How The Scandal-Driven Media Blew The IRS Story

This is a small taste, but the whole article is really worth the read;  a case of report first, ask questions later journamalism:

While the initial reports about the IRS targeting looked pretty bad, suggesting that agents singled out tax-exempt applications for Tea Party and conservative groups for extra scrutiny, the media badly bungled the controversy when supposedly sober journalists like Bob Woodward and Chuck Todd jumped to conclusions and assumed the worst from day one. Instead of doing more reporting to discover the true nature and context of the IRS targeting, or at least waiting for their colleagues to do some, the supposedly liberal mainstream press let their eagerness to show they could be just as tough on a Democratic White House as a Republican one get ahead of the facts. We expect politicians to stretch reality to fit a narrative, but the press should be better.

Unfortunately, the Rethugs know how to play the media like cheap violins.  There's certainly a symbiotic relationship between the "win the morning" types looking to be this generation's Woodward and Bernstein, and the Rethugs who want to keep the Obama Administration on the defensive as much as possible.  Throw into the mix what Seitz-Wald calls the media's eagerness to show they're not the "liberal media" in the tank for Democrats -- a meme that the Rethugs have been eagerly pushing since the 1960's--  and you have the IRS nothingburger (following on the Solyndra nothingburger, following the Benghazi! nothingburger, follow... well, you get the picture, even if the ink-stained wretches out there don't).