Why the News Is Broken
Missouri voters overwhelming (73% to 27%) reject ObamaCare in a state-wide referendum yesterday. Yet, the moron reporter and editors for KMOV St. Louis Channel 4 interviewed two voters coming out of the polls who supported government-run health care.
Incredibly, when three quarters of the people who entered that polling place voted against ObamaCare, the station couldn’t find a single person to interview.
This is partisan political advocacy masquerading as journalism and pure incompetence. Regardless of your political leanings, commonsense should compel a reporter to find at least one voice in opposition to the agenda to at least give the appearance of objectivity.
When the nightly news doesn’t even come close to portraying reality, why bother watching?
‘Contempt for the American People’
Andrew Breitbart speaking at the Tea Party Convention:
Addressing the MSM he said, “It’s not your business model that suck. It’s you that sucks.”
So true.
The Future of Newspapers
Newspapers may yet survive this current crop of crappy political hacks masquerading as journalists, plummeting ad revenues and circulation.
If they do, this cool device by electronics firm LG may help the industry transition from dead trees to something that would combine the power of the Internet with the portability of a standard newspaper.
From the U.K. Telegraph:
LG said it was the largest ebook reader ever made, and that while the device wasn’t fordable or rollable, it is flexible and bendable, creating a look and feel similar to that of a newspaper.
The screen is currently just a prototype device, and will not be made publicly available, but it hints at the future of electronic displays and possible uses for ebook readers. It is believed to be a similar screen to that used in LG’s Skiff ebook reader, which made its debut last week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
“By developing the world’s biggest flexible electronic paper display, we’ve gained a stepping stone for opening a new market in next-generation displays,” said Chung In-jae, chief technology officer for LG’s display division.
“The market for electronic paper is growing rapidly, and we expect to gain ourselves a strong position through our advanced technology and diverse products.”
The prototype screen is paper-thin, at just 0.3mm thick. Its flexibility is achieved by using a thin film transistor on metal foil, rather than glass substrate, for the display. The screen measures 25cm by 40cm and weighs 130g, though LG said it could become thicker and heavier if a manufacturer decided to equip it with the necessary electronics for a touch-screen interface or internet access.
Soon, please, soon.
Uncanny Resemblance
Garrison Keillor has delusions of grandeur, judging by this note from Newsbusters:
What role do you feel public radio plays in America today? – Cameron Homer, Pocatello, Idaho
Its role is to talk to people who are stuck in traffic. And conservatives become incensed enough listening to public radio that it keeps them awake so they don’t drive into a fire hydrant. That’s what we do: we save the lives of thousands of right-wingers every year. And they never thank us for it.
Yea right. If anyone listened to NPR, they wouldn’t need the millions Congress throws at them every year to stay on the air. Given an evening drive time choice of Sean Hannity, Dennis Miller or NPR, I’d pick Miller (radio for people with brains). I’d rather listen to static than tune into the leftist agitprop on NPR.
I figured out Keillor’s schtick way back in the 1980s. A lot of my more “intellectual” Christian friends were enamored of his folksy humor. But I saw it for what it was then and continues to be today, a continual leftist attack on everything I believe.
Haven’t listened to Keillor or NPR for nearly 30 years. In fact, I’d be happy if a new conservative Congress came to power and defunded NPR completely.
The Day the Dallas Morning News Died
A lot of newspapers are dying, some, like the Rocky Mountain News, have died.
Today, the Dallas Morning News joined the ranks of the undead. The paper announced that many of its section editors will now report to advertising flacks.
From the Daily Observer:
After the jump, you will find a memo Dallas Morning News editor Bob Mong and senior vice president of sales Cyndy Carr sent to everyone at A.H. Belo Corp. Wednesday afternoon outlining what they call a “business/news integration.” Which means? As of yesterday, some section editors at all of the company’s papers, including The News, will now report directly to Carr’s team of sales managers, now referred to as general managers. In short, those who sell ads for A.H. Belo’s products will now dictate content within A.H. Belo’s products, which is a radical departure from the way newspapers have been run since, oh, forever.
I don’t know. Maybe getting your marching orders from people buying ads in your publication will work better than reprinting Democratic National Committee talking points.
Still…
Ah, the Writing Life…
Here’s a cool essay on the value of a liberal arts education.
From PointInCase.com:
Now, I’m not telling you to not follow your dreams. But if you think you’re going to make it big in the dancing, acting, singing, writing or drawing worlds, you’ve got to come to a bit of reality. If you want the arts to be your career, you have to get a job first. And jobs usually suck. There’s a difference between a job and a career. When you have a job, you say, “Well, I’m a waiter. But I really want to be a writer.” When you have a career, you say, “I’m a reporter for the second-most-influential kitten magazine in the Northeastern United States. Please fucking kill me.”
After discussing the merits of taking your clothes off for a living, possibly the most lucrative career path for a female liberal arts major (not so much for middle-aged fat white guys), he talks about the time-honored food and beverage industry, garbage collecting and mail delivery careers.
For those language majors there’s this:
Are you majoring in Spanish-language literature? Well, I have the job for you! It’s called, “Construction Worker.” You see, since you can habla Espanol, that means you can work and relate with Hispanic people who build houses, dig ditches and clean sewers. That is, once you dump the wussy Spaniard accent. Real Mexicans think the European way of speaking Spanish is gay. And they’ll think you are too unless you learn their way of Spanish.
Like this guy,I thought I was a genius with my double major in journalism and economics, the value of which in real 2009 dollars is exactly, ummm, nothing. The practical benefit of my education is understanding how badly the U.S. economy is performing right now, will perform in the near and distant future and the realization that my entire career and financial prospects have been subsumed in a vast vortex of suckiness.
Hey, it’s rough out there. I know just as well as anybody else. I’m not just a dumbass who majored in English at NYU, I furthered my education and earned a master’s in print journalism—that’s about as worthless as a degree in steam engine repair. So I have two worthless stints of higher education and five years of writing experience. You know what my job prospects are? Yep, I’m getting demoted to working the door as a bouncer in a fucking bar. Guess how proud my parents are of their cultured little genius? Hopefully very proud, because I’ll probably be moving back in with them soon.
Hey, it could be worse. You could be working retail. Talk about hell on earth. Surly customers, cranky managers, despotic working hours and slave wages. What more could you ask for? A bullet in the head would be nice. Thank you.
Reminds me of a joke:
How do you get a journalism school graduate off your front porch?
Filibuster Hypocrisy II
The folks at Powerlinebloghit WaPo writer Dana Milbank on the old Republicans as hypocrites theme:
There’s a stock column appearing in left-liberal MSM outlets all over the country, The author varies, but the main point is the same: Republican Senators are guilty of “hypocrisy” for attempting to filibuster one of President Obama’s judicial nominees after having criticized Democrats for filibustering a host of President Bush’s nominees a few years ago. This piece by Dana Milbank in the Washington Post is an example of the genre.
But why is it hypocritical for Republicans to resist a regime under which judges nominated by a Republican president need 60 votes for confirmation — as so many did for years and some did until the bitter end — while judges nominated by a Democratic president need only 50 votes? Milbank has no answer. His response to Senator Sessions’ articulation of this point is to sniff “Un-huh.”
Uncle Jay Explains the News
Heh.
Spread the Truth
Media Research Center launched a website to “Tell the Truth” about the nasty lies the left and The Obama flaks spread about America’s Anchorman Rush Limbaugh.
Check it out here.
The whole sorry episode illustrates the death of American journalism. Whether its television news or print media, the entire industry has collapsed. Truth no longer matters. There is no such thing as news.
As much as I miss it, I’m kind of glad I’m out of the business.
Below is another illustration of the total debasement of a once proud profession. Witness the witless Rachael Maddow attacking her interview subject. There is no objectivity or even news worthiness to this entire segment.
The AFP guy does a worthy job of countering every cheap shot and not getting flustered.
But I can’t help thinking that conservatives should simply stop watching these shows and appearing on them as well.
Or perhaps somebody with lots of dough will hire a bunch of out of work conservative journalist and start a true alternative news service, something along the lines of FoxNews but for print and online instead.
Probably won’t happen.
Macaca Watch
The Washington Examiner has noticed the WaPo’s news story/political hatchet job on GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell.
In the 2006 campaign season the Washington Post ran more than a dozen front-page stories on Senator George Allen’s reference, at an August 11 campaign stop almost 400 miles from Washington, to an opposition campaign staffer as “Macaca.” One of these stories, perhaps, had enough news value to be worthy of the front page; the others were placed there with the obvious intent of defeating Allen and electing his Democratic opponent Jim Webb, who did indeed win by a 50%-49% margin.
Now there’s a campaign on for governor of Virginia, and the news editors of the Post seem to be using their front page once again to defeat the Republican candidate, Bob McDonnell, and elect Democrat Creigh Deeds. To provide a fair perspective, we’ll start a Macaca watch, to list stories which make the front page of the Post not on the basis of news value but solely and obviously to defeat the Republican candidate.
Item number one on the Macaca Watch is the Sunday front page story on the thesis Bob McDonnell wrote in 1989 at Regent University where he obtained a masters degree in public policy and a law degree. This is, as the story acknowledged, a publicly available document and its contents would certainly be a legitimate part of an article on McDonnell’s background and the evolution of his political views. But the first paragraph of the story, prominently on the front page, sends the culturally liberal voters of Northern Virginia in the Post’s local circulation area a pretty clear message: you better not vote for this guy. He went to an “evangelical” school (Regent University Law School), described feminists as “detrimental” and “said government policy should favor married couples over ‘cohabitors, homosexuals or fornicators.’”
Item number two on the Macaca watch is Tuesday’s front page story headlined “Governor’s Race Erupts Over McDonnell’s Past View.” The “eruption” consists of a bunch of emails sent out by Democrats quoting from McDonnell’s thesis and a McDonnell conference call with reporters answering questions-pretty routine campaign stuff, hardly front page material. Interestingly, on the jump page one finds the following two paragraphs:
“Democrats have long attempted to characterize McDonnell as an ultra-conservative who is playing down his views on such issues as abortion, school prayer and gay rights so as not to alienate moderate voters, particularly in Northern Virginia, who increasingly decide statewide elections.
“But McDonnell’s public record and his reputation among colleagues paint a more complex portrait. He appears as a man with deeply conservative views that spring from a strong Catholic faith but also as reasonable, open-minded and increasingly focused on such issues as jobs and transportation.”Those are pretty fair-minded descriptions of the arguments the two sides are marking. One wonders how they got in here: did a fair-minded editor insist on including that second paragraph over the objections of a partisan reporter, or vice versa? But of course they’re not as prominent in the story as the lead paragraph’s reference to “what he [McDonnell] wrote about working women, homosexuals and ‘fornicators.’”
The obvious agenda here is to raise the specter that if McDonnell is elected, all women in Virginia will be fired from their jobs and forced to stay home knitting or driving car pool. We’ll see how much longer the Post can keep this story on the front page.
The Washington Post hasn’t been objective, fair or even accurate in its coverage of Virginia politics for as long as I can remember.
That’s why there are two other newspapers in the region.
Shameful
Saw the news clip below on several blogs this morning. It’s from MSNBC’s coverage of an anti-healthcare reform protest in Arizona where several of the protesters carried guns. Arizona is an open-carry state and these knuckleheads took the opportunity of a healthcare protest to assert their Second Amendment rights.
The left, particularly the MSM, has been in a snit about violent mobs of right-wingers showing up at these protest. In this clip, the MSNBC infobabe goes talks about the well-armed man in the clip and all those racist white people who hate the idea of a black president — race war and all.
Trouble is, and you wouldn’t know it from the carefully cropped photo, the well-armed man is black, not white.
Here’s the clip:
Here’s a transcript from Newsbusters:
CONTESSA BREWER: Yeah, we are closely following here, Dylan, town halls and other events around the country today to see who shows up and what they bring with them. More than 20 town halls scheduled from east-to-west, Virginia to Washington state. Yesterday, as President Obama addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Phoenix. A man at a pro-health care reform rally just outside, wore a semiautomatic assault rifle on his shoulder and a pistol on his hip. The Associated Press reports about a dozen people in all at that event were visible carrying firearms. And if the scene looks familiar, that’s because it should, last week a guy stood outside Obama’s health care town hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire with a gun strapped to his leg and police arrested a 62-year-old before that New Hampshire event for carrying unlicensed loaded gun. And the reason we’re talking about this, a lot of talk here, Dylan, because people feel like, yes, there are Second Amendment rights for sure but also there are questions about whether this has racial overtones. I mean, here you have a man of color in the presidency and white people showing up with guns strapped to their waists or to their legs.
TOURE: It sounds simplistic when you put it that way, but it is real that there is tremendous anger in this country about government, the way government seems to be taking over the country, anger about a black person being president. Just several upheavals in the country over the last ten years from 9/11, to the economic tsunami, to the black man becoming president and, you know, we see these hate groups rising up and this is definitely part of that.
BREWER: So do you – do you think if Barack Obama were white, though, that you would not see people showing up – let’s say if it were Bill Clinton – you would not see people showing up with weapons strapped to their legs?
TOURE: You know, I don’t know. I don’t know. That – I mean-
RATIGAN: I think it’s unknowable. The context-
TOURE: -that’s hard to say. It is unknowable. But you do see a rise in hate group activity throughout the country.
Here’s what the guy carrying all the guns looks like uncropped:
Astounding.
The twit newsreader probably had nothing to do with cropping the shot to edit out the race of the gun-toting protester, but a producer somewhere behind the camera purposely made those cuts. The producer and writer put the words together with the images for the infobabe to deliver to make a point about conservatives opposed to The Obama’s healthcare overhaul. That point is those who oppose the destruction of the best healthcare system in the world are racists.
Whether its tagging nutjob Lyndon LaRouche acolytes as Republicans when they show up at protest with The Obama as Hitler posters, or blaming conservatives for union-sponsored violence at protests, the goal is the same, demonize political opponents, ridicule and marginalize them.
Unfortunately, the press is now the handmaiden to Democrat demogogues so truth has no role to play in the unfolding drama. I used to read several newspaper every day. NYT, WaPo, Wash Times, WSJ, IBD, etc. But I quit about a decade ago. Haven’t really paid much attention to broadcast news in more than 30 years.
I got tired of seeing things reported that I know are not true. Of events covered in such a way that the exact opposite of what happened is portrayed. I’ve seen first hand how a television news producer can take what you have said and turn it on its head, making you look like an idiot. I don’t trust anything I read in the news, and that goes for reports from conservative news outfits.
Fortunately, we’re not stuck with the manipulated news coverage provided by the broadcast and mainstream media, and the truth does manage to find a way out. The Internet has become the great leveler. When MSNBC tries to smear opponents of Obamacare, there just happens to be another camera angle available to dispel the lies.
Why is there anger at these protests? Why the rage? Why the gun-totting? Because the government/politicians are deaf to the real concerns of average citizens. Because the media cannot be counted on to report truthfully on the day’s events. Because we’re tired of being lied to, manipulated and taken advantage of.
I hope their arrogance will continue to blind the Dems and the left from the ground swell building against big government, high taxes and bureaucratic incompetence. I hope that come 2010, a tsunami of voter unrest will hit the voting booth and we’ll sweep the whole corrupt bunch out of office, Democrats AND Republicans.
Vote against the incumbent, regardless of the party.
I know I will.
‘The Prince of Darkness’ RIP
A great journalist, Robert Novak, died today.
From Human Events:
Columnist Robert Novak passed away today, ending an era of political journalism that spanned five decades. Novak rose from a $42.50 a week staff reporter at the Joliet, Illinois Herald News in 1948 to become one of the most influential political reporters of his time, a constant presence in print and television journalism. He was 78 years old.
Kenneth Tomlinson has an excellent column on Novak’s career.
Government PR Weasel Attacks Blogger
Saw this on Instapundit. A Knoxville mayor’s office PR flak tried to shut down some blogger because he was critical of the good mayor.
Instead of going directly to the blogger or to the blogger’s publisher (the local newspaper), she tries some back door maneuvering only to get caught. Now everyone is playing nice-nice.
From the News Sentinel (the reporters account is a bit convoluted):
When his First Amendment right to post snarky commentary about her boss collided last week with her First Amendment right to complain to his boss, a News Sentinel blog wound up tangled in the wreckage.
Scott McNutt, a paid part-time blogger for the News Sentinel, put his “Snark Bites” blog on hiatus last Friday after Knox County mayoral spokeswoman Susanne Dupes complained to McNutt’s supervisor at his full-time job that he was posting his political satire on company time.
The day after the News Sentinel began an inquiry into the incident, McNutt’s boss at the Amputee Coalition of America deemed McNutt blameless of a “violation of company policy.” Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale’s chief administrative officer also absolved Dupes of allegations that she used her mayoral connections to try to silence a Ragsdale critic.
And the blog will see new life – as soon as McNutt clocks out of the Knoxville branch of the amputee advocacy group Friday evening.
“I will probably wait until the weekend,” McNutt said Thursday afternoon.
The blog brouhaha began after Dupes, whose husband also works at the ACA, phoned ACA supervisor Rick Bowers to complain that the timing of some of McNutt’s posts suggested he was penning his political prose when he was supposed to be working at his day job.
“The concern I shared was very simple,” Dupes said in a statement Thursday. “We support the exceptional work of the Amputee Coalition. And, as I told the coalition, we appreciate the satire of ‘Snark Bites.’ Each has an important role to play in our community, just independent of one another.”
McNutt said Bowers told him that “the intimation was made the mayor would appreciate if I would stop writing about him.”
Bowers denied that, however, in an interview Thursday.
“She called about the blog, but she never said, ‘I’m representing the mayor.’ ” Bowers said. “But, of course, I knew she worked for the mayor. She just complained that it looked like one (of the posts) was sent on company time.”
Bowers said he asked McNutt to temporarily stop writing for the blog to give ACA higher-ups, both of whom were not then in Knoxville, time to investigate. McNutt said he agreed.
“It was not a violation of company policy,” Bowers said the ACA determined. “No disciplinary action was taken.”
Even if it was a violation of company policy, since when is the job of a government PR weasel to police company HR policies.
This is a clear example of a political hack trying to cover her butt after getting caught trying to suppress opinions she doesn’t like.
She should be fired.
Instead, her boss covers for her;
Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale’s chief administrative officer also absolved Dupes of allegations that she used her mayoral connections to try to silence a Ragsdale critic.
Of course she was using her position to silence a blogger. Who would have paid any attention to her otherwise?
She should be fired.
Independent Press Threatened in Yemen
The English language Yemen Post is bravely fighting back against government threats.
Saw this on The Jawa Report:
Over the last two weeks, the Yemen Post received numerous threats from different sides due to its coverage of the foreigners that were kidnapped and killed. The Yemen Post was the main independent source for 90% of the international media. Its comments were even given priority over the government and what it announced.
Last week, meetings took place between the Yemen Post and leading figures of the government. In the meetings, The Yemen Post was firmly asked not to work with international media outlets and to limit itself to local media. Direct threats were given. The option on the table was to agree to cooperate with the government whether it was right or wrong in what they announce. In the end, the Yemen Post refused.
It is sad that these people don’t understand that the job of media is not covering what it is asked of it to cover, but to cover the truth.
Yemen has not yet understood the difference between independent and governmental media, and the Yemen Post has vowed to show everyone the difference.
What I clearly want to say is that the Yemen Post is doing what it was established to do, and that is lead Yemeni media, raise its standards, and through its sources throughout the country, be able to serve not only Yemen, but the international community with concrete information about what is really happening.
Even with the threats we are given, the Post will not soften its stance and will work to be the most trusted local and international news source in Yemen.
Brave. Very brave.
And how very sad the press in our country dutifully laps up the milksop offered to it by The Obama administration and even settles for canned questions, some even planted by the administration in advance of press conferences.
Faux Conservative
For the past year or so Washington, D.C. AM radio station WMAL has monkeyed around with its late-morning talk lineup.
For the longest time the morning lineup has been Andy & Grandy from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m., and then local talker Chris Core, following at noon with the King of Talk Rush Limbaugh.
I guess about a year ago when ABC radio did a major staff purge, WMAL ditched Chris Core and replaced him in the 9 a.m. to noon slot with Chris Plante, who while OK, tended to go off on rants, had an annoying verbal habit of predicating every noun with three adjectives or adjective phrases. But he was somewhat tolerable.
Then about a month ago, WMAL dropped Plante, expanded Andy and Grandy another hour to 10 a.m. and added MSNBC morning show guy Joe Scarborough and his annoying sidekick Mika Brzezinski.
Having another “Big Hour” of Andy and Grandy is great. I love those guys. They’re reliably conservative, but also a lot of fun to listen to, touching on all manner of topics, rather than focusing exclusively on politics.
Unfortunately, the two hours before Rush comes on at lunch time, you have to suffer through Joe and Mika.
I never watched his t.v. show. The few times I did catch it, it was hugely boring. I sometimes would watch it without the sound while riding an exercise bike at the gym. The only interesting thing about the show was the facial expressions of Mika, which were bizarre, rolling eyes, smirks, etc.
Well this morning I came across a Newsbusters‘ link to a Radio Equalizer review of Joe’s new book, which apparently bashes other conservatives.
To promote the release [of his new book], the former GOP congressman turned radio and TV host appeared on left-leaning television shows such as The View and did interviews with the New York Times and Newsweek. Each time, he was quick to bash Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, and other key conservative figures.
In recent years, Scarborough has found that turning against fellow Republicans could be good for the pocketbook, securing him the morning gig at MSNBC and a syndicated talk show airing on WABC / New York and elsewhere.
But in new data released late this week, Scarborough has struck out in every category: TV, radio and publishing. His widely-touted The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America’s Promise has bombed, selling just 6432 copies since its 9 June release, according to new Bookscan figures. At Amazon, it has already dropped out of the top 100, currently ranked 166.
By contrast, conservative author Mark Levin remained in first place after three full months, according to Bookscan, selling another 35,595 units to push closer to a possible one million sales mark in the weeks and months to come.
In radio and TV, the news for Scarborough wasn’t any better: in newly-released Arbitron PPM data for the month of May, Joe’s radio talk show generated a mere 1.6 share in the key 25-54 demographic. With that number including one hour of Don Imus’s morning show, it reveals a huge gap between WABC’s more liberal morning programming and its highly-successful conservative afternoon lineup featuring Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Levin.
Finally, Morning Joe’s MSNBC ratings aren’t exactly something to crow about, either: on Wednesday of this week, the most recent Nielsen ratings your Radio Equalizer could obtain, Scarborough turned in a weak 0.3 household rating, which translates to an average of 277,000 average viewers and just 93,000 in the 25-54 demo.
It’s not really surprising. He’s not interesting. He has nothing, and I mean NOTHING original to say. I find his radio show just a boring echo of his really boring t.v. show. I’ve been switching channels over to Laura Ingraham to kill time until El Rushbo.
I’m sure I’m not the only one.
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