Actually, there are several things that are really instructive about the Noe case, aside from the fact that a jury of his peers judged him--correctly--as a sleazy-assed crook.
Let's start with Pravda-on-the-Hudson again. Notice how they didn't bother to send an actual Times reporter to Toledo, but instead went verbatim with the AP article. Next, Noe's criminal record related to his work for Shrub receives scant mention--a single sentence:
Separately, Noe already has been sentenced to two years and three months in federal prison after pleading guilty earlier this year to funneling $45,000 to President Bush's re-election campaign.
(Think about it: if the president had been "Bill Clinton," or "Al Gore" or even simply a Democrat, do you think the media would be so casual? Hell, they went collectively apeshit over Clinton's Marc Rich pardon...but let out a collective yawn when it comes to a convicted criminal providing money to President Bush).
Defense attorneys and "Noe's former right hand man" are both allowed to present their side of the story, the latter arguing convicted crook Noe "intended" to pay back the money he stole...yeah, right. Just like how the kid with his hand in the cookie jar "intended" to put it back, too.
But what's genuinely instructive about this whole story is how it contrasts with, say, the smug, smirking, and, above all, REPETITIVE nature of the media's treatment of Democrats. Because, above all, myths become ingrained into public consciousness when they're repeated, over and over again (and if you control multiple elements of media--television, radio, movies...the internet, etc., etc., all the better still).
The flip side of the coin is to IGNORE or neglect issues of public importance (indeed, one of the most compelling items in Ellul's book was his observation that up to one fifth of Goebbels's directives were specific orders to NOT comment on one thing or another). Hence, while "Democrats are in disarray" is grist for the media's mill, literally to be ground into dust, the Noe matter barely merits mention.
Where are the hour-long panel discussions among the blow-dried chattering classes about the culture of entitlement among GOP operatives? Noe is by no means alone among GOP operatives when it comes to criminal activity: his fellow traveler Jack Abramoff likewise began a multiyear stay in the clink just a week ago. People with breathing power my smoker-ravaged lungs could only envy find it impossible to get through the list of convicted/indicted Rethuglicans without having to come up for air. Noe himself STOLE at least $2 million dollars (according to the Ohio AG, more like $4 million dollars)...but, with the possible exception of Countdown, it's almost as if the story either didn't exist...or is merely fodder for flyover country, like Ted Stevens's bridge to nowhere (speaking of GOP scandals).
No ("noe" pun intended)...you can learn a LOT from watching how the media covers--or doesn't cover--a particular event. One thing you can learn is that the term "journalist" is becoming ever more synonymous with "hack."
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