A Media Meltdown?

Tech Central Station ^ | August 31, 2004 | Glenn Harlan Reynolds

[q_an_a]

like GM and Toyota- qualtiy verses muscle.

Freepers are showing the world what is quality by giving Blogs and Alernate media an audience. The truth shall set you free.

[AlexW]

It is no longer media bias.

The MSM, such as the NYT, NBC/CBS/ABC/PBS are now total shills for the left in this country.
There is no longer any point in talking about it.

The only way to complain is to ignore them along with their subscriptions and their advertisers.

[blanknoone]

Does anyone think that both sides of John Kerry's Vietnam service would be on display to voters if the Swifties didn't do the heavy lifting?

That is not quite a fair comparison because the swifties are the source, not researchers. What is extremely telling is that the media would not tell their story.

They held a press conference months ago trying to make their case. They were begging to be interviewed. They tried as hard as they could to make their case to in the legacy media, but they ran smack into a brick wall. And it was consistent across the media. They didn't get the time of day even from FOX News or the Wall St. Journal who so feared for their own 'objective' perception that they stuck to the liberal line.

That is why the Swifties did a double envelopment of the media. One flank was the long detailed side of their book. The other was the wide coverage bullet points of paid advertising. Only when the media was bypassed and even the Kerry campaign had to acknowledge it did the legacy media finally 'cover' it, but this a family friendly site so I won't say what they tried to cover it with.

[BurbankKarl]

Candy Crowley said that he was going to take on the SwiftBoaters directly, and was going to emphasize what he did for them (trying to get POWs released, and legislation on Agent Orange)

I noticed CNN have these microphones in front of their mikes, probably so they dont pick up the cussing in the control room again

[EQAndyBuzz]

"I haven't thought about this angle about why the media is being more partisan and shrill this election than usual.
They may want to slam all other news sources though laws a Kerry administration will get enacted."

The media, along with the rest of the poodle lovers see this as the OK corral. Everyone has put their eggs in this basket, knowing that a Bush win will put a crimp in their little enterprises. So they are going all out to see that Bush loses.

Two things will happen on November 3 that will change this nation with a Bush win.

1. The media will immediately change their presentation of the news, fearing that the Internet and regulations will put them all out of a job.

2. Countries like Iran, North Korea and Syria will come to the bargaining table to get a deal for getting rid of their WMD.

Bottom line friends, a Bush loss and this country may not recover. That scares me.

[lilylangtree]

Thanks!

[truthandlife]

I really can't believe they are going after Swift Boaters directly. This will just give them more exposure and this will be the issue Kerry will hang his whole presidential run on. While Kerry is taking on these guys then the Bush campaign will be hammering Kerry on his Senate record.

Kerry will be getting fire from front and back. It is incredible how bad this campaign is being run. It is quite entertaining and quite funny!

[spodefly]

BTTT

[Question_Assumptions]

This election will put the final nail in the coffin of the claim that the mainstream media has no liberal bias. It should be obvious to anyone but the most far-left partisan that the media is actively trying to help Kerry win at this point.

[Tom Bombadil]

a combination of laziness, bias, and complacency haunts reporting

Not to mention outright partisanship.

Blogs allow those of us without real analytical skills (myself included) access to people who are really, really, good.

We can at least tell the BS (major media stuff) from real analysis.

[Radix]

...why the media is being more partisan and shrill this election than usual.

I do not think that is the case here in Massachusetts. The media around here has been largely consistent over the years. I think that it seems so however to many because the liberalsm epidemic has certainly spread. As far as I am concerned we can thank the teachers unions and certain media types.

The growth of alternate news sources has seriously demonstrated the extraordinary subjectiveness that many so called journalists have been engaged in. They have been caught finally, and they can only wish that there will be a return to the good old days. There won't be.

The Internet is a revolution, and the media in many ways is freaking out about that. The music recording industry, the movie industry, and the news industry are suffering under a phenomenon commonly known as outsourcing. Perhaps there is a better term. It is in any case, largely due to their own incompetence and poor business plans. Other industries will inevitably also be impacted. I for one would like to get on board and ride this wave of the future.

Personally, I think it is good news, and FreeRepublic.com may suffer challenges, but in the end once the smoke clears, it (FR.com) will likely be a very powerful force to be reckoned with. Better days are coming once persons with influence come to recognize this. Hearts and minds will truly be changed because of rational discourse, and civilized debates, etc.

I have no sympathy for those who cannot see this obvious fact.

[robowombat]

The Washington Compost is notorious for this sort of rambling, poorly structured and confusing writing. Editorial control of the most basic sort is sadly lacking as anyone who has tried to make head or tale out of their reductive reporting can attest. In nation politics and coverage of such topics as the Pentagon they are wedded to a few story lines with easily identifiable villains and heroes and little hard data reported.For people who pride themselves on being 'nuanced and sophisticated' their reporting is opposite of either being cartoonish and simplistic and uninformative in the bargain.

[Wolfstar]

Good article, Courage. Thanks for posting it. FYI ping to you, Bob, for an excellent media critique.

[colorado tanker]

What ever happened to the tough as nails editors who rose through the ranks from the night police blotter and who demanded good writing from the reporters? They're all such prima donnas, but they write such crap.

[Jack Black]

great posting.
thanks.

[blue-duncan]

You still have to use the john.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Hey ... what am I going to wrap the fish in now that they don't make newspapers anymore?">

Oh, there'll still be newspapers---they'll just be a lot smaller, only have ads for local businesses, and report only local events. Still quite adequate for wrapping fish, though.

IT CAN'T HAPPEN TOO SOON TO PLEASE ME.

[Jim Noble]

The Left has never gotten over their high water mark in 1974.

Bcause they are vulgar Marxists, they believe in "progress" as an inexorable, inevitable thing.

George W has them realizing, for the first time in their lives, that the vision of the future that they, and their parents before them held as inevitable is in fact a mirage which will never happen.

And they don't like it one bit.

[LouisWu]

" FR could be fighting for its survival?"

The next time a Dem gets in the WH, (if not before), FR will indeed be fighting for it's very legal right to exist. Many are screaming that we must "PC" the net today. Don't you know that FR is "the most evil site on the net", according to DU members quoted here?

Right now all Kerry can do about dissent is whine and cry to President Bush to make them stop, but we will be in dire straits if he gets the power to do something on his own. Neither Kerry nor Hitlery will tolerate any dissent, we've seen their attitude more than once. As soon as they get the power to make it so, they will 'correct' this great, misleading, unfair practice of unporfessional, unlicensed (read: unsympathetic to the revolution) persons making 'uninformed' and 'unresponsible' comments about public policy.

Of course they'll do this for the greater good of the people.

We've already seen how a Clinton handles unrepentant dissent. More Wacos are not out of the question if that's what it takes to silence opposition.

[BartMan1]

Or as Hinderaker himself wrote: "A bunch of amateurs, no matter how smart and enthusiastic, could never outperform professional neurosurgeons, because they lack the specialized training and experience necessary for that field. But what qualifications, exactly, does it take to be a journalist? What can they do that we can't? Nothing. Generally speaking, they don't know any more about primary data and raw sources of information than we do-- often less. Their general knowledge is often inadequate. Their superior resources should allow them to carry out investigations far beyond what we amateurs can do. But the reality is that the mainstream media rarely use those resources. Too many journalists are bored, biased and lazy." The press has been in the tank for Kerry to a degree that is, I think, without precedent in recent history. But it's now, as another law professor/blogger, Ann Althouse, notes, beginning to change its tune: "The media are looking ahead and imagining how the history of the 2004 presidential campaign will read and how their performance will measure up."

Really devastating take on MSM. I like TCS more and more.