Abstract

Media Matters

Since women first broke into press punditry, they've had to play either the primly principled commentator or the wickedly frivolous disher. They could care too much to be perceived as the life of the party, like Margaret Fuller or they could be carelessly catty like Hedda Hopper or Eleanor Patterson, who took over the "Washington Herald," in 1930 and filled its pages with gossip. Columnists like Molly Ivins, Barbara Ehrenreich, Katha Pollitt and Anna Quindlen have been breaking down these molds by voicing passionate beliefs particularly on women's rights with wit and impudence. But at the "Times," people seem to have been returned to the days of Jennie June's shopping and gossip columns-and, ironically, by a columnist who is perceived as too harsh by media critics. A few weeks ago, Maureen Dowd finally showed real outrage over charges by press analyst James Fallows that her cynical treatment of pols was damaging democracy. An indignant Dowd fired back that it was not a journalist's job to be nice but to explore the realities of government, warts' and all. But Dowd's explorations are only skin-deep.