Posted on 11/25/2004 7:52:43 AM PST by HighWheeler
Hoo-boy. It's a hot time in the old blogtown.
The pajamahadeen are firing their virtual bullets into the cyber-air in celebration of CBS anchor Dan Rather's announcement on Tuesday that he was retiring as the top talking face of the network after 24 years.
"This has been a simply outstanding month," crowed a poster on http://www.freerepublic.com. "Bush won, Arafat died, we're kicking ass in Fallujah, and now this!"
Typically, the above-quoted "Freeper" didn't get that Rather may be down, but he certainly isn't out. When he steps down as front man for The CBS Evening News on March 9, he will stay on as correspondent for the still much-watched 60 Minutes, as well as perform other assignments.
So it was a bit premature to be celebrating the defeat of the veteran journalist who has inspired anti-liberal websites such as http://www.RatherBiased.com and http://www.BoycottCBS.com, not to mention Doonesbury's ridiculous foreign correspondent Roland Hedley Jr., an R.E.M. hit and "Rather-gate."
As comic Jon Stewart recently pointed out, last September's 60 Minutes II fiasco, which had Rather questioning President George W. Bush's National Guard service with documents that could not be authenticated, was the only scandal of the election campaign to have merited a "-gate."
Which brings us to those pajamahadeen, the online brigades who claim credit for bringing those documents into question — and forcing Rather to apologize for his reporting.
The right-wing bloggers proudly dubbed themselves that — a play on muhajadeen, as in Muslim guerrilla fighters — when former CBS exec Jonathan Klein, in the wake of the scandal, complained to Fox News that "bloggers have no checks and balances.
"You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances (on network news) and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing."
By checks and balances, Klein meant the rigours of professional journalism — and not the opinionating of the blogosphere.
Ironically, bloggers mostly feed off the work of professional journalists who do the legwork. But, like parasites too stupid to realize they are killing off their hosts, the pajamahadeen don't get it every time they dig more dirt for our mass grave.
"Network news is dying and good riddence (sic)!" jubilated one of them yesterday.
It's true that journalism's checks and balances have been known to fail. When they do, news organizations crash and burn in spectacular fashion. But, much like the thousands of airplanes that land safely every day and don't make the news, major disasters are few and far between.
Still, the credibility of the corporate media continues to plummet.
In March, the Washington-based Project for Excellence in Journalism published The State of the News Media 2004, which documents an increase in superficiality and sensationalism, the declining reach of newspapers and network newscasts, cutbacks in newsroom resources and, most significantly, rising public distrust and disdain for our reportage.
Then, in June, the Canadian Media Research Consortium, a national project led by three University-based organizations to promote research on the media, (http://www.cmrcccrm.ca) came out with its Report Card On Canadian News Media. While it showed that Canadians are significantly more positive about our news sources than Americans are, citizens here believe that "powerful people or organizations" have too much influence on the media agenda.
One thing is clear from both studies: The shift from mainstream media to alternate sources such as the ethnic press, cable networks and the Internet, are threatening the future of the solid, stolid mainstream journalism.
And we don't know how to deal with it. Recently, for example, the news came from the U.K. that staid old papers are going tabloid, while the Washington Post will lighten up — all to attract elusive younger readers.
As for the newscasts of the type that Rather hosts, well, one look at the commercials for arthritis pills will tell you plenty about their demographics.
Paradoxically, young people are crowding into journalism schools, many of them in search of network TV stardom.
Still, the pajamahadeen are waging war on the mainstream media.
That includes the paper you're reading, even if you're not reading it on paper, since it is the actually selling of this paper which pays for the content you may now be reading gratis.
By the end of today, who knows how many bloggers will have had at this column? Many of them often shoot me down — and some do a pretty good job. (See letitbleed.blogs.com)
But, just like trigger happy celebrants in the Middle East, who have yet to figure out that what goes up must come down, they can't see that, by firing up at us, they will also kill themselves.
Historically they were the Lib party mouthpiece but you are probably correct. There has been a leftward drift over the years. I don't read it that closely to know all their stands on everything these days. I would be surprised however if they endorsed the NDP during the last election. That party had little or no chance in winning.
Heheheh good one! What was that show this was from?
Actually we see that quite clearly. Killing old media is the whole point. If FREEPING and blogging dies because it killed the Old Media, well, yippee! The world would be a better place. It would be kind of a Sunset clause for a movement.
But this makes sense. Had old media not abrogated its responsibility to report facts; had it not adopted the neutering and socializing of America as its agenda while pretending to be neutral, there would be no burning need for blogging and FREEPING. We're here because old media has turned into a cancer that threatens to destroy our country. So I for one will shed no tears when the cancer dies, even if blogging dies with it.
The original Outer Limits from the 60s.
Well, that's the way it worked for the first fifty years of TV news. That's the way TV news would like to see the next 500 years work. We have always been at war with . . .
Ooohh....BIT - TER
thanks.
Terrific thread...What a place...Time to donate to FR again...
Happy Thanksgiving
"The right-wing bloggers proudly dubbed themselves that — a play on muhajadeen, as in Muslim guerrilla fighters — when former CBS exec Jonathan Klein, in the wake of the scandal, complained to Fox News that "bloggers have no checks and balances." Note to the fool Klein: and where are the checks and balances on Dan Blather when he cites forged, obviously forged documents to attack a president then defends the forgeries when exposed? Klein doesn't want internal checks on his propagandists but he wants checks on those trying to check the propagandists through external sourcing. Typical commie tactic, if you asked me!
Nor did he mention that a Canadian FReeper (grig) busted the Liberal Party on using subliminal messages in their campaign advertising.
Whatta schmuck.
There will always be another warthog coming down the trail. Definitly not quaking in my slippers.
Antonia, do you hear us now?
I'd be stuned if it weren't.
Chalk it up to lightheadedness, I was singin' all morning.
Thanks. I do understand what professional means, I hope you understood my post.
The pajamahadeen doesn't dig the dirt for your mass grave - you dig it yourself, we just bury you with what you've shoveled up...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now, that's a GOOD JOKE!
This author, and that Klein fellow, completely miss the point. Checks and Balances? The Pajamahadeed are checked and balanced by millions of people. These MSM are cloistered in their ivory tower, and seek out news that will support thair agenda. There is no real check and balance, the MSM are owned by a handful of interested parties checked only by clever legalese.
you got that right. amazing how often of late the MSM is just that- late
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