way, making an argument. Not all of them, but a lot of them are. And it’s sort of the new playing field. I just don’t know of many outlets that have absolutely universal bi-partisan respect. Everyone, like on both sides– Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders — would say, ‘This is the center. … we would choose to believe “This,”‘ and I don’t know if we’ll ever see that again.”
After the success and notoriety of “This Town” and what it exposed, would Leibovich want his children to become involved in Washington, D.C.?
“I just want them to go on to fourth, fifth and six grade, respectively. Leibovich said with a laugh. “I mean sure, if they want to. I know a lot of really great people in this business, it’s pretty hard not to, it’s just that you have to choose your friends very carefully I think. You have to know who you are. I would suggest to my kids if they expressed an interest in going in to politics that they do something outside of D.C. for a while. If they want to go into law, become a lawyer in a different place. If they want to become a reporter work for the Ames Iowa paper rather than Politico at first. Get to know a community, get to know yourself. Grow up. Live some and then I think you are going to be better equipped to handle this incredibly, often difficult, sort of sometimes soulless, sometimes nakedly opportunistic city, and you can respond to your best angels, I guess.”
Catch any parts of Mark Leibovich’s explosive interview that you may have missed here:
Mark Leibovich dismantles the Washington ‘machine’ in ‘This Town’
Who is the most powerful man in ‘This Town’: Mike Allen or Matt Drudge?