• The Los Angeles Times’ James Rainey writes about some “bad media habits” displayed during the recent Inauguration coverage — “the tendency to follow the pack, to embrace critiques if they are buttressed by a politician’s allies and, especially, to get swept up in the mood of the moment.” Also a focus of the story is the amount of money spent on this Inauguration, garnering far less attention than for President Bush’s Inauguration. “The critics attacked Bush more fiercely and in greater numbers four years ago,” writes Rainey.
• Nancy Franklin writes about watching cable television on Inauguration Day in this week’s New Yorker magazine. “What really illustrated the rainbow that was Washington during the four days of pomp and parties wasn’t the commentators’ words but the images,” she writes. Also, although she expected different Fox News coverage, it didn’t materialize. “All the foxy newsies I saw were well behaved and enthusiastic, and I had very little to hang my antipathy on,” she writes.
• Broadcasting & Cable’s Marisa Guthrie talks with Meet the Press moderator David Gregory about how the press has handled the first week of the Obama administration. “I went through that with the Bush administration where there was a period where people thought the press went too light with him,” he says. “There is a period where the press is going to give [Obama] some room to get to do what he says he’s going to do. And then there’s time to match that up with the reality of the record. This is a period of chronicling.” He also discusses the new job and the downsizing in the media.