Jane at FireDogLake points to a story about another Texas hunting accident. Seems the name of the hunter in this case was Hispanic, and guess what? They threw the book at him.
She also recounts how MSGOP’s Dan Abrams is the all knowing judge and jury on Cheney’s “incident.”
(I thought I’d already posted this, can’t find it, so will back up and get it in the collection.)
Media Matters did a statistical study of the Sunday talking heads shows (going back to 1997, when Clinton was early in his second term), and SURPRISE! (not) found that they really do favor right wing views.
I haven’t been able to stand watching the shows for years, but Paul Waldman explains why it matters.
This is no small thing. The combined audience of the Sunday shows is around 10 million households. While that may not be quite as large as that of “American Idol,” it includes the entire Washington establishment, which looks to the Sunday shows to clarify who the important players are, which stories matter most, and what arguments can be considered seriously. The Sunday shows confer status—both on people and on ideas—with greater effect than any other news presentation. They are the place where Washington’s power elite goes to make its case, where the boundaries of debate are determined and the talking points presented and probed. When Vice President Dick Cheney wanted to make the case for war in Iraq, he took to these pulpits, famously linking the 9/11 attacks and Saddam Hussein’s regime. When a senator or member of Congress gets invited to appear, he or she has officially been designated a national figure. And when you open up a national newspaper on Monday morning, chances are you’ll see an article describing the most important or novel thing that was said the morning before on the Sunday shows.
Steve’s take on a MSM Wall-Street-themed take on blogs. You can count on him for a reality check. To the writer (of the NY Metro feature), blog readers are simply consumers, and blogdom is designed by Christof.
He references the dotcom disaster (and before that, I remember all the hoopla about the Japanese business model, that was going to leave us all in the dust), and all the CW about where that was going, as a cautionary tale. So have no fear about the Wal-Martization of blogs.
As one of his commenters stated:
What makes Gilliard solid, in my opinion, is his ruthless allergy to bullshit, his eye for creative abuse and his ability to caption his abuse (the better shots of the ongoing Stop Snitching “portraits” deserve framing IMO.) If Gilliard turns into a whiner or a panderer we will all leave his whining, pandering ass in the dust. He probably wouldn’t have it any other way.
What non-bloggers don’t understand is how time-consuming and difficult blogging is. Those who make it to the so-called A-list, usually do so because they work extremely hard and take it very seriously.
This is a new medium still in its infancy, but it has already changed the way information is produced and distributed. It has the potential to spread democracy in a viral way in which no tank, bullet or bomb can come close.
I am perfectly content to be a C-list (more like Z-list, but the NY Metro writer assumes only three levels to his heirarchical flowchart) blogger. My blog will not have advertising, unless it’s for items like books or films that promote my bigger agenda. It is an adjunct to my organizing work, and I think at this point I can safely say I won’t be selling out to on that score.
Right now, this blog is about progressive politics and the greater Waco, Texas, area known as “The Heart of Texas,” with a little science, food and personal diversions thrown in for seasoning. Not really a recipe for “success” as defined by Blogshares.
Update:
Peter Daou surveys the left side of blogland.
The attempt to marginalize progressive bloggers as part of an angry, unwashed, irrational mob is in full swing, but truth-telling has a self-sustaining power. Bloggers will continue to cut through the fabricated storylines, providing clarity, sanity, honesty, and an abiding loyalty to the Constitution and to the principles our country is founded upon.
History will look kindly on them.
And Reddhedd at FireDogLake takes the next logical step:
It seems to me that we have reached a point where things are moving up to a whole new level of discourse among progressives around the blogoverse. The question is: what direction do we take things from here? Now that is a question worth pondering, isn’t it?
I’ve worked as a reporter and editor, as well as a proofreader for a major daily, and I know very well that there is no such thing as unbiased reporting. A good practice is to try to discern one’s assumptions and prejudices, and acknowledge them publicly, so the reader/audience can interpret accordingly.
In that vein, I suppose I must grant reluctant recognition of MSNBC’s honesty about where they stand on their corner of the fourth estate:
Susan G at Daily Kos smacks the tight-assed lily-white pundit class for their completely politically based “outrage” over the tenor at Coretta Scott King’s funeral service.
I have two words for these whiny-babies with seriously clinical martyr complexes: Ronald Reagan. Is that funeral even over yet on Fox?
Not only do these hypocritical conservatives want to step in and tell me and my family that I can be kept alive for years against my wishes, a petri dish harboring their precious “culture of life,” now they want to control the “message” at my funeral. Well … I’ve got news for them. It’s time they shut their yaps, this GOP party of control freaks extraordinaire.
I think progressives, especially those with high profiles or fame, should just add a clause to their wills, making it bloody clear that they want their funerals to reflect their lives, and that their love for peace and justice, for equality and fairness, for tolerance and compassion, should be front and center. Then post the damm thing on the front door of the proceedings, so that Kate O’Beirne and Matt Drudge can rest assured that the deceased is resting easy with the event.
Jeez.
This sounds exciting: a new movie about the McCarthy era, with Edward R. Murrow as the hero. Back when journalists were still able to be heroes, before money corrupted news from a public service into just another business enterprise.
BTW, I knew when I heard about Clooney’s behavior at the fundraiser after 9-11 (he organized and managed the whole thing practically single-handedly) that great things were in store from that man.
Back to Murrow. If you ever get a chance to see the documentary he did on migrant farmworkers, it’s still great and unfortunately still relevant. It’s called Harvest of Shame and shows up sometimes on Sundance and/or PBS.
Update: A great write-up on Murrow and how he inspired a generation on George Clooney’s site.
It looks like the media have, once again, been played for patsies. Rove is history (and not in a good way), the silliness of predicting future events is back in full play. So it’s a good time to ask, once again, just what it is they are really up to. The answer, I’m afraid, is “no good.”
Journalists have been operating under the illusion and defense that they are above the law the rest of us live under. That they need “Journalistic Privilege†to uncover the truth and spread it throughout the land. That they are the guardians of truth and all that stands between democracy and fascism. I might be somewhat sympathetic to their position if I could recall that even on balance during the past decade they exposed more government corruption and criminality than they hid. Or if substantive exposes of national importance were occasionally done and could only have been accomplished with the existence of “Privilege.â€
The MSM doesn’t do that. They have abused the “Privilege.†They are conduits for propaganda which they dish out to the public without alteration, analysis, research or investigation. Those who call themselves “journalists†were incapable of determining or too timid to report the truth about the WH “aluminum tubes†claim. If they are so incompetent that they couldn’t uncover the truth about the aluminum tubes, then this country will not suffer if the MSM disappears. If they were simply too timid, that is even worse. […]
In today’s Oklahoman, in an AP story about President Bush’s new ethics guidelines for White House employees, the name of the Deputy Chief of Staff, which hasn’t exactly been scarce in the news lately, is misspelled. It’s only eight letters long in its entirety; how hard can it be to get it right?
In the online AP version, oddly, only the last name “Rove” is used in its first use in the story, which is bad form for AP. So, evidently papers using the story needed to fill in the first name. I checked at another paper that ran it, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (selected at random), and they have it spelled correctly.
So whatever editor “corrected” the copy for the Oklahoman, performed the ultimate editorial faux pas: making an even worse error than the one they were trying to fix. I’m sure that person will be moving right on up the Gaylord express career ladder!
Americablog provides an excellent analysis of what we know and don’t know about the leak of Plame’s name (and of course now so much more).
Still pending:
* Who authored the INR (State Department’s intelligence branch) memo, and why and how was it misleading?
* Who leaked the name, ‘Valerie Plame,’ and how did he or she receive that
information?* Who else was complicit in the worse crime of outing a clandestine CIA
officer? In the lesser crime of revealing classified information?* What did the Vice President know, and when did he know it?
* What did the President know, and when did he know it?
* Why were people in the White House so afraid of what Joe Wilson had to say?
Billmon has an excellect dissection of the journalistic ethics involved in the Plamegate leak. He even discusses the possible need for an act of civil disobedience if the circumstances involve a government that is performing crimes against humanity.
Of course, that possiblity is strictly theory in this case. He looks at Miller from a lot of angles, but eventually comes back to the original, most obvious conclusion as the most likely. We may know a lot more tomorrow, if Matt Cooper’s “Memoir of a Tool” is in the new issue of Time.
Billmon of Whiskey Bar has just been on fire with Plamegate. His level of disgust with “the Cheney Administration” rises with every post; with each I think he cannot possibly handle much more of it (he had a famous retirement period last year). Today is an instant classic; read the whole thing.
[…]
But one thing has been completely revealed by the evidence that’s already come to light, and that’s the stinking cesspool of bigtime journalism as presently practiced in Washington — a cesspool in which Karl Rove may be the king of the pond, but which is also home to plenty of little toadies willing to help him do his dirty business.
[…]
We already knew that Rove and Novak are sleazy pieces of shit who should be flushed down the Potomac (after obtaining the necessary hazardous waste dumping permits, of course.) But what we’re also learning is just how little it takes these days to out an undercover CIA operative working on critical issues of nuclear nonproliferation. A few quick phone calls, a little rumor mongering, and voila! an entire intelligence network, built up over years, can be flushed right down the toilet.
The real scandal, in other words, may not be that Rove and his journalistic cronies knew Plame was a NOC, but that they didn’t really care — not if it was going to get in the way of a good smear, or a juicy tidbit for the “inside the beltway” column.
And for that they should all be in the dock — and would be, too, if stupidity and petty careerism were felony offenses.
The best thing about American journalism is that anyone can do it. No license, no training. If Rachel Carson wants to write Silent Spring or Ralph Nader Unsafe at Any Speed, they can do that. No one would ask them for their reporter’s permit.
You don’t get the right to pick and choose rights. If we all have rights, they need to be protected. If we don’t, don’t expect people to care when your rights are violated…
Summary of Findings: Public More Critical of Press, But Goodwill Persists
Public attitudes toward the press, which have been on a downward track for years, have become more negative in several key areas. Growing numbers of people question the news media’s patriotism and fairness. Perceptions of political bias also have risen over the past two years.
Big Media Interlocks with Corporate America
A research team at Sonoma State University has recently finished conducting a network analysis of the boards of directors of the ten big media organizations in the US. The team determined that only 118 people comprise the membership on the boards of director of the ten big media giants. This is a small enough group to fit in a moderate size university classroom. These 118 individuals in turn sit on the corporate boards of 288 national and international corporations. In fact, eight out of ten big media giants share common memberships on boards of directors with each other.
Eric Alterman, with yet another (quite apt) sports analogy about the media:
Much of the public believes the myth about the so-called liberal media, and the media themselves have been cowed by conservatives into repeating this lie virtually nonstop – lest they too be branded “liberal.” The pundits who are given so much air time and ink to cry foul about their lack of representation are the very same ones who are pulling this massive bait-and-switch on a public that apparently doesn’t see the irony of someone on television complaining that his side isn’t being heard.
Probably not, but fun to see some spine once in a while.
Daily Kos :: WH reporter Revolt! Scottie Mc C’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Q: With respect, who made you the editor of Newsweek? Do you think it’s appropriate for you, at that podium, speaking with the authority of the President of the United States, to tell an American magazine what they should print?
MR. McCLELLAN: I’m not telling them. I’m saying that we would encourage them to help –
This is hilarious:
Yahoo! News - Blogs Will Change Your Business
..wherein you will learn such important points as “[…]we’re going to take you into the world of blogs by delivering this story — call it Blogs 101 for businesses — in the style of a blog. We’re even sprinkling it with links. These are underlined words that, when clicked, carry readers of this story’s online version to another Web page. […]
and so on. I will give the writer credit for at least making one critical point:
But one thing is clear: Companies over the past few centuries have gotten used to shaping their message. Now they’re losing control of it.
Couldn’t be happier about that, myself.
If you watched cable news last summer, you would quickly answer “Ronald Reagan.” If you watched it this spring, you know for sure it was Pope John Paul II.
But you would be wrong. Because the people who by all rights should receive the credit for overpowering the dictatorship in Eastern Europe will never get the 24/7 star treatment by the corporate-owned media.
From Digby’s ongoing remedial class in American history for stupid, lazy columnists:
Thus, the culture war is all about abortion and not, as some have erroneously assumed, a half century of struggle over fundamental issues of social justice, tolerance, individual rights and modernity in general. This whole thing is a simple disagreement between upstanding conservatives saving cute little babies from black robed elitists and lazy liberals refusing to admit that equal rights under the law is a matter for legislative negotiation with Rick Santorum.
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