OPEN LETTER TO THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA: We are NOT Amateurs and we are going to kick your butts.

[Pukin Dog]

Open Letter to the Main Stream Media: We are not amateurs and we are going to kick your butts.

We have watched you for years try to tell us how to think, what to think, who to vote for and what to believe based solely on your own agenda. In past years, you have come to think of yourselves as the fourth branch of government, the movers and shapers of opinion and the arbiters of truth.

In case you have not been watching, America is sick and tired of you. We are turning away from you in record numbers. Your audience and readership is declining faster than you can say the word 'bias', and instead of recognizing the trend, you have only become further entrenched and determined to force society to play by your rules.

Technology has allowed us to ignore you, and in many cases, replace you altogether. I grew up watching Walter Cronkite every night, not yet aware of his agenda, his bias and his overwhelming desire to turn the nation against its leaders unless they agreed with him. I saw him replaced by the most dishonest, agenda-driven anchorman this nation has ever produced. That Dan Rather is one of you should be enough to make you feel dirty.

You believe yourselves to be solely qualified to pontificate on the day-to-day events going on around the world as if journalism school gives you a special insight into the truth. When I was in college, people went to J-school only if they flunked out of business school and did not want to become teachers.

Well guess what?

The world is on to you.

Persons with knowledge and experience are not only ignoring you, but replacing you as sources of information. These sources, which don't need anything but their personal experiences and skills when sharing information with the public; persons who have spent more time learning and doing than you ever will, are generally more accurate and informative than you know how to be.

The Internet and Blogosphere would scare you, if you were smart enough or honest enough to know better.

People with practical knowledge and experience discussing current and historical events with more ability than you, are sharing more factual and in-depth information, and at a rate which you could never compete. We are relegating many of you to overpaid gossip mongers, while you don't want to acknowledge that we are eating your lunch.

You take polls, trying to convince us of what people are thinking as you have always done, but now, knowledgeable people are analyzing your methodology, your weighing and sampling and pointing out if your polls are to be believed. You can no longer expect what you say to be taken for gospel, because we are no longer amateurs about information. Someone, somewhere on a little web site is going to smoke you out, report your biases, and make you less believable than you once were. Count on it.

You can tell us that Swift Boat Veterans for truth are liars, and NOBODY is going to believe you just because you say it. Have you checked the Non Fiction Best Sellers lists lately? But even then, we know enough now to notice when book sales are based on giveaways, fund-raisers, pre-orders and the like, to notice when you want to push sales of your favorite liberal author when their book sheds no light, tells no truth, shares no facts, but only advances what you want us all to think about you and yours. We are not buying it anymore.

I'm writing this, because I know you are watching. Just as you watched last week when one of us 'amateurs' beat you at your own game. It happens here all the time. Free Republic is not a group of 'amateurs' or nutcases, as you like to think of us. This board is a slice of America, filled with people from all walks of life, whose cumulative knowledge dwarfs that of you and your 'hired experts'. I was offended to read your reaction to people here and at the Blogs who shared what started here regarding your fraudulent flunky Dan Rather, and his attempt to pass off what was clearly a forged document as legitimate news.

You attempted to deride us, not take us seriously, dismiss us as partisans (which is apparently only a bad thing if one is conservative) and generally ignore the wealth of information we passed along to the public about one of yours trying to pull the wool over our eyes. We nailed Dan Rather, not you, and you can't stand it.

Last week, you tried to suggest that Republicans booed Bill Clinton after Bush wished him well. We caught you. We got in your face and made you take it back, because you lied. Don't you hate that? We Internet-based losers made you back down, when you felt totally free to mislead the nation about the behavior of some you don't agree with.

It is only going to get worse for you.

You can no longer tell us anything, and expect to be believed without question. You can no longer mix your agendas into your 'news' and expect to get away with it. We may not catch you every time, but eventually we will, and then many of you are going to have to get real jobs. And when you do, you are going to need more than the ability to mislead, lie, slander and ignore people who don't agree with you. In the future, expect for Blogs like Instapundit and others to be on you like a fly on stink when you attempt to mislead us.

Yesterday, you attempted to paint the young LT. Bush as a poor pilot, because he attempted multiple landings a few times while flying a training jet. Stories like this are the reason why Network News has lost half of its audience over the last 10 years. Could not one of you pampered info-princes figure out that a military pilot WANTS to practice landings as much has he/she possibly can? I guess not, when you are blinded by ideology to the degree that any information you receive can only be interpreted in the negative.

You want to call Bush AWOL, but you don't want to talk about his hundreds of flying hours in a jet that has killed lesser aviators, you only want to discuss what furthers your agenda, because you know that when Democrats win, YOU are in charge. You don't want to talk about our President's Master's Degree from Harvard while at the same time Al Gore could not hack Divinity school.

Don't you wish you could regulate us? We know you spend your nights praying to the gods of the Fairness Doctrine, hoping to silence us. Sorry, but we are here, and we are not going anywhere. Too bad we can't say the same for you. It is you who is being silenced as your audience is paying more attention to us, and tuning you OUT. Fox News is in 50 million fewer homes, but they managed to beat you silly during the Republican Convention. How did that happen? US; that's how. Because of us, the Internet, the Blogosphere, Talk Radio and others, the nation no longer see you as the gatekeepers of information.

Take a lesson MSM, though it hurts, try a little fairness. Give balance a shot, and stop being a mouthpiece for the liberal agenda. Pretend if you must, that Conservatives are not Neanderthals long enough to get through a news segment. I know it must hurt to not be able to prove your superiority to us in all that you do and say, but try it.

Finally, just embrace the horror, folks. You might actually learn something from us merry bands of 'amateur' journalists. You see, we don't have an audience to please. We don't have to sell ad-space, or get face-lifts to keep our jobs. That leaves us free to share information on the subjects we might know a little something about without angering our liberal masters. On Free Republic, you can at times find as many threads angry at Republicans as you can Democrats. We don't have to hire experts, if we don't know something, we can ask a fellow FReeper or use Google, much faster than you can pay someone to tell you what you want to hear.

On Free Republic alone, there are experts in many fields. We have writers, poets, engineers, aviators, artists, journalists, (they keep that on the down-low), lawyers, historians, teachers, politicians, current and former members of all branches of the military; all who actually know what they are talking about without having a script (or DNC talking points) shoved in their face.

The choice is yours, MSM. You can join us in working to share information with a hungry audience, or you can be replaced. We don't need Nielson, just a web site and an idea. Instead of insulting the remainder of your dwindling viewers, readers and listeners, why don't you just agree to cut the crap, stop the parroting of the NY Times long enough to do your own work, and finally decide to become REAL journalists again.

I'm not saying we are journalists; we have jobs and careers beyond 'he-said-she-said'. We do like to share what we know, and we don't even get it right every time. However, the truth is in the numbers. We have them and they are growing, while yours are shrinking more rapidly every day. If you don't change your ways and soon, you are going to become irrelevant before this decade is over. Many of you already are. We only tune in to 'Petah' Jennings to watch him bravely strain to keep his composure whenever he has to report a Democrat election defeat. On a good night Chris Matthews total viewership barely equals the number of viewers on the Oxygen network.

The trends are in our favor. If you don't wise up, we will kick your agenda-driven ass.

I'm Pukin Dog.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Fantastic. I should share the letters I got from Seth Borenstein, the Knight Ridder writer who passed on the bogus story about the "booing" in Milwaukee. The AP hasn't given me the courtesy of an answer yet -- and I'm not holding my breath. Neither has the original author returned my phone call.

The essence of Seth Borenstein's answer was that he made an "honest" mistake and corrected it later. To my righteous indignation (I was at the event standing about 10 feet in front of the President) he said that there is a difference in relying upon the word of a single person vs. relying on an old time news organization such as the AP. Barf!

And he made some cheap shots against some "internet group that likes to criticize the press." He went on to say that inclusion of the "booing" incident was just an attempt to balance his assertion that Kerry had announced Clinton's hospitalization and that the audience had applauded.

borenstein said he just picked up a "nugget" from the AP. In other words, he did not double check his source, which he should have. The very statement should have caused his antennae to go up; and he should have checked it further, but he relied on the AP. He was writing from Washington on the medical aspects of the story -- the "booing" part was non-essential and didn't even belong in the story, even if it had been true.

[Rome2000]

Our first great victory will be the downfall of Dan Rather.

If not for the fact that I have crossed paths with OJ twice and his poor son once in the last year I would be more optimistic.

OJ was talking up a brunette sitting next to me about "dinner in Coral Gables".

These people stick together.

[Pukin Dog]

Honored to get a song from you, buddy.

[WVNan]

Duh....forgot to post the e-mail.

When the printing press was invented and the Bible became readily available, the priests could no longer hold control over the people. When the old media (newspapers, radio, TV) came into being, it controlled and shaped what news people received. The invention of the computer (thank you Al Gore) has caused a seismic shift in the way the ordinary citizen accesses the news. The old media has buried its head in the sand and refused to recognize that it is no longer relevant. Lately I am amazed at the lack of knowledge exhibited by the talking heads. The question that reporters need to answer is this: Who is more likely to dig up the truth of a subject, one reporter or thousands of reporters from around the world? It's a new world that can't be hoodwinked by spin. Long live the bloggers.

[xzins]

Did you see that condescending main stream media puke on Tony Snow sits in for Oreilly last night?

He just kept up this grin throughout the words of a blog spokesperson.

His grin told me all I needed to know. He thought the world was stupid and he was the source of all knowledge.

Tony was weak last night, imho.

[afraidfortherepublic]

...tonight on Fox Media Watch, Jim Pinkerton pointed out...

Oh goody! I'll catch the re-run tomorrow AM.

[mass55th]

Here's the letter I sent to Fox News tonight:

Eric:

On your program tonight, Neal Gabler suggested that perhaps Dan Rather & CBS were trying to be fair, and provide equal time to counter the coverage allowed for the Swift Vets. Would you please ask Neal, if Rather & CBS are trying to be fair, why then in 1997, they found it newsworthy to attack Colonel David Hackworth over the medals he had listed on his website, yet they've totally ignored the allegations from the Swift Boat Vets regarding the medals that John Kerry earned? Why is it that the media was so willing to believe the second and third-hand tales of war atrocities from John Kerry in April of 1971? They accepted those tales as truth, despite the fact that Kerry never served with any of the men whose stories he told. Yet the press has refused to even consider the possibility that the Swift Vets, many of whom served within feet and yards of John Kerry on a daily basis, might be telling the truth?

The main stream media creates the lies, spreads them as truths, and perpetuates those lies. Dan Rather & CBS are prime examples of this. The public is fed up with the hypocritical, biased coverage presented as news today. They're also tired of today's journalists arbitrarily deciding which stories will be investigated & reported, and whose record will and won't be scrutinized.

George W. Bush signed Form 180 to release all his military records to the public. John Kerry refuses to sign Form 180. You tell me which man has something to hide.

And here's Dan Rather crying on David Letterman after he learns he's been terminated:

[The Doctor]

"If you don’t wise up, we will kick your agenda-driven ass. "

Correction: asses

[zot]

Right ON ! Your excellent essay is the voice of the new media speaking truth to the old media. The old media is dying because it is locked into liberal lies. The new media is living and growing and flourishing because it is free to speak the truth.

[Paladin2]

Exactly - It's Free News.

[RJL]

Well said!

[Budge]

Perfect analogy, CBB!

[ThreePuttinDude]

bump

[Pukin Dog]

Excellent.

[slimer]

Memo to CBS, 60 Minutes and Dan Rather:

You're doing a fantastic job! Keep up the good work. Don't give in to a bunch of Radicals. Igore all the opposition and throttle on full steam ahead. There are a lot of folks counting on you so hang in there. Move towards the light.

Watch out for that oncoming FReight train!

[Missouri]

That was my Daddy's war. He's gone now

Sorry to hear that. I'm lucky that my both my father (Navy, convoy duty) and uncle (2nd Armour), both WW2 vets are still around. Both despise the liberal democrats and the MSM. They are often fascinated with my stories about the goings on here on the Free Republic.

Help is on the way I tell them.

[microgood]

Persons with knowledge and experience are not only ignoring you, but replacing you as sources of information.

They just become one of many and their past and biases are exposed by all as they present an article. Instead of being the only source, they are marginalized and have to compete not only with the other two, but cable, the world media, the experts at FR, and the Net, all which can be reached with the click of a mouse. That is why FR is so addictive.

The era of three views of the world are over.

I do miss the kind of family part of gathering together at the end of the day and thinking: what happened today. Now its instantaneous and makes us all kind of neurotic.

Great post.

[savedbygrace]

This exercise has led Team Kerry to one important corrollary conclusion. They now know for absolute certain beyond any doubt that they never, ever want to sign the 180 to release all the documents.

We've proven to them that we will examine those docs with the finest of tooth combs (wait a minute, those are supposed to be combs with the finest teeth, not tooth combs) and find every error and fraudulent jot and tittle in them.

No, there is no way Kerry signs a 180 now.

[Bahbah]

I loved this so much that it made me cry.

[Brad’s Gramma]

EXCELLENT rant, Pukin Dog. Most excellent. I'm standing tall, right next to you.