Newspapers Conspiring To Hasten Their Own Demise

Posted by on May 29, 2009 at 11:43 am. NO Comments :

James Warren of The Atlantic reports that a bevy of newspaper executives gathered yesterday in Chicago for a clandestine discussion about “Models to Monetize Content.” Amongst the participants are the New York Times, Gannett, E. W. Scripps, Advance Publications, McClatchy, Hearst Newspapers, MediaNews Group, the Associated Press, Philadelphia Media Holdings, Lee Enterprises and Freedom Communication. The unadorned agenda of this cabal of publishers is to figure out how to make news consumers pick up the tab that advertisers have traditionally paid.

Setting aside the obvious appearance of a violation of anti-trust laws, the main problem with these old-media relics is that they still don’t understand the problems confronting them.

First of all, they aren’t losing money because subscription receipts are declining. Subscription revenue, while not insignificant, was never the foundation of the industry’s financial well being. It is advertisers that keep newspapers (and most media) in business. The value of subscribers is due more to the fact that higher circulation brings higher ad revenue than to the value of the actual subscription price.

Secondly, subscriptions aren’t declining because newspapers cost too much. They are declining because too often the product isn’t worth paying for. That would be true whether it were delivered to your doorstep or your browser. The state of the economy cannot be overlooked as a contributor to the subscriber exodus either. But when newspapers respond to tough economic times by cutting newsroom staff, they have to expect that readers will notice the falloff in quality. Once people perceive that they aren’t getting their money’s worth, they will be no more likely to pay for an online subscription than the dead tree variety.

Warren astutely notes in his article that newspaper executives are not the brightest inks in the well. Many of them are holdovers from an era that hasn’t kept up with modern competition. Others are transplants from TV or radio who lack experience in a medium that has little in common with its electronic cousins. The evidence of their shortcomings is observable in their haste to alter a business model that has worked fine for a couple of hundred years or more. To respond to current financial woes by shifting from a model that relies on advertisers to one that pinches readers is profoundly shortsighted. The economy, and advertising revenues, are bound to recover, but dimwitted decisions by panicky publishers could aggravate and prolong what would otherwise be a temporary setback.

There are challenges facing the newspaper business, to be sure. But there is no reason to presume that the sort of broad distribution model that has led to success in virtually every form of media has suddenly become inoperative. Newspapers need to adapt to the digital world in a manner that promotes access and ubiquity. Walling themselves off by erecting subscription barriers can only make matters worse and result in further isolation and debt.

Finally, if they think that by colluding with one another to set the terms of doing business with them will endear them to their customers, they are even stupider than I thought.

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The Figment Of The Center-Right Imagi-Nation

Posted by on May 27, 2009 at 6:03 pm. 1 Comments :

Throughout much of last year’s presidential campaign, and right on through the first weeks of Barack Obama’s administration, the media has persistently peddled the falsehood that America is a center-right nation, politically and socially. Now Media Matters has published a study (full pdf here) that thoroughly debunks this notion, and they do it by using surveys and facts that realistically portray the ideological character of the country – something the media may want to check in to.

The Media Matters study is a comprehensive look at the American electorate. It covers virtually every one of the most debated subjects of public discourse: Size of government; health care; taxes; abortion; gay rights. It also examines the demographics of age, ethnicity, gender, and geography. And every case the evidence shows that America is a progressive, and yes, a center-left nation.

And nowhere is this more misunderstood than in the media:

  • Tom Brokaw (NBC): “This country, even with the election of Barack Obama last night, remains a very centered country, or maybe even center-right in a lot of places.”
  • Jon Meacham (Newsweek): “…insisted that to govern successfully, Obama had to become a center-right leader in order to match America’s ‘instinctively conservative’ streak.”
  • David Broder (Washington Post): “…warned that too many victorious Democrats in Congress had ‘ideas of their own about what should be done in energy, health care and education.'”
  • Karl Rove (Fox News): “Barack Obama understands this is a center-right country.”
  • Chris Wallace (Fox News): “You could make the argument that this is still a center-right country.”
  • Chris Matthews (MSNBC): “I’ve noted that we’re right of center except when we’re in a crisis, when we’re left of center.”
  • Bob Schieffer (CBS): “These Democrats that were elected last night are conservative Democrats.”

I’m not sure exactly why the press is so brain dead in this regard. It’s not as if the record isn’t crystal clear. Obama was portrayed by Republicans, and most of the press, as a liberal extremist – even as a Socialist, or worse. And yet, Obama won a decisive victory. Democrats have also been winning larger majorities in the Congress with each election cycle. And Obama’s approval rating have maintained stratospheric levels. The public supports the President’s policies even when they are told that it may increase their taxes.

At the other end of the scale, Republicans are descending into historical depths of disrepute. Their de facto leaders are universally despised figures like Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh. Their policies, I’m sure, would be rejected with equal disdain, if they were to articulate any. As it is, they just regurgitate the same old slogans they have been chanting for decades, and those are not particularly well received.

It will be interesting to see what it will take to get the media to recognize what the rest the country already knows. This is a nation that has had its fill of rightist greed and incompetence. We have ousted many of the representatives in public office who led the nation down a path of war and recession. While we can, and did, adjust the make up of our government to more closely reflect our values, it will not be as easy to fix the media. But that doesn’t mean we should stop trying.


Now Republicans Are An Oppressed Minority

Posted by on May 27, 2009 at 5:21 pm. NO Comments :

This doesn’t need much accompanying commentary:

Per Rush Limbaugh: “If ever a civil rights movement was needed in America, it is for the Republican Party. If ever we needed to start marching for freedom and constitutional rights, it’s for the Republican Party. The Republican Party is today’s oppressed minority, and it know how to behave as one.”

Per Karl Rove (speaking about George W. Bush): “And let’s be honest, a certain part of the country doesn’t like people who speak with an accent.”

I guess Rove never heard of Bill Clinton or Lyndon Johnson. And this on the heels of Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor. What a couple of wankers.


Fox News Analyst Backs Military Attacks On The Media

Posted by on May 26, 2009 at 6:22 pm. 5 Comments :

Ralph Peters is a retired U.S. Army officer and a Fox News strategic analyst. He is also the author of a column that advocates waging wars without any regard for the most basic tenets of human morality. The article, Wishful Thinking and Indecisive Wars, for the neo-con Journal of International Security Affairs, argues that anything goes in warfare, and it doesn’t matter who gets hurt or what violations of international law you commit.

“As our enemies’ view of what is permissible in war expands apocalyptically, our self-limiting definitions of allowable targets and acceptable casualties – hostile, civilian and our own – continue to narrow fatefully. […] Instead of agonizing over a fatal mistake made by a young Marine at a roadblock, we must return to the fundamental recognition that the greatest ‘war crime’ the United States can commit is to lose.”

That statement is ridiculous on its face. Losing, while not on anyone’s list of goals, is not a war crime at all. But gassing six million innocents is. Peters is conflating tactics with conclusions to make a point that would shame a lobotomized imbecile. His view, which justifies the killing of non-combatants, women, children, allies. and even our own troops, is a perfect example of just how depraved the warmongering hawks on the right have become. It is a view that goes a long way toward explaining how conservatives can tolerate, and even endorse, torture. But Peters goes even farther than condemning to fate the unfortunates who have to fight wars or reside in proximity to them. Peters has come out as an advocate of directly attacking the media, whom he regards as “killers without guns.” On this Peters says:

  • Today, the United States and its allies will never face a lone enemy on the battlefield. There will always be a hostile third party in the fight, but one which we not only refrain from attacking but are hesitant to annoy: the media.
  • Rejecting the god of their fathers, the neo-pagans who dominate the media serve as lackeys at the terrorists’ bloody altar.
  • Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media.”

Peters doesn’t bother to qualify these outrageous remarks, so I suppose that he would condone this tactic being carried out either on battlefield correspondents or in Manhattan newsrooms. Presumably he would support Marines advancing on television studios in New York and Washington and slaughtering everyone from the anchors to the interns. After all, if they are just “lackeys at the terrorists’ bloody altar,” why should they be afforded any mercy?

This is not an academic debate, either. The media has too often been the target of military attacks. This is what happens when you permit your values to be weakened by fear and vengeance. Peters justifies this repulsive strategy by asserting that, since our enemies have no ethical barrier to inhumane conduct, we shouldn’t be constrained by it either. Then Peters anticipates the obvious response to his paean to barbarism:

“In closing, we must dispose of one last mantra that has been too broadly and uncritically accepted: the nonsense that, if we win by fighting as fiercely as our enemies, we will ‘become just like them.'”

Peters then proceeds to refute the premise by asking if the bombing of Dresden in WWII made us like the Nazis. The problem with his construction is that it isn’t comparable. To be accurate, he should ask if we were to have built concentration camps wherein we starved, tortured, and murdered prisoners, would that have made us like Nazis. The answer is quite obviously, yes. And, unfortunately for Peters, that is precisely what he is proposing. When he says that we ought to fight as “fiercely” as our enemies, he means that we ought to be as neglectful of humane principles as the terrorists we are battling.

When moral degenerates like Peters mouth off about abandoning the values that have made our nation great, one would hope that no one would listen. But Peters has managed to secure for himself a platform that reaches millions of the already deluded – Fox News viewers. I just wonder if Peters would extend his philosophy to the Fox studios when the Marines are dispatched to kill him and his pals in the media.


The Republican Advance Team For Terrorism

Posted by on May 25, 2009 at 12:13 pm. 3 Comments :

In the past week, Republican politicians and pundits have been striving mightily to invoke fear in the hearts of the American people. They have been blanketing the airwaves with assertions that President Obama’s policies on national security (Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, torture, etc.) will result in another 9/11. It is a persistent chorus from those who brought us the first 9/11, insisting that Obama is making the country less safe.

On the surface, these panicky critiques could be characterized as warnings to the administration to change course. However, the underlying purpose of this rhetoric is actually to set themselves up to blame Obama should the unthinkable occur. But, in effect, and by their own words, they seem to be up to something even worse. They seem to be signaling to Al Qaeda that now is the time to strike. Take note of what Dick Cheney said on this five years ago:

“Terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength; they are invited by the perception of weakness.”

That quote always made me wonder if Cheney was admitting that Al Qaeda perceived weakness in the Bush administration nine months after it had assumed power and, thus, took it as an invitation to attack. However, that would presume a greater degree of honesty and self-reflection than Cheney has ever been known to exhibit. No, he was doing the same thing then that he is doing now. Stoking fear that Democrats are leading us down a path of doom. This time, with Democrats actually in power, Cheney is accelerating the rhetoric, and is bringing along reinforcements to alert the terrorists that America is “less safe” and therefore vulnerable.

Cheney: “It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness and would make the American people less safe.”

Mitt Romney: “It’s the very kind of thinking that left America vulnerable to the attacks of Sept. 11th.”

Joe Scarborough (MSNBC): “I knew by the second day that America was less safe.

Laura Ingraham (Fox News): “I think you can make a pretty compelling case that we’re less safe today.”

John Boehner: “I think this is a pre-9/11 mentality, and I think it’ll make our nation less safe.”

Karl Rove: “They’re doing the wrong thing for our country, they’re doing the wrong thing for our men and women in uniform, and they’re making us less safe.

David Gregory (Meet the Press): But do you agree with the vice president when he says that the country is less safe under President Obama?
Newt Gingrich: Absolutely.

Speaking of Newt Gingrich, in 2002, he castigated Al Gore for making a speech that criticized George W. Bush. Gingrich said that it was “well outside the mark of an appropriate debate” for a former vice-president to allege that the current president is making the country less safe. Today, of course, Gingrich is heralding Cheney for doing just that.

The questions we need to ask are these: If you were a terrorist, what would you make of all of this talk? Would it embolden you? Would you view it as an invitation? What point are Republicans trying to make? If they really believe that America’s defenses are weakening, is there a strategic purpose to broadcasting that to our enemies?

The dueling speeches from Obama and Cheney last Thursday presented a stark contrast between the two approaches. Obama offered a strong, fact-based defense of his national security agenda. Cheney reiterated the same old innuendo and fear mongering for which he is so well known. McClatchy’s Washington bureau published a point-by-point article highlighting Cheney’s departure from reality.

On the other hand, the New York Daily News published a hilariously stupid column asserting that Cheney mopped the floor with Obama. The author, Michael Goodwin, praised Cheney’s use of what Goodwin called the “most compelling” fact: “no successful attacks on America since 9/11.” There were also no Bigfoot sightings or asteroid collisions, but I’m not sure that Bush gets credit for that either. And, of course, Goodwin concluded his tripe with the approved message of the day: Obama has “been warned his policies will make it more likely we will be hit again.”

This is the dominant theme of the Republican Party today. This is a party and a philosophy that has told us that our enemies hate us for our freedom and our principles. It’s a party whose actions then led to constraining our freedom and violating our principles via the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, suspension of habeas corpus, torture, etc. It is as if they concluded that, since the terrorists hate us for our freedom, all we have to do is to be less free and they won’t hate us anymore.

The thread that runs through the Republican messaging is that America is less safe under Obama’s leadership. They are hammering the point that he has made the nation weaker and more susceptible to attack. They are broadcasting this message to the world as they advocate for policies that the world detests. So I still have to ask: What on earth are they trying to do?

How does announcing to the terrorists that they believe our nation is becoming weaker make us safer? Do they even care? Are they just pasting a big bulls eye on America and hoping for an “I told you so” moment? I desperately hope that that’s not the case, but there aren’t many other plausible explanations.


Huffington Post: A Tool For The GOP?

Posted by on May 23, 2009 at 11:35 am. 3 Comments :

Michael Calderone has a column at Politico that suggests a new tactical approach by Republicans to get their message out. He asserts, that the GOP is exploiting the broad reach of the Huffington Post to expand their media presence. It’s not a particularly bad idea as HuffPo is cracking 8.8 million unique visitors a month. But it is a cynical effort to advance propaganda and, to the extent that HuffPo is an accessory to it, it is shameful and counterproductive.

The insidious element to this plot is that the GOP isn’t trying to reach out to new voters or gain access to people that might not otherwise be exposed to their views. They are taking advantage of the popular web site to use as a platform from which to launch their viewpoints into more mainstream media in much the same way that conservatives have used the Drudge Report. In his column, Calderone interviewed a collection of Republican press reps who confess to this strategy.

John Hart, press secretary to Sen. Tom Coburn: [I]t’s one of a handful of sites that can have an instant impact on the national debate.

Brian Rogers, spokesman for Sen. John McCain: HuffPo and [Talking Points Memo] really are the assignment editors for many in the Washington press corps – particularly the cables.

Brad Dayspring, press secretary for Rep. Eric Cantor: The reality is that at the end of the day, like them or dislike them, sites like The Huffington Post, Plum Line, Salon, and others can drive news.

Michael Steel, press secretary for House Republican leader John Boehner: Republican aides [are] being sure to engage with liberal websites like Huffington Post – just because for no other reason than they drive a lot of cable coverage.

Alex Conant, former RNC national press secretary: When I was at the RNC, it wasn’t something that could be ignored. To the contrary, I thought the more we could work with them – recognizing they had a bias – the better off we were.

Republicans are well aware that much of the audience at HuffPo is not sympathetic to their cause. But that’s irrelevant. Part of the strategy is to drive a wedge between the Democratic establishment and its activist base. Another part is just to garner more publicity:

“Huffington Post reporter Ryan Grim, a former POLITICO staffer, said that after the House leadership released a video earlier this month questioning the White House on national security, a senior House Republican aide reached out to make sure he’d received it – that’s despite knowing how the site would probably play the story (and how commenters would react).

The piece that resulted – “House GOP Obama Ad Aims to Terrify” – likely appealed to liberal Huffington Post readers, while also drawing attention to the Republican clip, which is what the party wanted all along.“

~~~

Liz Mair, former RNC online communications director: While I certainly never expected left-of-center sites to echo our message, giving them access to information or background they needed to report accurately (if not favorably) was certainly something I thought of (and think of) as useful, given that their audience is not solely comprised of Democratic activists, and given that storylines that begin on left-of-center blogs frequently find their way onto the nightly news and into other outlets where a lot of swing voters get their information.

HuffPo, for it’s part is not the least bit concerned about how they are being used. Arianna Huffington told Politico that the attention the site gets from Republicans…

“…is a reflection of our traffic, our brand, and the fact that we are increasingly seen … as an Internet newspaper, not positioned ideologically in terms of how we cover the news.”

HuffPo is, of course, a business, and it has every right to pursue a mission that furthers it’s financial interests. However, if their stock in trade is their audience, then there is something untoward about exploiting them to benefit an ideological opponent. In other words, HuffPo should not be permitted to sell us out to right-wing flacks who just want to do us harm. If it is our patronage that makes HuffPo such a valuable asset, perhaps we ought not to be so patronizing.

There is nothing wrong with providing a forum that presents diverse opinions and perspectives. But there is a limit reached when you are seen by one side as simply an avenue to advance their public profile, further their media strategy, and beat you, and your audience, over the head with your own bat. You know you’ve reached that limit when Grover Norquist says of you…

“There are fewer better places to refute the opening bid by the [Democrats] than to plant your flag in the middle of The Huffington Post.”

HuffPo would be wise to consider that, if it is their readers that make them an appealing political community, they may want to avoid alienating those readers by serving the interests of their opponents. How many HuffPo readers would continue to visit the site were it to turn into a fancier version of the Drudge Report? And once readership scales back, how many Republicans would still view it as a useful platform?

Continuing down this path would be a downward spiral for HuffPo. They should take note of this and correct course as soon as possible. The market has no need for an Internet news/community that caters to the far right. They already have Fox Nation.

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Republicans Flub The Double Reverse Alinsky

Posted by on May 22, 2009 at 10:31 am. 7 Comments :

For degree of difficulty, I’ll give them a ten, but Republicans are far too incompetent to have risked the political Jujitsu required by their recent exercise.

Saul Alinsky was an activist and author who has been called the founder of modern community organizing. He is said to have been an early influence on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. His book, Rules For Radicals, outlined a program for effecting social change by building organizations that restored the balance of power from the elite to the people.

Early in last year’s presidential campaign, Republicans sought to exploit Clinton and Obama’s connection to Alinsky, implying that there was something frightful about his advocacy of empowering the poor and middle classes. More recently, his name has begun to reappear in a new, seemingly coordinated assault on the President, the press, and any stray progressive activist that might saunter along. The problem is that these conservatives swing so wide of the mark that they only succeed in making asses of themselves. Their approach is so pedestrian that not only do they fail to make their point, the point they make is often antithetical to what they intended. For example…

Jim Geraghty wrote an article for the National Review, The Alinsky Administration, that seeks to associate Obama with the first of Alinsky’s rules: Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. But Geraghty’s limited comprehension distills the concept down to nothing more than the allegation that Obama is a politician who seeks to attain power. Shocking, isn’t it?

Geraghty: “As conservatives size up their new foe, they ought to remember: It’s not about liberalism. It’s about power. Obama will jettison anything that costs him power, and do anything that enhances it.”

In addition to missing Alinsky’s point entirely, Geraghty also contradicts the vast conservative confederation that has been hammering away at Obama precisely because of his intransigent liberalism. So while everyone else on the right is trying to convince us that Obama is taking us down the road to Socialism, Geraghty contends that the ideology is expendable in the pursuit of power.

Then Geraghty turns up on the Hannity show and invokes his version of Alinsky’s fifth rule: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. But in making his case, Geraghty has uncovered a heretofore unknown conspiracy that is under the direction of Obama:

Geraghty: “[H]e’s got everything from ‘The Daily Show’ to ‘The Colbert Report’ to, you know, liberal bloggers, entertainers, Bill Maher. He kind of outsources that aspect of the Alinsky operation.

It may come as a surprise to Jon Stewart et al, to learn that they are mere puppets of the White House Overlord. The administration’s army of comedians must keep a lot of Republicans up at night. And, Heaven knows, the President himself loves to laugh. Bill O’Reilly also picked up the ridicule angle and added NBC as an instrument of Obama’s plot:

O’Reilly: “Enter far-left philosopher Saul Alinsky […] Before he died, Alinsky wrote a book called ‘Rules for Radicals,’ and here is where the politics of ridicule was defined. According to Alinsky, in order to change America into a far-left bastion, traditional Americans must be marginalized.”

Of course, O’Reilly made up virtually all of that. Alinsky not only did not advocate for marginalizing “traditional Americans,” he was their biggest advocate. Then again, O’Reilly’s definition of a traditional American is a wealthy, white, Christian, corporatist, social Darwinian, who gets off on torture and loofahs. But my favorite part, personally, is where O’Reilly says, “Before he died, Alinsky wrote a book…” As opposed to the books he wrote after he died? Thanks for making that distinction, Bill.

If the Republicans are sensitive to being ridiculed, it is only because they make it so easy. However, their disingenuous sniveling is hard to take seriously when they are just as guilty of the practice as the left. O’Reilly has a daily feature on his show wherein he calls people pinheads. The RNC repeatedly cranked out campaign videos mocking Obama as a celebrity, a media darling, or “The One”. Glenn Beck has a recurring series on the “March to Socialism”. Rush Limbaugh devotes most of his daily three hour rant to nothing but ridiculing one Democrat or another. The Internet is awash with images of Obama as everything from a terrorist to a Messiah to Hitler.

The flood of references to Alinsky is threatening to drown out all other political discourse. It has been taken up by everyone from Rush Limbaugh to Michelle Bachmann to Karl Rove. When you hear Republicans condemn Democrats for some breach of civility, you can lay odds that they are doing the very same thing. Their capacity for projection is legendary. This is no less true with regard to their allegations concerning Alinsky’s rules. But their execution is atrocious. They are so bad, in fact, that they are even contradicted by their own side. Last year, John J. Pitney Jr., also writing for the National Review, penned a column entitled, “The Alinsky Ticket,” wherein he exposed the real perpetrators of this pinko scheme:

Pitney: “Radical activist Saul Alinsky has had quite a season, especially for somebody who has been dead for 36 years. The two Democratic finalists had Alinsky links […] But the candidates who have most effectively applied Alinsky principles are John McCain and Sarah Palin.”

Well, now the cat’s out of the bag. Pitney dropped the dime on the GOP. How can they assail Obama and the Democrats for a strategy that they are employing themselves? Actually, they can do it very easily. In fact, it is rule number one in Karl Rove’s Rules For Reactionaries: Conduct a campaign of dirty tricks, but accuse your opponents of doing it first.

Rightists are now trying to adapt that rule to Alinsky’s teachings, and to disparage Obama and the Democrats. Unfortunately, their ineptitude is so advanced that they can’t execute a successful program. All they are accomplishing is a reaffirmation of their own desperation and lameness. Nothing illustrates this better than the recent proposal by the RNC to rebrand Democrats as the Democrat Socialist Party [shakes head and sighs].

Watch for more hilarity as Republicans continue in their quest to complete the perfect Double Reverse Alinsky – no matter how many times, or how miserably, they fail.


Morley Safer Doesn’t Trust Citizen Journalism

Posted by on May 21, 2009 at 11:53 am. NO Comments :

Veteran newsman and 60 Minutes correspondent, Morley Safer, just won the Fred Friendly First Amendment Award from Quinnipiac University’s School of Communications. His long and distinguished career certainly justifies receiving this honor. It’s too bad he had to spoil the ceremony with the crotchety old man impression that he must have picked up from Andy Rooney.

In an attempt to address his concern for the withering state of newspapers, Safer warned that the medium’s decline “threatens all of journalism and, by extension, our precarious right to know.” He stated his belief that newspapers provide the source material for stories presented in other mediums. There is a case to be made for these assertions, but he went too far when he attacked new media, characterizing it as crammed with nuts:

“The blogosphere is no alternative, crammed as it is with the ravings and manipulations of every nut with a keyboard. Good journalism is structured and structure means responsibility,” he said. He added later, “…I would trust citizen journalism as much as I would trust citizen surgery.”

If Safer is really concerned with responsibility, he ought not to lash out indiscriminately at online journalism. If he wants to cast a net around “every nut with a keyboard,” and label them all journalists, then I should be able to do the same with his medium and every nut with a microphone.

Surely there are manipulative ravers on the Internet, but they could hardly be called journalists. The same is true with television and newspapers. Josh Marshall (a reporter of proven reliability) and Michelle Malkin (a purveyor of bias and propaganda), are two completely different species. Credible and principled Internet journalists would cringe at the thought of being associated with likes of Matt Drudge. Would Safer fare any better by being lumped together with Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck? Does Safer think that Ann Coulter brings honor to the newspapers who carry her column? Does he think that the National Enquirer or the New York Post are structured and responsible? If Safer wants to draw parallels between online reporters with their old media equivalents, he should not be making apples to idiots comparisons.

It would also be helpful if Safer refrained from disparaging the public at large. Safer’s analogy to “citizen surgery” carries an insulting implication that “citizen” equates to “unqualified.” Many citizens are quite capable of producing good journalism. And, perhaps to Safer’s surprise, some journalists are, in fact, good citizens. The two designations are not mutually exclusive. A better analogy might compare a modern surgeon with an old-school sawbones who refused to use an MRI or other advanced technologies. I expect that most people would prefer the modern surgeon. And as it turns out, most people prefer new media, as demonstrated in this poll:

  • 67% believe traditional journalism is out of touch with what Americans want from their news.
  • 32% said Internet sites are their most trusted source for news and information, followed by newspapers (22%), television (21%) and radio (15%).
  • 75% believe the Internet has had a positive impact on the overall quality of journalism.
  • 69% believe media companies are becoming too large and powerful to allow for competition.

There is a notable irony in that Safer would level these criticisms while accepting an award honoring the First Amendment. A true advocate for a free press would welcome more public participation, not less. After all, what could be more representative of free expression, and a free press, then citizen journalism?


SPINCOM: Still A Deafening Silence

Posted by on May 20, 2009 at 2:50 pm. NO Comments :

A couple of weeks ago, I posted this story on David Barstow, the author of Message Machine for the New York Times. Yesterday, the New York Press Club awarded Barstow it’s Golden Keyboard Award. Barstow had previously won a Pulitzer for the story.

Message Machine described how the Pentagon in the Bush administration conspired to train and deploy former military personnel to spread propaganda in support of the war in Iraq. And if that weren’t bad enough, the program also permitted them to use their high profile media platform to enrich themselves and the defense contractors to whom they were attached.

To date, Barstow has still not been invited to appear on any of the major news networks to discuss his article. The allegations have been investigated by Congress and by the Inspector General of the Pentagon. The Department of Defense halted the programs exposed by Barstow. He is continuing to receive accolades from his peers, but none of this is enough to persuade television news editors to book him.

We can eliminate Fox News as a potential host for a discussion with Barstow. But at the very least we ought to be able to get MSNBC to schedule a segment or two. Feel free to give them some encouragement.

Contact MSNBC:
MSNBC General
Keith Olbermann
Rachel Maddow
Ed Schultz
David Shuster
Chris Matthews


Rush Limbaugh To MSNBC: Leave Me Alone

Posted by on May 20, 2009 at 10:26 am. 1 Comments :

The towering ego that is Rush Limbaugh is tottering on its foundation. On his radio rant yesterday, Limbaugh lashed out at what he perceives to be a vicious cabal, led by MSNBC, dedicated to being mean to him. In the typical manner of bullies everywhere, Rush wiped his nose, stammered a bit, then fired back a volley of indignant spittle:

“It is clear to me that MSNBC is hoping to build its ratings on my back. […] they cannot go any appreciable length of time without showing video of me […] or excerpts from this radio show or having a bunch of hack guests on to discuss me. So my challenge is this, to MSNBC […] Let’s see if you can do Rush withdrawal. Let’s see if you can run your little TV network for 30 days without doing a single story on me”

Poor Rush. Those meanies at MSNBC won’t stop saying stuff about him. He would like it much better, I’m sure, if he were allowed to spout off about whatever he wants, no matter how ignorant or infested with lies, without some TV news commentators pointing out what a fraud he is. He would be so very happy if, for just thirty days, he could be free from having his ill-informed tripe rebutted by facts and logic.

This is the same Limbaugh who can’t go a day without flailing at what he calls the “drive-by” media. He is one of the most vituperative critics of any and all press with whom he disagrees. He bashes MSNBC regularly, but now he is begging for a thoroughly one-sided truce.

What could have provoked this pique? Ordinarily Limbaugh would be thrilled that people were talking about him at all. He frequently asserts that his adversaries just make him stronger. Now, all of a sudden, he wants them to shut up? Perhaps he revealed the answer in this remark:

“As you know, Michael Steele made a speech today outlining the future of the Republican Party. And apparently he mentioned every conservative’s name in the book except mine and Cheney’s. This has caused many excited media people to point this out.”

There it is. Steele’s speech actually cited only three conservatives (all deceased), in a rambling dissertation on how his leadership will bring change “delivered in a tea bag.” But by leaving out Limbaugh (not deceased, but still extinct), Steele set off a media frenzy that didn’t include the de facto head of the Republican Party. That is an unforgivable oversight that must be immediately corrected by imploring the press to pay more attention to Boss Limbaugh.

So Rush issues a challenge that he knows won’t be considered in an attempt to turn the spotlight back on himself. In the process he advocates for constraining the free speech rights of his critics. And underlying all of that, he exposes himself as the thin-skinned, sorehead that we all knew him to be. If Limbaugh really wants MSNBC and others to leave him alone, there is one very simple way to accomplish that: Leave!

Late Breaking: On his radio program today Rush issued this announcement regarding his position as Republican Party chief:

“I have been anointed to this position by members of the drive-by media, and of course, the Obama White House. I am resigning as the titular head of the Republican Party.”

Uh oh. Does that mean that the party is stuck with Michael Steele? Rush nominated Colin Powell for the job, but let’s be realistic…it’s more likely to be Dick Cheney. Given the choice of Limbaugh, Steele, Powell, or Cheney, Democrats would probably choose all of the above.