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Bobos In Euro-Paradise
By Ed Driscoll · July 05, 2008 10:15 AM · Bobos In Paradise · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Making of the President
Bill Schneider of CNN writes: Spend a few days in western Europe talking about American politics and you discover that you are in deepest Obamaland. Not much different from Berkeley, California, or the South Side of Chicago.Orrin Judd replies, in a post titled, "This Reads Like A GOP Press Release": So Obamaland is Europe, Berzerkly and the South Side and Democrats can't figure out why they lose elections?Indeed.TM The euro-feel of Obamaland and its putative leader's campaign proposals isn't exactly a big surprise for anyone who's been paying the slightest bit of attention to the growing distance that voters in the Bluer alcoves of the American political map have been putting between themselves and their compatriots in the Red States post 9/11. Ahh, The Sophisticated Gravitas Of Network TV
Whether on the small screen, or the big stage, Rosie O'Donnell is class all the way: On Wednesday, the "comedienne" did a guest stint at a Cyndi Lauper concert in Vancouver, Canada, during which she called Ann Coulter a bitch, and rather indelicately compared her experience on "The View" to the scene in the movie "Born Innocent" when Linda Blair was raped in the shower at a girls' reformatory.Imagine how the viewers felt. Here's what Rosie had to say; click over to Newsbusters for the video and Ann Coulter's response: I hate Ann Coulter. That bitch is annoying, let me tell you right now...And speaking of annoying, remember "The View?" Do you get it here in Canada? It was a cute, little tea party show with the ladies turned into a women's prison film. We were tough girls elbowing each other shaving down spoons into shank (?), "Come here, you little bitch." Remember "Born Innocent," that Linda Blair movie? Remember the broomstick, Wooh, I know how she felt. It was like one, big, dysfunctional, Irish Catholic family. Do anything except tell the truth.To borrow from an old Dennis Miller riff, that last sentence is the Rosetta Stone of Humor; the number of punchlines it inspires is bottomless. Start by flashing back to this, a classic Rosie moment from a year ago, and then write your own! Ahh, The Sophisticated Gravitas Of Cable TV
By Ed Driscoll · July 04, 2008 12:27 PM · An Army Of Davids · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Making of the President
I try to avoid both of their shows like the plague, so it's fun to step back and be a neutral observer in this hilarious cat fight between Greta Van Susteren and Anderson Cooper that Newsbusters links to. On her blog at Fox News, Van Susteren writes: “We’re a news program,” while Ms. Van Susteren’s show is “not a news program,” Mr. Doss told TVNewser on Tuesday. “It’s missing-person-of-the-day. There’s an audience for that, but it’s not what we do. We’re covering the world, not just covering who’s missing today.It's an army of Gretas! To whom, size matters not, as the Muppet-like president of the Dagobah Network News likes to tell his staff of young apprentices. Don't miss the ridiculous T-shirt promoting Cooper that Van Susteren highlights at the end of her post, which illustrates a moment that sums up absolutely perfectly the swank and cutting-edge sophistication of the legacy media and its political party: It's Two, Two, Two Papers In One!
By Ed Driscoll · July 04, 2008 11:48 AM · Bobos In Paradise · God And Man At Dupont University · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Return of the Primitive
As Roger Kimball notes: Buried in a story about baby-boomer profs retiring:Indeed. Especially when the headline of the Times' article is, "The ’60s Begin to Fade as Liberal Professors Retire." But the truly curious thing is why that era has lived on for so long--1968 was forty years ago; as far away from us as Clara Bow and Calvin Coolidge were to the sixties. So why has its juvenile ethos cast such as a long-lasting spell on the left? As I wrote a few months ago: Tom Stoppard describes 1968 as "The year of the posturing rebel". Or as John Lennon confessed a decade later:Sadly, perhaps until this countdown reaches zero."I dabbled in politics in the late 1960s and 1970s, more out of guilt than anything. Guilt for being rich and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn't enough and you have to go and get shot or something, or get punched in the face to prove I'm one of the people. I was doing it against my instincts."Fascinating though, that the 1960s and '70s, a period that was rife with poseurs such as Lennon, is still influencing us to this day. You can see it in music, in the form of ersatz nostalgia acts such as Lenny Kravitz and Sheryl Crow, who dress in period costume (sort of the tie-dyed equivalent of greasers like Sha Na Na in leather jackets and D.A.s in 1975, or a big band that same year still playing in tan dinner jackets and bow ties). Or much more dangerously, in a politics that still takes it rhetoric from a period now four decades in the past, whether it's John Kerry in 2004, or Rev. Wright in 2008. Hyperbole Much, Fellas?
By Ed Driscoll · July 04, 2008 10:36 AM · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Reich Stuff · War And Anti-War
Chicago Sun-Times: "Boeing as amoral as firms that aided Hitler." John Glenn and Harry Reid could not be reached for comment. Blind Faith
By Ed Driscoll · July 04, 2008 10:25 AM · Bobos In Paradise · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Making of the President
Thank God for the American public that the journalists they rely upon to help them make informed decisions are a hard-bitten cynical lot, having seen it all a hundred times, never falling for the latest huckster trying to sell them a bill of goods, instead of those naive, easily fooled bloggers... Update: Fortunately, not all in Big Media are as dewey-eyed as the Gray Lady's unseasoned young naifs. "Forget The Good War"--Reframing World War II
By Ed Driscoll · July 03, 2008 04:21 PM · Hollywood, Interrupted · Liberal Fascism · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Memory Hole · The New Puritans · The Return of the Primitive · War And Anti-War
At least until the tail end of the first decade of the 21st century, World War II always seemed like pretty settled history to me; but it's obvious that the Second World War--particularly the conduct of the Allies--is being reframed by a surprising number of groups. As Victor Davis Hanson wrote last month: Questioning the past is a good thing, but rewriting it contrary to facts is quite another. In the latest round of revisionism about the Second World War, the awful British and naive Americans, not the poor Germans, have ended up as the real culprits.That's the theme of a new mini-series written by moderate historian Niall Ferguson, but aired on the otherwise typically liberal PBS, as Adam Buckman notes in an article whose subtitle says it all: "PBS Show To Argue Allies As Bad As Nazis": MEMBERS of the Greatest Generation - especially those with weak hearts - might want to steer clear of an upcoming PBS documentary that suggests the Allied victory in World War II was "tainted" and questions whether it can even be called a victory.I think Austin Bay once quipped to me (and possibly wrote about the theme in a column as well) that you could make a pretty good case that the First World War didn't actually conclude until 1991, (and arguably, not even then) so that's not an unreasonable point, though as Buckman notes: But it is Ferguson's revisionist view of the tactics applied by the Allies in World War II that is likely to raise the hackles of those who have always believed in the "necessity" of bombing German and Japanese civilians, culminating in the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to end a war we did not start.Sort of a Liberal Fascism, to coin a phrase originally spoken, favorably, three quarters of a century ago by the same author also who inspired the title of Ferguson's miniseries, which Dorothy Rabinowitz reviews, and in an essay titled "Forget the Good War", adds: Russian troops had liberated Auschwitz, yes, but we're reminded that Stalin had imprisoned and murdered millions. Does this mean the liberation of Auschwitz was nothing? A good question with no answer. Mr. Ferguson is content to have delivered another in his long stream of accusatory ironies and contradictions, all in support of the claim that the morally tainted Allied armies should not be credited as liberators.Meanwhile, regarding Pat Buchanan's new book, at Pajamas HQ, Sheryl Longin writes: The left is currently the home of some of the worst forms of cultural relativism, but let us not forget that the right houses its own equally dangerous revisionist historians who attempt to use their false history to influence current events. Now is not a time when America can afford to be fuzzy with the truth. Facts are facts. Ideology blinds people. We forget that at our own peril.But in the afterward of Liberal Fascism, titled, "The Tempting Of Conservatism", which documented several examples of how the modern right is also susceptible to fascism, Jonah Goldberg wrote: In the 1990s liberal anger about Buchanan’s “right-wing” fascism reached a fever pitch. As Molly Ivins wrote in response to Buchanan’s 1992 Republican National Convention speech: “It probably sounded better in the original German.” The irony here is that Buchanan was actually moving to the left. For years Buchanan’s opponents called him a crypto-Nazi for his defense of Ronald Reagan and the GOP. In reality, the only thing that kept his fascist instincts in check was his loyalty to the GOP and the conservative movement. After Reagan and the Cold War, Buchanan abandoned both in a leftward search for his true principles.And Buchanan's magazine, despite its American Conservative sobriquet, is pretty darn cozy with the far fringes of the American left, and it appears that World War II is yet another issue where Pat and the far left, both then and now are remarkably simpatico. Could Hollywood beckon next? Update: Did Pat cook the books? "Busted!... Nazi Sympathizer Pat Buchanan Accused of Plagiarism, Hacked Quotes & Wrong Dates." The Assault On Plasma
By Ed Driscoll · July 03, 2008 02:53 PM · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media! · Pajamas Theater 3000 · The Assault On Reason · The Return of the Primitive
It's official--everything does indeed cause global warming. But before we ban flat panel TVs and monitors, we might want to ask this fan of conspicuous digital consumption what he thinks about the idea: ![]() "Hitler Tamed by Prison. Released on Parole…"
By Ed Driscoll · July 03, 2008 02:30 PM · Liberal Fascism · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Memory Hole
Claudia Rossett sifts through the Memory Hole and recovers a classic headline from the prehistoric Walter Duranty era of the New York Times. Of course, it's not like things have changed all that much in the Pinch Sulzberger era... MDS--It's Never Too Early To Start!
By Ed Driscoll · July 03, 2008 11:21 AM · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Making of the President
"Behold, per Blake Dvorak, one of the first documented cases of McCain Derangement Syndrome." Who Knew That Ian Faith Edited The L.A. Times?
Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy journalism, having a good solid b.s. detector in your hand is often useful: If only AP was as skeptical of the L.A. Times as it is of the Bush Administration ...it wouldn't have left this uncommented upon:So the paper's content, like its popularity, isn't shrinking, it's merely becoming more selective. The Population Bomb Gets Dropped Down The Memory Hole
By Ed Driscoll · June 29, 2008 08:39 PM · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Assault On Reason · The Memory Hole
P.J. Gladnick flashes back to 1968 and Apocalypse Then: Today is the official publication date of The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment by Paul and Anne Ehrlich. The release of this book was timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the publication of Paul Ehrlich's once exceedingly popular "The Population Bomb" in 1968. If you expect to see much about either of these books in the mainstream media, you are in for a big disappointment. The MSM is avoiding the whole subject of Paul Ehrlich and his apocalyptic "The Population Bomb" like the plague nowadays. The reason is probably because it might draw embarrassing attention to the fact that apocalyptic visions, despite their popularity at one time such as the current global warming alarmism, are usually proven to be flat out wrong. Such was the case with Paul Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb" which the Intercollegiate Studies Institute ranked as one of the 50 Worst Books of the 20th century due to its many errors.Gladnick quotes from a Brothers Judd review of Ehrlich's book that's also well worth your time. It's yet another not-so-final countdown! Jann Wenner Comes Clean
Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters asks, "Can a publisher, editor, and owner of magazines be any more biased than proudly admitting on national television that he's contributed to Barack Obama's campaign?" While you ponder, consider that on Sunday, the publisher and editor of Rolling Stone -- who just so happens to also own Men's Journal and Us Weekly -- told CNN's Howard Kurtz that he's given money to the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee.Noel seems suprised, but given the far left worldview of Wenner, reflected in his flagship publication since its inception, who couldn't see that one coming? But I actually think Wenner's admission is a very positive one. As I've written before, I'd much rather journalists--and their publishers--come clean on their biases than fall back on the mid-20th century model of feigned objectivity. At least it allows consumers to make an informed decision rather than have to guess at the worldview of a media source. Great Moments In Television Journalism
By Ed Driscoll · June 27, 2008 07:10 PM · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Return of the Primitive
Back in December, I mentioned Alycia Lane, a Philadelphia-area TV news anchorbabe who was fired after an altercation with a Manhattan police woman: As Dan Riehl wrote in October when the story of Dallas-area TV journalist Rebecca Aguilar confronting an innocent elderly man on-camera broke, "Leave it to a real journalist to go over the top."While that story sounds trashy enough as it is, it only gets weirder from there: CBS3 yesterday released anchorman Larry Mendte from his contract 31/2 weeks after FBI agents seized his home computer amid allegations that he illegally broke into former coanchor Alycia Lane's e-mail.You stay classy, big media! (Hat tip: My mom, one of the great connoisseurs of Philadelphia television news, who told Nina and I that Mendte was fired "after he was caught going into someone else's Internet!" Hey, everyone's entitled to their own private series of tubes...) "I Like Me! I Really Like Me!"
Now that they have Jon Stewart's official permission to make sport of The Man Who Would Be King, readers of NRO's Media Blog have some fun captioning this week's messianic Obama photo on the cover of Rolling Stone. Click here for some earlier thoughts on Obama And The Age Of Outrageous Credulity. Why The McCain Campaign Needs Someone Like Bill Kristol
Rich Lowry writes, "I've been thinking lately that Bill Kristol should take a leave of absence for a couple of months and go help out on the McCain campaign": McCain has been nothing if not energetic (giving a majorish speech almost every day). He has scored day-to-day tactical victories over Obama, as this Washington Post story noted. But the sum is less than the parts. Worse, McCain's political persona seems to be getting lost.I'm not sure if Bill Kristol is the guy, but there's a lot of truth there. Obama had a mistake-filled week last week culminating most visibly with his faux-presidential seal, a huge touch of high camp, which though dropped, will be the gift that keeps on giving via Photoshop and YouTube. It's gotten to the point where even the media can't downplay all of Obama's gaffes, no matter how reverentially they treat him. And yet McCain doesn't seem at all poised to pounce his opponent's numerous unforced errors. Fear Sucks, And It Doesn't Last Long
We've previously linked to responses from James Lileks and James Pethokoukis, but found via Tim Blair, this is the perfect rebuttal to AP's Doomsday rhetoric: Media to America: Disaster Seen as Catastrophe Looms
By Ed Driscoll · June 23, 2008 12:09 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Return of the Primitive
I quoted James Lileks' take on AP's feverish doomsday piece yesterday, and James Pethokoukis describes AP's screed thusly: "I know you're just a reporter, but you used to be a person, right?" is a quote from the film Deep Impact and immediately came to mind after I read this article from the Associated Press. (It actually took two people to write it.) The "article" made me weep for my chosen profession. The absolutely disgraceful lead:As Andy McCarthy writes:Is everything spinning out of control? Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism. Horatio Alger, twist in your grave. The can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. Eroding it is a dour powerlessness that is chipping away at the country's sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance.I dunno, maybe contributing to our low national morale are media that 1) compare a weak economy—although one that has yet to suffer even a single negative quarter—to the disastrous economies of the 1930s and 1970s; 2) forget to mention that the average person buying a home in, say, January 2000, is still sitting on a 66 percent gain; 3) ignore the economy's sky-high productivity, which helps make it the most competitive in the world; 4) ignore a global economic boom that is pushing up gas prices but also raising hundreds of millions of people out of poverty; and 5) for the heck of it, perpetuate the myth that college is unaffordable. (Oh, and since the authors of the article brought it up, it sure looks to this Soviet politics major that Iraq is turning into a situation for al Qaeda that is exactly the reverse of Afghanistan in the 1980s: Militants take on superpower. Get annihilated along with their global brand.) Rush talked about that article this afternoon and made the excellent observation that the AP could have just said "Vote Obama" — it would have saved them several hundred words and spared the rest of us a lot of wasted time!But at least it's giving the Blogosphere a chance to expose the can't-do spirit that seems to permeate AP. At least until the bill arrives. Meanwhile, as the AP tells the nation as a whole, "Yes We Can't!", the media as a whole have gone equally silent reporting on another nation's progress. Imus Steps In It Again?
By Ed Driscoll · June 23, 2008 11:20 AM · Oh, That Liberal Media! · Run To Daylight · The Return of the Primitive
As Ed Morrissey notes: Al Sharpton may get another chance to distract everyone from the massive IRS investigation into his personal and professional finances by seizing on another Don Imus eruption.And this time around, if Imus is ousted, no one can blame this on anti-Hillary forces engaged in battlefield prep. "Another Day, Another Shipment From The Claptrap Factory"
By Ed Driscoll · June 22, 2008 11:19 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Future and its Enemies
I had meaning to comment on that ridiculous AP doomsday story that Drudge linked to recently, but there's no way I can top the fine demolition that James Lileks performs: EVERYTHING SEEMINGLY IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL.Remember when AP helped its readers make sense of the news, instead of describing life as one long unfathomable horror? Of course, that was when AP was actually in business to report, instead of "changing the world", or these days, sending dunning notices to bloggers. Of course, one reason why wire services might be shaking down the Blogosphere is that they could use the money: For newspapers, the news has swiftly gone from bad to worse. This year is taking shape as their worst on record, with a double-digit drop in advertising revenue, raising serious questions about the survival of some papers and the solvency of their parent companies.Sort of like a Red Queen's Race, you might say. But then, as Michael Crichton wrote 15 years ago, the newspapers brought a lot of this upon themselves: "[T]he American media produce a product of very poor quality," he lectured. "Its information is not reliable, it has too much chrome and glitz, its doors rattle, it breaks down almost immediately, and it's sold without warranty. It's flashy but it's basically junk."Just read the AP story at the of the post. And the media is cranking out that junk during a period when they can least afford to, as a technological sea change is devouring them: And as I said, fortunately, their own Jurassic Park awaits: Or, What The More Jaded Call "Pivoting Towards The Center"
By Ed Driscoll · June 22, 2008 09:03 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Making of the President
![]() "Obama Moves to Reintroduce Himself to Voters", the Washington Post, notes, but check out the language of the opening paragraph: In the opening weeks of the general-election campaign, Sen. Barack Obama has moved aggressively to shape his campaign and offered a clear road map for the kind of candidate he is likely to become in the months ahead: an ambitious gamer of the electoral map, a ruthless fundraiser and a scrupulous manager of his own biography in the face of persistent concerns about how he is perceived."Aggressive", "ambitious", "ruthless"--this sounds far more like the press at large is beginning to describe Obama using the David Brooks Machiavellian badass political samurai model, rather than the positive Hope! and Change! Yes We Can! new politics message that Obama began nationally with. If the press continues to describe Obama in such terms, this could create a nifty opening for McCain to attack Obama on his cynicism and rote Chicago politics, much as Reagan deflated Carter in 1980 (who masked his own punitive opinions of America underneath a similar veneer of sunny optimism four years earlier) with his "Well, there you go again" line. And on a related note, Lexington Green of the Chicago Boyz notes, "It is weird how so many who claim to like Obama hope he is lying. Three examples come to mind immediately". Read the rest. Update: Jennifer Rubin observes Obama as he loses "His Teflon Sheen". Blogger Reaches Nirvana
By Ed Driscoll · June 22, 2008 02:51 PM · Oh, That Liberal Media! · Radical Chic · The Making of the President · War And Anti-War
Will Kim Jong Il endorse Sen. Barack Obama? Yes he can! Castro we knew about, and Qaddafi chimed in just the other day, but Kim Jong Il?Meanwhile, See Dubya also asks, "Come on, Osama, your turn…you know you’ve got one tape left in you…" If he does, will Uncle Walter once again blame it on Karl Rove, as he did when Punxsutawney Osama emerged and saw his shadow during the last weekend of October in 2004? Are Ombudsmen Necessary? When Sexes Collide
By Ed Driscoll · June 21, 2008 07:35 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Making of the President
"Politically correct is never a term one would apply to [Maureen] Dowd’s commentary", the New York Times ombudsperson Clark Hoyt writes. If you say so, though standard-issue East Coast establishment liberal boilerplate are all terms that readily come to mind. In any case, as Hoyt's predecessor ombudsman wrote, "Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper? Of course it is." And now it's time to pay the piper: Over the course of the campaign, I received complaints that Times coverage of Clinton included too much emphasis on her appearance, too many stereotypical words that appeared to put her down and dismiss a woman’s potential for leadership and too many snide references to her as cold or unlikable. When I pressed for details, the subject often boiled down to Dowd.So please, all you sexist troglodytes, no giggling at the end of that last paragraph! (Via Hot Air.) Turn And Face The Strange
By Ed Driscoll · June 21, 2008 12:10 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Memory Hole
Following up on our post featuring a strangely vegetating Lou Dobbs yesterday, here's Lou, then and now: (From Eyeblast.TV.) Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes!
Or, All The President's Vegetables (Margaret Thatcher could relate to that one); in any case, Lou Dobbs sounds like he's warming up to be an extra on Mystery Condiment Theater 3000. As John Hinderaker writes, "Dobbs has been a joke for quite a while now, but I think he's finally gone around the bend. Yesterday he urged that President Bush be impeached over salmonella in tomatoes." No, really!, as Dave Barry would say:
(Video found at Eyeblast.TV) Update: "Let’s ask the really important question: how can we impeach incompetent news anchors?" More: Hot Air-lanche--welcome readers of Michelle, Allahpundit and Capt. Ed! Given Hot Air's multimedia theme, click here to check out my various recent videos. "The New Yorker Is Just Figuring Out Olbermann Is A Lunatic"
By Ed Driscoll · June 19, 2008 09:10 PM · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Making of the President · The Return of the Primitive
Back in 2005, Howard Dean told the late Tim Russert, "I will use whatever position I have in order to root out hypocrisy." As the above clip illustrates, Dean's got his work cut out for him, particularly in his own party and its media. Over at NRO's Media Blog, Stephen Spruiell explores the New Yorker's recent profile of Keith Olbermann: I find it amusing that magazines like the New Yorker are just now figuring out that Olbermann is a lunatic. Alternatively, maybe they just found it harder to ignore once Olby started attacking Hillary Clinton with the same frothing intensity he usually reserved for Republicans. Here's Phil Griffin, the senior vice-president in charge of MSNBC, telling Boyer what that was like from his perspective:Meanwhile, as Larry Elder notes, "If 'The Media' Dislike Hillary, How Do They Feel About Those ----- Republicans?"But, just as Obama must work to win Clinton supporters for the fall campaign, Phil Griffin has to repair a fractured audience base, a portion of which saw sexism in his network’s Clinton coverage and vowed to boycott MSNBC. Griffin knows that some of that anger is aimed at his star anchor. “It was, like, you meet a guy and you fall in love with him, and he’s funny and he’s clever and he’s witty, and he’s all these great things,” Griffin said of the relationship between Olbermann and the Clinton supporters among his viewers. “And then you commit yourself to him, and he turns out to be a jerk and difficult and brutal. And that is how the Hillary viewers see him. It’s true. But I do think they’re going to come back. There’s nowhere else to go.”The New Yorker piece leaves you with the distinct impression that Griffin isn't just talking about Hillary supporters here. Olbermann's show is the only program on MSNBC that doesn't routinely get slaughtered by Fox News and CNN. Where else is Griffin going to go? Silicon Graffiti: When Waves Collide
By Ed Driscoll · June 18, 2008 12:00 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Ed TV · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Future and its Enemies · The Newspeak Dictionary
Recently, I linked to Jack Shafer's article in Slate, declaring Advantage: Michael Crichton: In 1993, novelist Michael Crichton riled the news business with a Wired magazine essay titled "Mediasaurus," in which he prophesied the death of the mass media—specifically the New York Times and the commercial networks. "Vanished, without a trace," he wrote.Ever since dreaming up the "Silicon Graffiti" series last year, I had wanted to do a segment on Alvin & Heidi Toffler's "Third Wave" thesis; particularly since I had taped their segment on C-Span's Booknotes program in 1995. As I attempt to illustrate in the above video, the clashing of a Second Wave, industrial-era institution like Big Media with the Blogosphere, a purely Third Wave phenomenon, is one of the reasons why Old Media are slowly going the way the dinosaurs (and this is but one of many death rattles). Fortunately, as I noted in an earlier segment, they've already built their own Jurassic Park! (And speaking of earlier segments, click here for older editions of the show.) "In Many Ways, He Really Will Be The First Woman President"
By Ed Driscoll · June 17, 2008 08:57 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Making of the President
Back in October of 2003, Howard Dean boldly went where no presidential candidate had gone before: Dean declared himself a "metrosexual," the buzz phrase for straight men in touch with their feminine sides, as he touted his accomplishments in "equal justice" for gay and lesbian couples.Perhaps it means this: "In many ways, he really will be the first woman president," Megan Beyer of Virginia, a charter member of Women for Obama, told reporters. An op-ed essay in The New York Post headlined "Bam: Our 1st Woman Prez?" came to a similar conclusion, if a tad more snidely: "Those shots of Barack and Michelle sitting with Oprah on stools had the feel of a smart, all-women talk panel."No wonder Hillary's narrative never gained traction in the Democratic primaries! (Incidentally, the author of the piece is feminist icon Susan Faludi. Was she a Hillary backer in the primaries? Because that's quite a poison pill she's dropped into Obama's lap if that "he really will be the first woman president" line she quotes goes viral in the general election.) Mann Bites Dog
Or Fox, to be specific--Keith Olbermann trashes Fox's entire Monday morning coverage of Tim Russert's death, because of remarks made (quite accurately, from our perspective) by one guest, Andrew Breitbart: The final segment included Breitbart as a guest. "He was the last of an old breed of journalists who came from the Democratic party who felt incumbent of them to be fair to both sides," he said of Russert, although acknowledging Russert was a liberal. Kilmeade and Breitbart discussed some possible options, and Breitbart called out Matthews and Olbermann by name for a "leftward lurch." Then, Breitbart described how Matthews brought up the Iraq war in his initial tribute to Russert, calling it "classless."This from a man whose entire Joe Pyne meets Howard Beale routine is built on whipping up a frenzy amongst a couple of hundred thousand hardcore lefties whose entire lives revolve around BDS. (And yet, sometimes even they see through Keith's shtick.) Andrew of course, runs the great Breitbart.com news aggregation site, and its affiliated Breitbart.tv video aggregation site (and full disclosure, we've met and interviewed all of the players there on several occasions). Between his affiliations with Matt Drudge and the Huffington Post, he's building the successors to a very shopworn legacy media. As Michael Crichton noted 15 years ago: The American media produce a product of very poor quality," he lectured. "Its information is not reliable, it has too much chrome and glitz, its doors rattle, it breaks down almost immediately, and it's sold without warranty. It's flashy but it's basically junk.Much more on that topic in a bit. Meanwhile, this: "Brokaw says he sometimes feels that he has been cast in the role of hall monitor at NBC News; if so, his charges have kept him busy." Heh. Remember when television news anchors weren't being compared to unruly high school brats? Yes, I can too, but it's a period of time increasingly in the rearview mirror. Replacing Tim Russert Tough Task For NBC News
By Ed Driscoll · June 17, 2008 12:32 PM · Oh, That Liberal Media!
No doubt, particularly given who the potential replacements are. In the last couple of years, NBC has really been letting its bias show, and of course, MSNBC makes no secret of its tilt. The near-simultaneous exits from the nightly news (admittedly for very different reasons) by Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and Dan Rather marked the effective end of the networks' evening news shows as any sort of cultural force. Similarly, you could make a pretty good case that Russert's death signals the end of the MSM having even a veneer of objectivity, bringing that eighty year experiment to its logical conclusion. Elsewhere, Jack Shafer explores the inevitable. Time To Walk This Story Back, MSM
As I wrote last week at the tail end of a post on Hillary's swan song: Meanwhile, Larry Johnson feverishly awaits The Doomsday Machine--I'm sure it's being assembled, deep underground in this long secluded vault.If you follow the links, it's obvious that Johnson is a man of the left, a Hillary campaign supporter, and as Michelle Malkin writes: Many readers are wondering why I have not written a single word about the rumored Michelle Obama “whitey” video.And these days, neither is much of the MSM, which is attempting to claim that the origin of Johnson's smear against Michelle Obama is not Johnson, but the conservative Blogosphere. So who's going to be the first in the legacy media to walk that one back? ABC News, Bob Beckel, Time, AP, The Guardian or the Gray Lady? Sure, That's What He Wants You To Think!
By Ed Driscoll · June 14, 2008 01:43 PM · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Making of the President · The Reich Stuff · War And Anti-War
Speaking of conspiracy junkies, here's one closer to home: Asked what he thinks of McCain, Vidal calls him a “disaster,” then tells Deborah Solomon, “Who started this rumor that he was a war hero? Where does that come from, aside from himself? About his suffering in the prison war camp?”All merely a part of the master plan by the "fascist government ...which controls the media." (And yet somehow, as the above interview with Deborah Solomon of the New York Times illustrates, it keeps quoting and publishing him without reprisal. Go figure.) |