You know, that is not surprising. Even a cursory glance of this article reveals the author to be, how shall I say it, a bit light in the loafers.
The author of this stupid article is a woman
ANTONIA ZERBISIAS
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.
NONE of the aforementioned typists have the intelligence,wit,talent,humor and class that the vast majority of FreeRepublic members have.
I say let's all keep our mouths shut, continue to let the MSM lie to us. Just close your minds and say "I believe" no matter what they tell us. Don't ever do any research, don't try to get to the truth, don't try to check both sides of the story to get to the truth, just believe what you're told, get your marching orders and get out there and be true DIMocrats.
Dearest Antonia:
There seems to be some confusion on your part as to which of us are the parasites and which are the host.
Can the public survive without you? Absolutely. Most of us already do.
Can you survive without the public? Not as a journalist, baby. So who's the real parasite here?
The host has decided that it's high time for a good worming. Some of us have volunteered to act as antibiotics. Hope that helps you to "get it".
This statement is too un-nuanced.
You're exactly right. Few reporters today have a CLUE what "legwork" really is........
"Teetotally moteetaly," so.
We're our own checks and balances... no matter how long you've been at this, you can't get away with pushing BS, because one of the thousands of others who read FR will call you on it.
So if they're analyzing checks and balances, we have them all. The Old Media has yet to prove that they have any checks and balances at all. What's to stop, for example, a fabricated political hit on the President a month out from the election? As we can see, whatever checks and balances allegedly exist in the MSM are - to put it politely - woefully inadequate.
No doubt, unread copies of the Tornonto Star. She's just upset that fewer and fewer people are reading the bilge she herself and the Toronto Star spew out. In view of all those unread newspapers in her kitchen, apparently she doesn't even want to read it herself.
Cordially,
"A search of this guy's previous writing shows a lot of his articles pushing the gay agenda:"
You know, that is not surprising. Even a cursory glance of this article reveals the author to be, how shall I say it, a bit light in the loafers.
Yes, I was also offended by the "firing up at us" bit.
Someone thinks a bit too much of herself, don't she? I'd say it was time to bring her down a peg or two, but we'd have to lift her up first.
OUT-Freepin'-standing letter! Kudos!
It's tough to be a liberal. Even tougher to be a liberal in Toronto. Must feel like a flacid earth worm.
*standing ovation*
You know, that is not surprising. Even a cursory glance of this article reveals the author to be, how shall I say it, a bit light in the loafers.
The author of this stupid article is a woman
ANTONIA ZERBISIAS
Just damn.
If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...
Bump
The way I see it the MSM don't get it yet. LOL!
Yo! Antonio Biasasses! you're looking right at it but dont seem to see.
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