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.
An observation I've shared before, but IMHO, what sets FR apart is the real-time, interactive nature of news dissection that takes place here. I truly feel that this is the future of news reporting and analysis.
To explain a bit.....
Someone posts a thread from AP, UPI, Reuters, wherever....and immediately, you get feedback/analysis from a housewife in Des Moines, an engineer in Boston, a lawyer in Chicago, a hunting guide in Alaska, a former military pilot in Raleigh, a GI in Iraq, a professor in California, a programmer in Dallas; you get the idea. Almost instantly. What the retired general may miss in the story, a sharp-eyed interior designer in Atlanta catches. What some "expert" feeds the news outlet, our own collection of experts rips apart and reassembles.
It never ceases to amaze me the collection of talent on FR. I've been on this site for six years, and have yet to see a topic here that has stumped our rather amazing set of brainpower scattered about the globe. By the way, the international nature of this site is often overlooked; we have regulars and visitors from literally every corner of the planet.
It's this real-time, highly interactive analysis that truly sets us apart and scares the hell out of the MSM, I believe. They can't stand up to such close scrutiny, for their biases and inaccuracies are suddenly illuminated under numerous, very bright spotlights by sites like this.
....and there isn't a damned thing they can do about it.
Agree with entire post - you said it so well. The old method of "news" has become tainted and it is time to reassert some integrity into the methods of delivery so that we never fall into the hack mentality again ever.
The internet can succeed if allowed to flourish and as future writers become even more adept at research and questioning and curiosity.
You write: "....and there isn't a damned thing they can do about it."
My concern is that because of its accurately perceived success:
.... the United Nations, and certainly segments of the global governmental bureaucracy will do everything they can to seize control of the flow of information to the public....
fresh, innovative, researched, argued, up-front NEWS and INFORMATION.
We must protect the innocence and vitality of what we have, never to release its spontenaity to a controlling group, and in order to do this, we must ever strive to keep the internet and what we produce, always a quality product, with a goal of the highest standard.
That was awesome! What you say is 100 percent on the money. I rarely watch the news on tv. When I do, it's my local Fox affiliate.
"Monday Morning Media Madness" BTTT
Very well put. This is our challenge and goal.
Vent anytime you like. Job well done.
God Damn that was beautiful.....lol
BOOKMARKED
Well well....this thread may make history PD. Aside from the Texas Termite thread, this one is beginning to be the LONGEST running thread. You seem to have touched a nerve. I keep coming back to catch up. I've read every response so far. I made a hard copy of your "rant" to keep for posterity. I have a box full so my great-grandchildren will have access to real history if the controllers manage to shut us down. .......I'm not paranoid.....I'm not paranoid...
...thanks for the heads-up, Curtis. ;^)
Monday morning bump!
Bumping and pinging PD's challenge to the lying MSM.
I love it! Feel free to vent anytime :)
For so long the main stream media held an advantage, (an unfair advantage) over all broadcasting and abused their position of prominence in American life. It is with a real sense of betrayal that a lot of Americans turned from the MSM contrived view of events and ideas, wanton disregard for the terms of fair play and from their basic lack of respect for American citizens and voters everywhere. The loss to them is, I think, irreversible. No one can EVER accept their word for anything. It's like the old saying,..."If a cat sits on a hot stove and gets burned, he will never sit another hot stove again...or a cold one either." It's the NET for NEWS from here on!!!! TV news is passe! (actually, TV is passe!)
I'll join the chorus of "Great Rant"!
Golly, just a couple of weeks ago, some Lib quote (I think it was copied over from DU) described FReepers as "Young, sad and self-loathing"...we had a lot of fun with that on the thread.
Now we are all pajama-wearing middle-aged men?
I'm more of a nightgown, terry robe and fluffy slippers girl, myself. :-)
Keep up the great work, FR!
Well done Pukin, an OK 3 wire, your integrity watch starts in five minutes.
Nice!
About 150 years ago, the Snakeoil Salesmen could make a living off ignorance. History nailed them, and now it is time for the laimstream press.
BTW, Freepers who type in their PJ's do so because they can afford to.
Is there any other? lol!
Thank you, and thanks to everyone else who liked the rant. I really appreciate all the comments.
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