The Rhetoric Beat

Brent Cunningham at the Columbia Journalism review thinks we need one:

What if on 9/11 our major media outlets had employed reporters whose sole job it was to cover the rhetoric of politics—to parse the language of our elected leaders, challenge it, and explain the thinking behind it, the potential power it can have to legitimize certain actions and policies and render others illegitimate? As the press and public officials struggled to find the proper language to describe what was happening on their television screens (or outside their windows), these reporters would have been scrutinizing that language, and, let’s assume for sake of argument, having their analytical work displayed prominently—on the front pages of newspapers and Web sites, and in substantial TV news segments.

Jobs for lit and rhet/comp majors, and others schooled in the art of critical analysis? Let's do this thing.

(Via Romenesko.)