Tag: MSM

Cheap Premise

The Atlantic and author Christopher Hitchens, trying to declare Western Civilization dead because Jon Stewart pokes fun at our political discourse (and out-polls his Serious Journalism counterparts in the “most trusted” category while doing it), goes completely off the deep end intellectually just two paragraphs in:

And if any one thing undid Governor Palin as a person who could even be considered for the vice presidency, it was the merciless guying of her manner and personality by Tina Fey.

Uh, no. If any one thing undid Governor Palin, it was her brazenly obvious lack of qualifications for that job coupled with an obvious absence of the sort of desire or drive needed to get her ready in the several months available prior to the general election (or, for that matter, her debate with Biden). Her unceasing reliance on “You Betcha!” and other equally trenchant bits of commentary in the face of any and all questions is what created, powered, and was ultimately the thing that resonated in the Tina Fey bit. Fey was simply the person most visibly pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. The imitation was so effective that viewers couldn’t help but realize that there was nothing else in there but the scare quotes, nonsensical rambles, and the closing catch-phrases. Had Palin been an unquestionably qualified (but green) candidate with a similarly idiosynchratic library of quips and old-fashioned truisms, she still would have been mocked, just as any national political figure’s most obvious tics are mocked, but simultaneously would have been accepted as an otherwise serious player on the national scene, admittedly one with a folksy shtick. Big deal. Suggesting otherwise is the real infantilization of the American discourse. And Jon Stewart and his ilk aren’t the ones responsible for any of that. Makes you wonder why his “Trust” numbers are so high.

Tofurky

Of all the MSM tropes, this one is (perhaps) the most insane:

Resolved: Anyone who espouses a given idea must then hew to the most unforgiving and ridiculous possible interpretation of said idea or that person is a hypocrite and probably a liar.

One example: John Edwards wants to help the poor and has put his political muscle, such as it is, behind that. He also happens to live in an expensive house. MSM analysis: He is an unforgivable hypocrite who cannot care about the plight of those living in poverty.

However, Al Gore, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace, is the target of more if this sort of ass-hattery than perhaps anyone else in public life, ever. The MSM has conducted a long and wide-ranging War on Gore that is as unstoppable as it is unmentionable in “polite” discourse.

Witness Diane Sawyer, hiding behind Glenn Beck to ask this question:

Once again asking Al Gore if you really want to save the planet, Al, why don’t you put down the cheeseburger and pick up the veggie burger? Time for, maybe, soy milk and tofurkey?

To which Gore (sensibly) replies:

There is a serious issue about the connection between the growing meat intensity of diets around the world and damage to the environment. And like a lot of people, I eat less meat now than I used to. I’m not a vegetarian, don’t plan to become one, but it’s a healthy choice to eat more vegetables and fruits. So it’s not a laughable issue.

Sawyer’s take-home:  “So, tofurkey for you.”

Her annual salary for this incredible analysis: between 12 and 15 million dollars. And who can possibly argue with her logic? It is not possible for an individual to be concerned about the environmental wages of industrial meat production without subsisting entirely on a flavorless mush called “rootmarm.” Any other course of action would be both utterly ridiculous and inexcusably hypocritical.

Bad for the Democrat

Alexander Ryking notes something that was seemingly lost amongst the shuffle as the Liberal Media rushed to declare the Democrat dead once and for all:

Bill Owens won NY-23 — beating a right-wing extremist and becoming the first non-right-wing candidate to win the district since 1871. Great job, Michael Steele; you couldn’t even hold a district that has voted for YOUR party for 138 years.

It would seem to me the titanic face-off between the far right and moderate wings of modern conservatism (in the form of the GOP and the Conservative Party vs. the Democrat), with the direct and heavy involvement of Palin and other “rising stars” of the conservative mediasphere that shall go unnamed, that actually has national implications in terms of its outcome (in that Owens now goes to Congress (as opposed to assuming a purely statewide job)), and that ultimately resulted in a historic upending of the normal voting order stretching back more than a century would be the key outcome of what is, even still, a backwater, off-off-year election of little national import. Instead, we get breathless reports on two races for governor with unpopular incumbents, one of whom actively distanced himself from Obama, and, in both cases exit polling definitively showed that this was in no way a referendum on the Democratic Party or Obama in particular:

majorities of voters in both states (56 percent in Virginia and 60 percent in New Jersey) said President Obama was not a factor in their vote today

But, by all means liberal media, don’t let the facts of one genuinely interesting story get in the way of the preferred storyline, whatever its particulars may be. And then wonder at your continued marginalization and failure at connecting with the larger public. For some reason (that is clearly unknowable): people just don’t trust the MSM any more.

Your Liberal Media

Gene Lyons absolutely nails the seemingly insane FoxNEWS defense brigade that has materialized in the larger MSM (in response to the Obama administration’s shocking charge that FoxNEWS is little more than the communications arm of the far-right, fringe element of the GOP):

the reality is that celebrity journalists rarely, if ever, get hurt for abusing Democrats. Mistreat a name-brand Republican, however, and …

Well, remember “60 Minutes’” Dan Rather?

Democrats complain; Republicans get even.

Hence “mainstream” political journalists, who cower like beaten dogs for fear of ending up on Fox boss (and Nixon alumnus) Roger Ailes’ own enemies list, haven’t had to fear the Obama White House. Last week’s collective cringe makes it abundantly clear how badly they’d like to keep it that way.

It really is as simple as that. In response to a hopelessly biased hit-piece Democrats may lodge a polite complaint, Republicans harvest your job(s), then move on to destroy your reputation, then move on to your children’s activities, then try to turn you out of your house, then force you to kill and eat your dog. Dan Rather is but one example of the phenomenon, but a powerful one. Lost in the Rather nonsense was the fact that not one of the principles in the affair denied the content of the (possibly forged) memo. Some doubted its authenticity, in terms of it being the actual memo; none doubted that “such a memo” existed.

But, more to the point, the media at large has so internalized the myth of the Liberal Media that they immediately retire to the fainting couch at the slightest whiff of a complaint. They fancy themselves as social liberals, you see. They have a gay friend. Whatever. However, in reality, these celebrity journalists are quite the fiscal conservatives. They own several houses and make multi-million dollar salaries. They make all the right noises, mind you; Tim Russert was just a good-old-boy from Buffalo, as he endlessly reminded us, at least while not summering on Nantucket.

Media Matters and others have begun, begun, to turn the tide here. What was missing for the better part of a decade was any sense of “screaming” from the left. These folks still bristle at the “coarse” language of the internets and just don’t get any technology that happened post-TV: so it’s going to take a while. But, sooner or later and no matter what, this lost generation of self-absorbed Reaganite millionaires in control of our discourse will die or retire. One can only hope that whatever follows serves the industry and the nation in a better, more balanced way.

(via jimray)

Nixonian: A Love Story

Let’s review a few items of interests re: the W. Bush Administration:

  1. Paying Armstrong Williams, Michael McManus, and Maggie Gallagher and others for favorable opinions about WH policies or to attack opponents of the WH.
  2. Planting Jeff Gannon to lob softball questions.
  3. Used reporters to out a CIA agent, then sat by and watched reporters go to jail to protect their sources.
  4. Fed reporters misinformation about WMD (with malice aforethought, mind you) on Iraq, then used those reporters stories as corroborating evidence of the existence of WMD in Iraq.
  5. Waged a coordinated campaign against NBC.
  6. The Pentagon Pundit program, which sold the war by planting former military officers on networks.
  7. Staged mock press conferences with FEMA employees pretending to be reporters.
  8. Told America and, specifically, journalists to “watch what they say and what they do.”

But, indeed, Obama’s administration calling out FoxNEWS as a glorified communications wing for the GOP is a yet another example of the President’s outlandish, Nixonian lawlessness. Truly unprecedented.

Call me when FoxNEWS turns over three hours of their vaunted “news time” in the mornings to a former Democratic representative. Likewise when msnbc hires anyone who is remotely like Glenn Beck for their “editorial” hours (which are loosely 7-10pm EST for both FoxNEWS and msnbc).

(Top 8 topics largely via Balloon Juice; links a free value-add for you, the Lemkin reader)

Politico should go fuck itself

Politico writer Kenneth P. Vogel clutches his pearls and retires to the fainting couch: the Obama administration is using the curses way too much! This administration is just so fucking dirty. Why, it’s unprecedented. Oh, wait:

Networks and newspapers have become far more willing to run with quotes, video and audio of political figures and their aides saying things that never used to be repeated.

So, then, uh, it’s the networks. Administrations have always been “salty.” Humans use teh curses. I, for one, am astonished. But don’t let me stop you: please, yammer on for three fucking pages about this stupid, inconsequential shit.

New slogan:

Politico: stupidest fucking shit on the entire fucking innernets. Yes, including 4Chan.

In a carbon-conscious culture that’s looking for new ways to get from A to B, is it time to reconsider the unicycle?

Billy Baker, Globe correspondent, in what may be the ultimate “trend” piece statement of all time. I consider this particular segment of journamalism to be herewith: complete.

The Lunatic is: IN

In amongst Michelle Cottle’s epic takedown (don’t get too excited, it’s 15 years too late by my count) of Betsy McCaughey, we have this tidbit:

Her standard m.o. (as “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart recently experienced) is to greet each bit of contradictory evidence by insisting that her questioner is poorly informed and should take a closer look at paragraph X or footnote Z. When those sections don’t support her interpretation, she continues to throw out page numbers and footnotes until the mountain of data is so high as to obscure the fact that none of the numbers add up to what she has claimed.

The natural linkup to this observation is in the activities of Sarah Palin, and Cottle goes there too:

…[Palin’s] scorching self-regard and ostentatious disdain for politics-as-usual infuse even her most self-serving fabulisms. Palin, of course, hawks homespun wisdom, faith, and common sense, in contrast to McCaughey’s figures and footnotes. But both women have an uncanny ability to shovel their toxic nonsense with nary a blink, tremor, or break in those dazzling smiles. People of goodwill and honest counsel don’t stand a chance.

The issue is really that these sorts of people feel safe in the assumption that they cannot be effectively countered given the constraints of the modern news cycle. They know that, no matter how prepared the host/anchor may be, they have to move on within 90 or 180 seconds and can thus be easily filibustered into oblivion. Muddy water: sprayed. It’s out there now; mission accomplished.

The solution, of course, is almost as pathetically obvious as it is unimplemented. CNN (and the rest; to keep it simple I’ll refer broadly to all the respectable, 24/7 news networks as “CNN” from here on out) essentially run on floating schedules. If they need to report for 6 hours on a car chase, they fucking do it. Wolf (or whoever) will just sit there and repeat that we’re waiting for, uh, something to happen. And then cut to some guy also waiting for something to transpire.

Sooner or later, then, they need to spend as much time as it takes to reduce McCaughey (or somebody like her) to tears on national television. Simply pull out every one of her page attributions. Turn off her microphone while you find it so she can’t further confuse issues. Dispatch that point. Move to the next. As long as it takes. She runs out of material or simply runs off the set. Either way: victory. Pyrrhic to be sure, but a step.

Sure, this will be gruesome live television, but excellent YouTube material. Somebody will edit it down to 90 seconds of pure joy. Which then, of course, fits back into CNN’s attention span. All it takes is the will to do the initial, extremely long-form interview. Jon Stewart could even do it, were he willing to call her back “on” and then expend a day wearing her down. Jim Cramer was easily cowed; he had a job to protect. McCaughey and her ilk are more like kamikazes. Occasionally they survive their attack run, but that outcome is purely incidental to them. They need to be made to see the fundamental hopelessness of such tactics such that they choose not to employ them in the first place. Realizing that they will simply be called to account on national television for as long as it takes will dissuade all but the craziest. That last subset will simply no longer receive bookings after being seen as fundamentally unhinged.

Such a trip to the woodshed would only need to be done once or twice. The worst of these offensive people would then dutifully scuttle back under whatever rock they live when not being offered a national audience.