Marty Kaplan: Gotcha? You Betcha!

John McCain and Sarah Palin have been complaining that there's too much "gotcha journalism" going around.

If only.

When they say "gotcha journalism," what they're really trying to do, of course, is to demonize journalism itself -- to de-legitimize asking tough questions, and following up with more tough questions when the answers are mealy-mouth evasions, and holding politicians accountable when they inadvertently emit a truth.

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Yes, reporters for business publications like The Wall Street Journal have also kept their eye on the ball, but the real need was and is for mass media to serve as storytellers for general audiences, as Paul Reveres to warn ordinary citizens when the redcoat-wearing masters of the universe are coming. If the kind of gotcha journalism that so irritates John McCain and Sarah Palin were more woven into the fabric of our civic life, we might not be in the mess now consuming us.

The benign explanations for this failure of journalism are the inherent complexity of the financial story, and the imperative of media conglomerates to maximize profit, which means cultivating and satisfying the audience's appetite for entertainment.

But there's also a less benign explanation for the media's negligence, and it's captured by something President Andrew Jackson said nearly two centuries ago: "If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning."

"If the people only understood": that's the news media. "A revolution before morning": that's the opposite of sucking it up for a $700 billion bailout.

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