Perhaps he just wants to take David Carr’s old media criticism job at the New York Times when his term is up. (Sorry, Jim Rutenberg!) But whatever his motivations, it’s become increasingly clear that Barack Obama enjoys nothing so much as playing media critic.
And apparently having most major newspapers, cable news networks, social media sites, public radio, Hollywood movies, and magazines supporting him isn’t enough for our president. In recent days, Obama has more than once criticized conservative media. Over the weekend, he lambasted unnamed outlets for “pumping out all kinds of crazy, toxic stuff.” In an interview with New York‘s Jonathan Chait, he criticized Rush Limbaugh. (He seems to have a bizarre obsession with the portly radio host.) Most strikingly, earlier this month he decried America’s “wild west” of a media landscape. Amazingly, he even spoke wistfully of a time when only three television networks determined what constituted “news.”
Of course, most of what Obama has said is your basic C-list punditry: It’s obviously true and hardly a novel insight that there are certain websites that traffic in irresponsible conspiracy theories. But Obama seems unaware that he’s in a position where what he says matters a lot more than a 23 year old pumping out a recycled hot take. As president of the United States, he should be extremely wary of saying anything that smacks of censorship. In Hungary, for example, that country’s leading broadsheet has just been shuttered under extremely dubious circumstances, as Viktor Orban tightens his rule. If Obama wants to talk about the media, he might want to dwell more on the importance of free speech and less on the fact that somebody said something mean about him somewhere.
