{"id":1506,"date":"2009-12-31T12:46:42","date_gmt":"2009-12-31T20:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1506"},"modified":"2009-12-31T12:51:43","modified_gmt":"2009-12-31T20:51:43","slug":"the-news-corpse-2009-retro-speculum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1506","title":{"rendered":"The News Corpse 2009 Retro-Speculum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Looking back on 2009 can be a harrowing experience. There has been much that many people would rather not recollect. It was a year that began with dreadful economic suffering. From there it went on to unprecedented political division, animosity, and disappointment from virtually every perspective. And it ended with a reminder of our vulnerability to violent extremists at home and abroad. For that reason, like the mythical Medusa, it may be best not to look back on 2009 directly.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, News Corpse has compiled some moments that, for our own good, ought not to be forgotten.<\/p>\n

\"SPINCOM\"Media Malfeasance of the Year:<\/strong>
\nSPINCOM<\/a>. In 2008, David Barstow wrote an article for the New York Times detailing how television news programs were employing Pentagon-trained military analysts to promote the Bush administration’s agenda for an unnecessary and illegal war in Iraq. In 2009, that article won a Pulitzer prize, a Golden Keyboard from the New York Press Association, and an Emmy nomination. Yet the article and its author never once appeared on television to discuss it. Despite Barstow’s many accolades and awards, the story was blackballed by the same TV producers who hired the phony pundits (who were also enriching themselves as consultants for the military contractors who benefited from the war). And by refusing to report on one of the most egregious examples of propaganda ever directed at the American people by their government, they also covered up their own complicity in cheerleading for the war.<\/p>\n

2010 Prediction:<\/strong>
\nSomeone famous will die while fleeing from police in a high-speed TV chase after being caught cheating on a spouse for a new reality show.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"ACORN:The Pimp & The Prostitute<\/strong>
\nWhat passes for journalism took a huge hit in 2009 when a couple of rightist activists dressed up for a Halloween expose on what they regarded as America’s most feared enemy: community organizers. James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles played the roles they were made for, a pimp and a whore, as they visited offices of ACORN. The results<\/a> were dishonestly edited videos that were played incessantly on Fox News despite having zero news value. The pair never appeared on any other television news network as they were closely guarded by their mentor Andrew Breitbart, and their patrons at Fox. Sadly, the other networks acquiesced by reporting the story despite having no access to the pseudo-news team.<\/p>\n

2010 Prediction:
\n<\/strong> Osama Bin Laden will buy Philip Morris, thus taking responsibility for killing 197,000 more Americans EVERY YEAR than he did that one time on 9\/11.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"GlennColor of Change We Can Believe In:<\/strong>
\nAfter Glenn Beck called the President a racist, a previously little-known group embarked on a boycott campaign<\/a> directed at Beck’s advertisers. By last accounting Color of Change<\/a> had persuaded over 80 advertisers to pull or withhold their ads from Becks show. What’s more, they compelled a retraction from the DefendGlenn web site (whose proprietor, Gary Kreep, is a story unto himself<\/a>) that had been falsely disparaging the boycott efforts.<\/p>\n

2010 Prediction:
\n<\/strong>Twitter will fold when its enfeebled users decide that 140 characters is too many to comprehend. It will be replaced by Blather, where messages are restricted to 26 characters and you can only use each letter of the alphabet once. The media will herald it as a phenomenon.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"FoxThe Tea Party Delusion<\/strong>
\nWhat can be said about the year’s most overblown non-story: The Tea Party Movement<\/a>? Never has there been a less significant amalgamation of disruptive whiners that received more attention from a controversy-challenged media. The Tea Baggers were always just a noisy minority who were fully sponsored by right-wing lobbyists and Fox News. But near the end of the year a poll was released that revealed the truth, even though the true part was ignored. The NBC\/Wall Street Journal poll hit the airwaves proclaiming that Tea Baggers (at 41%) were more popular that Democrats (35%) or Republicans (28%). What they didn’t report, although it was in the same poll, was that 48% of respondents knew very little or nothing at all about the Tea Baggers. When almost half of the country doesn’t know who you are, you are not much of a movement.<\/p>\n

2010 Prediction:
\n<\/strong>Fox News will lie. (I know. That one was too easy, but it’s New Year’s Eve and I have a party to go to).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Undisputed Scumbag Pundit Hall of Shame<\/strong>
\nThis award is a tie due to the presence of two so thoroughly deserving Scumbag Pundits. These despicable cretins earned their awards by claiming a couple of the most repulsive utterings ever contemplated in the press:<\/p>\n

Retired Lieutenant Colonel, Ralph Peters<\/a>:<\/strong> “Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Former CIA employee Michael Scheuer<\/a>:<\/strong> “[T]he only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And just for fun, I now present the Comedy Colonoscopy Award for 2009. So far as I know, there was only one entry. But it’s a doozy:<\/p>\n


<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

HAPPY NEW YEAR!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looking back on 2009 can be a harrowing experience. There has been much that many people would rather not recollect. It was a year that began with dreadful economic suffering. From there it went on to unprecedented political division, animosity, and disappointment from virtually every perspective. And it ended with a reminder of our vulnerability […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[597,355,33,630,44,640,639,592,563,281,187,534],"class_list":["post-1506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-andrew-breitbart","tag-color-of-change","tag-fox-news","tag-gary-kreep","tag-glenn-beck","tag-hannah-giles","tag-james-okeefe","tag-michael-scheuer","tag-ralph-peters","tag-spincom","tag-stephen-colbert","tag-tea-party"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-oi","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1274,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1274","url_meta":{"origin":1506,"position":0},"title":"SPINCOM: Still A Deafening Silence","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/20\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Censorship"","block_context":{"text":"Censorship","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=56"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1143,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1143","url_meta":{"origin":1506,"position":1},"title":"SPINCOM: General Barry McCaffrey Sells Out The Troops","author":"Mark NC","date":"12\/2\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Last April the New York Times published a story about how retired generals were using their status to enrich themselves and promote the Bush administration's wartime agenda. They disseminated Pentagon produced propaganda they knew was false in order to protect either their access to the media or their profits. This\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":884,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=884","url_meta":{"origin":1506,"position":2},"title":"Spin-Com: Obama And Clinton Step Up – Media Cowers","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/29\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The propaganda scandal uncovered last week by the New York Times has been virtually blacked-out by the rest of the media - particularly television. Even though this may be the most brazen act of disinformation ever perpetrated against American citizens. Why would the press seemingly act in concert to bury\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Censorship"","block_context":{"text":"Censorship","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=56"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1585,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1585","url_meta":{"origin":1506,"position":3},"title":"Dana Perino And Fox News On Repressive Regimes And Propaganda","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/10\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Ed Brayton at Science Blogs has caught a classic example of hypocrisy from a member of the class that made an art of it: the Bush administration. Former Bush press secretary Dana Perino was on Fox News this weekend and commented on a video produced for the White House web\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1254,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1254","url_meta":{"origin":1506,"position":4},"title":"News Blights: The SPINCOM Edition","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/27\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Item 1: The Fox Network has announced that it will not carry President Obama's press conference on Wednesday, the 100th day of his presidency. ABC, CBS, and NBC have all committed to carrying it. Note that this is the Fox broadcast entertainment network, not the cable news channel, which has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":874,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=874","url_meta":{"origin":1506,"position":5},"title":"Mind War – The Pentagon’s Propaganda Assault On America","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/21\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\"World War Three will be a guerrilla information war with no division between military and civilian participation.\" ~ Marshall McLuhan, 1968 The New York Times has now documented the sad prescience of McCluhan. In an in-depth examination of supposedly independent, retired military analysts, the Times' David Barstow has uncovered what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}