Elizabeth Renzetti delivers tutorial in shoddy journalism

Fifty years ago, when Nancy Pelosi was already clawing  her way into the upper reaches of the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Party was known as the party of civil rights. By 2016, it was instead known as the party of Wall Street, and Nancy Pelosi is now the most powerful woman in America.

That’s why it’s hard to square her actual history of connivance with money and power with the portrait painted in Renzetti’s editorial in today’s Globe and Mail, where Pelosi is rendered an icon of progressivism.

Renzetti seems aware of the cognitive dissonance echoing through her article. The “progressive members of her own party (i.e. the DSA contingent) think she’s part of the old guard…” That’s because she most assuredly is a member of the old guard! Who could think otherwise?

Yet, “they fall into line behind her when she demands it.” She is “terrifying to her opponents, both Republicans and rebellious members of her own party” (i.e. the DSA contingent).

The most interesting question in US politics at the moment is how long it will take for the true progressives to either mute their progressivism, or get terrorized out of the party. My hunch is that the old guard will effectively muzzle them… forget a wealth tax, forget public health care, forget free post-secondary education; focus instead on symbolic gestures like clapping back at Trump!

That’s “resistance,” Pelosi style!

Renzetti also gets a shot at a book review this week, giving us the low-down on former NYT executive editor Jill Abramson’s tell-all, “Merchants of Truth.”

Alas, the biggest story around this title for the past week has been a plagiarism scandal! Seems the esteemed NYT alum who penned “Merchants of Truth” especially likes lifting the work of students at Toronto’s own Ryerson Journalism School!

That’s the kind of dishonesty that empowers those who want to paint the journalism profession with the “fake news” label. The fact that Renzetti can pen a two thousand word book review without so much as a single line acknowledging the plagiarism controversy strikes me as a little… dishonest.