Posted on 02/10/2005 6:41:22 AM PST by pissant
"CHRIS MATTHEWS looked at you like you were Grover Norquist," a very senior Democrat operative commented on my appearance at Matthews' weekend show. During the segment where Matthews asks his panel to tell them something he doesn't know, I predicted a breakout this week into mainstream media of the controversy surrounding Eason Jordan's statements about the U.S. military "targeting" journalists in Iraq made at Davos on January 27. My friend meant to convey that Matthews thought I shared with Grover a "not to be trusted," hostile disposition towards big media. In fact, all I had was a habit of reading the blogs.
Matthews hadn't heard of the Eason Jordan story, which meant he hadn't been reading the blogs the previous three days, as they had been debating the Jordan charges since Tuesday, February 1. Jim Geraghty was the first of the big bloggers to point to Rony Abovitz's account of the Jordan remarks, posted from Davos on January 28. I broadcast the same day on the subject, and there have probably been a thousand blog posts on the matter in the week and a half since. The folks paying attention are spread out across the political spectrum, from Jay Rosen, Jeff Jarvis, and Mickey Kaus on the left to all the usual suspects on the right, where Michelle Malkin and LaShawn Barber merit special recognition for pushing the story forward.
But on Friday, when we taped the Matthews show, Chris didn't know anything about it, and apparently neither did Howard Fineman, nor Katrina Vanden Heuvel, nor Sam Donaldson. But the story was still somewhat young.
On Monday, I was part of a panel put together by Campaigns & Elections Magazine on blogging's impact on campaigns. The panel before us had been moderated by CNN's Judy Woodruff. One of my co-panelists, Jon Lauck of South Dakota Politics asked Woodruff in the hallway outside of the meeting room what she thought of the story. "When I talked with Woodruff, she did seem simply stunned that Jordan could have said something like he did." Her reaction is similar to most of the reactions of those present at Davos, but again, the striking thing is she hadn't heard of the story. Of course, Woodruff works for CNN.
I hadn't considered the possibility that big names in journalism simply wouldn't be reading the blogs. For one thing, the blogs are interesting--whether left, right, or center. More to the point, they are news engines, carrying advance word of brewing stories. By Wednesday, February 9, Eason Jordan's slander on the military was the subject of a FoxNews Roundtable on Special Report with Brit Hume, and had birthed its own blog, Easongate. Anyone admitting to not being up on the story by the following Monday was admitting to a lassitude about the news that calls into question both their work habits and news judgment.
Because of a big stonewall from the Davos bureaucrats, the videotape of the Jordan remarks has not been released. To a certain extent it doesn't matter, as Jordan has already been branded a nut because of remarks he made to a different gathering of media types in the fall of 2004. As quoted in The Guardian on November 19, he remarked: "Actions speak louder than words. The reality is that at least 10 journalists have been killed by the US military, and according to reports I believe to be true journalists have been arrested and tortured by US forces."
What does matter is if mainstream media "journalists" continue to wall themselves off from the new media information flows. Increasingly, the blogs are ahead of the old news cycle, and not just because they aren't slaves to ideological bias. They are simply more nimble, and more quick to the market with interesting facts.
Eason Jordan's verbal pratfall resembles nothing so much as Senator Trent Lott's fall from his Majority Leadership job in December of 2002. The blogs kept those remarks alive long enough for the mainstream media to take note, and they will in this instance as well. How hard will the mainstream media have to get slapped by its own ineptitude before it even notices it is getting slapped? It has been two years since the Lott controversy, and Rathergate and other blog-driven stories have transpired in the interim. What's it going to take to wake up the Rip van Winkles inside the Beltway?
In an interview I did with Larry Kudlow on Tuesday night, I was not surprised to hear that Larry begins his morning by surveying the blogs he likes best. Kudlow has himself begun blogging. Kudlow is light years ahead of his colleagues in cable land, and his program is smart and lively as a result. The difference in quality is beginning to show, and before long it will be obvious who is working at staying informed, and who isn't.
Doesn't Hugh know that nothing really happens until the MSM mediot maggots discuss it on tv, on the radio or in their print, NY Slimes, WashCompost, LA Slimes, Newsweak or Chicago Tribune.
So, since the MSM mediot maggots haven't discussed Jordan's vile remarks nor printed them, it didn't happen.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1340226/posts
Web has changed the shape of 'reporting' (Free Republic)
Baltimore Sun ^ | February 10, 2005 | Abigail Tucker and Stephen Kiehl
Posted on 02/10/2005 6:28:27 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
"I don't like O'Malley and I am no Dumbocrat / Caligulite. Still, methinks you should validate stuff like this before you post it."
So wrote "Sartorius" on Aug. 13, 2004. The participant in a discussion board on FreeRepublic.com was responding to an explosive posting that Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley was having an extramarital affair.
It turns out that even Web posters themselves question the publishing power the Internet grants anyone with a modem.
Sartorius's skepticism proved salient: Another person posting about the topic was revealed this week to be Joseph Steffen, a longtime political operative for O'Malley's political rival, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.
That story, and Steffen's resignation, broke in the mainstream media. But it highlights how Web sites - with their freewheeling rumors and rants - increasingly are forcing more traditional news institutions to write articles that otherwise wouldn't see the light of day.
Rumors of O'Malley's alleged infidelity have long circulated in Baltimore but were not printed in such daily newspapers as The Sun or The Washington Post. It took postings on the Free Republic site, based in Fresno, Calif., to bring that gossip into the local papers of public record, as part of the story of a state official's resignation for helping to spread such chatter.
Free Republic, a conservative discussion site, was also among the Web sites that took the lead in casting aspersions on a now-discredited 60 Minutes report on President Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service. Ultimately, CBS was forced to investigate its own story and fire key staff members for failing to adequately verify information before airing it.
Sweet...........
Bumpola.
^
Chris,actually stopped talking, momentarily stunned. He actually seemed a little pleased though, he obviously didn't know.
Bless your heart for posting this! It's important in illustrating the arrogance of Chris Matthews, and the incompetence of his staff, that they didn't jump on this story. But of course they wouldn't. The mainstream media always protects one of their own.
Joe Scarborough had it right last night. He said a cancer is growing at CNN.
I tuned Scarborough out a year ago for his Bush bashing. Is he trying to re-hitch his wagon to the Prez again?
The only thing Joe Scarborough is trying to do is turn himself into a superstar. Even got a radio show now...YIKES!
With Joe, you know he periodically pleases both sides. He will criticize Bush one night, then go after a Democrat the next. He wants us to think he's a straight shooter....I personally think he's a John McCain wannabee....and he's working hard to promote himself into that realm. But even McCain doesn't lay claim to an entire "country", all his own. .
That's a great cartoon.
It is a classic, and it was first printed when Rather et al were exposed as liars.
A blog by itself - worldwide accessibility notwithstanding - doesn't burn through the fog and into the national consciousness. It takes a publicity medium with a great address to do that - and that is what talk radio provides.Easongate, like Rathergate, is a story whose butt is a journalist. And like Rathergate, it would be buried by the "go along and get along" world of big journalism if not for the rise of conservative media which is essentially journalism about journalism.
Because of the foundational premise of liberalism - that NOTHING actually matters but PR - picking a flame war with someone else who "buys ink by the carload" is taboo among establishment journalists. Rush and the rest of talk radio touch that "third rail" and live to talk about it because they do not claim to be objective. Claim to be objective and touch that rail, and you are dead as a journalist. All the rest of journalism will descend on you. They descend on Rush, but he's immune. He's immune because all the journalists can do is declare that Rush isn't objective, but rather is an avowed conservative - and his audience knows that already.
please keep this thread up and running. I'm glad Eason Jordan is getting his due, CNN too, Judy Woodruff, and Chris Matthews, but more than that, this article aptly describes why the alphabets and print mainstream media are no longer trusted, and well on their way to total irrelevance.
Another "lightbulb" moment for me came when I realized the arrogance and almost unspoken collusion that existed between CNN honcho Jordan and those in attendance at Davos. He assumed his, (dare I say "traitorous"), remarks about our military would be accepted. He assumed he would be safe from criticism when he made such an explosive, unverified claim. And he didn't think his Davos audience would question or doubt his assertion.
And...let's not make the mistake of allowing the mainstream media to escape criticism on this by suddenly labeling Jordan as a loose cannon. He's not. He's the epitome of them.
Thanks for the heads up. This is, indeed, good news. You and I both recall Mr. Hewitt making his prediction on Chrissy's show. Chrissy looked stunned.
okay why are people dissing Joe, I expect that from Ward Churchill but not Freepers?!?
please people Bush is not infallible, he and his administration do make actual mistakes worthy of comment and concern........
Nothing wrong about giving both sides a fair hearing huh, objectivity remember and really Joe still stacks the deck in favour of conservatives and Republicans please......
Excuse me this is the same board that isn't happy with Bush's stand on illegal immgration and illegal immigration in general which is one of Joe's legitimate beefs vs GW......
and Joe's got a problem with the way people Republicans and Democrats spend money down there in Washington DC
hello fiscal conservatism is a good thing, yes Bush had a first term with trying economic circumstances so he can be cut some slack but the pork barrel from both sides of the aisle is still stinking up Capitol Hill to high heaven.....
Joe S had the election pegged 100 per cent right months before anyone else, so I think Joe does know a few things about red staters
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