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

Posted on 09/11/2004 7:26:18 PM PDT by Pukin Dog

Edited on 09/11/2004 9:23:55 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: bias; blogs; cbs; cronkite; danrather; davidosborne; documents; fake; forged; larryking; lies; media; mediabias; mediawingofthednc; msm; napalminthemorning; pukindogrocks; rathergate
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To: Pukin Dog; sweetliberty; Mo1; TheLion; TheBattman; Travelgirl

WOW!! WTG PD!


61 posted on 09/11/2004 7:39:58 PM PDT by Budge (<><)
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To: Pukin Dog
Pretty good vet. I'll tell you what I've been hearing more and more. "I don't watch the news anymore" except for Fox.

Now, these are not close companions, they are just ordinary people who I converse with in the course of my work.

62 posted on 09/11/2004 7:40:07 PM PDT by Sacajaweau (God Bless Our Troops!!)
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To: Pukin Dog

Excellent!


63 posted on 09/11/2004 7:40:15 PM PDT by PhilipFreneau
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To: Pukin Dog

You tell 'em bub!

They are scared to death but like the junkie, just can't stop.


64 posted on 09/11/2004 7:40:27 PM PDT by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: Pukin Dog

Great piece. Thanks for writing it.

Pukin Dog bump.


65 posted on 09/11/2004 7:40:34 PM PDT by michaelt
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Comment #66 Removed by Moderator

To: Pukin Dog

Thanks,that was good. :)


67 posted on 09/11/2004 7:41:06 PM PDT by Free Trapper (Terrorism is the Black Heart of Islam,not the fringe!)
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To: Pukin Dog

BTTT


68 posted on 09/11/2004 7:41:30 PM PDT by spodefly (I've posted nothing but BTTT over 1000 times!!!)
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To: Pukin Dog
OK (no comment)

Rails pass, Pukin Dog. Or as our Air Force brothers would say, "Shack!"

69 posted on 09/11/2004 7:41:30 PM PDT by Natty Bumppo@frontier.net (Navy Air!)
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To: Pukin Dog

FR and the blogosphere are bringing the wonders of decentralized decision making to the media.

Before, a few organizations could control the media as an oligopoly. They may not have been a monopoly per se, but with the same political views and emersed in the same culture the result was almost the same. But now there are hundreds of independent decision makers judging stories.

These new newshounds are every bit as bound by their own biases as the old guard, but there are so many of them, approaching the news from every possible angle, that in the end the decision to cover a story centers around its objective value.

This, BTW, is also, basically, why capitalism is a superior economic system to socialism.


70 posted on 09/11/2004 7:41:36 PM PDT by swilhelm73 (There is no safety for honest men but by believing all possible evil of evil men. --Burke)
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To: Pukin Dog
Very good! You expressed my sentiments to a T. I don't think they're going to read it, and if they do, they'll arrogantly smirk at it. So.....

Let's kick their ASSES!!!!!!

71 posted on 09/11/2004 7:41:44 PM PDT by Alas Babylon!
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To: Pukin Dog
Bump for a good rant...

Do we hae to report what we're wearing?.....OK I'm not wearin' anything. What? Yes dear..I'd like another glass of scotch.

72 posted on 09/11/2004 7:41:54 PM PDT by Drango (What's the Font, Kenneth")
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To: Ciexyz
I am. I try to catch it whenever it is on.
73 posted on 09/11/2004 7:41:55 PM PDT by Pukin Dog (Sans Reproache)
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To: Peach
This is the media's last chance. Truly, with the exception of a few people who are in their 70's, I don't know anyone who gets their news from Old Media. They are so yesterday.

Back off there matey. I'm in my 70's and have been aware of the MSM bias since Cronkite.

74 posted on 09/11/2004 7:42:03 PM PDT by Don Corleone (Leave the gun..take the cannoli)
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To: tiki

I think that "Fox News Watch" was filmed just as the W Guard Forgery story was impacting. It looked to be filmed maybe Thurs or Fri.


75 posted on 09/11/2004 7:42:08 PM PDT by zzen01
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To: safisoft
No, no, we are amateurs. That's why the trees don't hinder us from seeing the forest. We are not jaded by ego, self aggrandizement or self importance and it is still the love of the game, not the prestige of the position that keeps us in our pajamas making sure the facts correspond with reality, truth. We are amateurs, really.
76 posted on 09/11/2004 7:42:10 PM PDT by blue-duncan
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To: Pukin Dog

"We have writers, poets, engineers, aviators, artists, journalists(they keep that on the down-low), historians, teachers, politicians, current and former members of all services of the military"

Let's not forget us Filmmakers! Yes a conservative filmmaker, We are around! lol!!

Great Post Dog!!!


77 posted on 09/11/2004 7:42:12 PM PDT by lionstar
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To: Pukin Dog

Huzzah! You just made Zell Miller smile!

Way to go Pukin Dog!


78 posted on 09/11/2004 7:42:23 PM PDT by mylife (The roar of the masses could be farts)
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To: Pukin Dog
Excellent rant Pukin Dog. They are on their last legs and we're kicking them out from under them faster than they can manuver. Their only chance is to become real journalists and report the facts, just the fact, like journalists USED to do.

Frankly, there is nothing I enjoy more then reading a well written article crafted by a real wordsmith. Other than Styne, I haven't seen one of those in a long, long time.

79 posted on 09/11/2004 7:42:45 PM PDT by McGavin999 (If Kerry can't deal with the "Republican Attack Machine" how is he going to deal with Al Qaeda)
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To: Pukin Dog

Man, you do an excellent job of "just venting." This is an OUTSTANDING editorial, Pukin Dog. I'm going to read it several times (and pass it along to friends) because it just feels so darned good to see the words we all know are true being expressed so well.

(Is the "I'm Pukin Dog" the tag for your television standup?)


80 posted on 09/11/2004 7:43:25 PM PDT by arasina (So there.)
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