From PressThink: (thanks, Kevin!)

Karl Rove and the Religion of the Washington Press

"Savviness--that quality of being shrewd, practical, well-informed, perceptive, ironic, 'with it,' and unsentimental in all things political--is, in a sense, their professional religion. They make a cult of it. And it was this cult that Karl Rove understood and exploited for political gain."

Conservatives think the ideology of the Washington press corps is liberal. Liberals think the press is conservative in the sense of protecting its place in the political establishment. Karl Rove once said that the press is “less liberal than it is oppositional.” (A fascinating remark coming from Rove, since it apppears to put him at odds with the conservative base.)

Whereas I believe that the real -- and undeclared -- ideology of American journalism is savviness, and this is what made the press so vulnerable to the likes of Karl Rove.

Savviness! Deep down, that’s what reporters want to believe in and actually do believe in— their own savviness and the savviness of certain others (including operators like Karl Rove.) In politics, they believe, it’s better to be savvy than it is to be honest or correct on the facts. It’s better to be savvy than it is to be just, good, fair, decent, strictly lawful, civilized, sincere or humane.

Savviness is what journalists admire in others. Savvy is what they themselves dearly wish to be. (And to be unsavvy is far worse than being wrong.) Savviness—that quality of being shrewd, practical, well-informed, perceptive, ironic, “with it,” and unsentimental in all things political—is, in a sense, their professional religion. They make a cult of it. And it was this cult that Karl Rove understood and exploited for political gain.

What is the truest mark of savviness? Winning, of course! Everyone knows that the press admires an unprincipled winner.

Way, wa-a-a-a-y back when, at some point in the late 1980s, I went to a journalism convention. And while I was there, I heard what I immediately recognized as a truism about political reporting.

"Journalists," said one panelist, choosing his words carefully, "admire those who know how to play the game."

Nothing I've encountered in my nearly 20 years in the business since has convinced me that statement isn't true.