Have something to say? I don't care (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

Los Angeles Times ^ | January 2, 2007 | Joel Stein

[Cheburashka]

A piece of work that stands on its own, without explanation or defense, takes on its own power.
---
Dear Mr. Stein:

I think I can safely say that nothing you have ever written, are writing, or ever will write has, is, or will ever take on a power of its own. Ever.

This is why you are writing for a media that is destined to be thrown in the trash the next morning. If you're lucky.

Choke, Turn Purple, and Die,

Cheburashka

[Milhous]

Do you realize that this whinging little crybaby rant had to be approved by a room full of editors? They are all feeling like this....what a wonderful start to the New Year!

Thank you very much for sharing your schadenfreude enhancing insight enabling me to imagine a chorus of impotent wannabe gatekeepers sitting around singing the blues.

---

Gn 22:17 your descendants shall take possession of the gates of their enemies

Anyone With A Modem Can Report On The World
...[Hillary Clinton] said, "We're all going to have to rethink how we deal with the Internet. As exciting as these new developments are, there are a number of serious issues without any kind of editing function or gatekeeping function."

Independence From the Press Rocks the Gatekeeper's World
... the idea of the press as the great adjudicator has also been knocked down. ...
To say, “I don’t think newspapers can be the gatekeepers anymore,” as James O’Shea did, is to recognize an historic shift in the politics of information. It’s the sort of thing that can leave you stunned, angry, confused and depressed, if you have always thought of yourself as keeper of the gate. ...

Newspaper sale$ decline should be blamed on the Journos
...People who work at journalism full time ought to be able to do a better job of it than people for whom it is a hobby. But that's not going to happen as long as we "professional" journalists ignore stories we don't like and try to hide our mistakes. We think of ourselves as "gatekeepers." But there is not much future in being a gatekeeper when the walls are down.

Study: Web is the No. 1 media - 06/06/2006

[ishabibble]

Wonderful post. I am bookmarking it for Mr. X, as he and I just had lunch and I told him about Joel's little hissy fit.
My dear Mr. X laughed and said, "PINCH me, I'm dreaming!".

[Cheburashka]

Do you realize that this whinging little crybaby rant had to be approved by a room full of editors? They are all feeling like this....what a wonderful start to the New Year!
---
Maybe that new guy from the Tribune Company Home Office should be looking at Joel for a place to cut costs. Fire him and all the editors who allowed this fart in the face of the readers and the future of the industry (assuming there is a future) to be printed.

[Billthedrill]

I'm an arrogant, solipsistic, attention-needy freak who pretends to have an opinion about everything.

Well, I certainly wouldn't argue with that. It is a bit humorous to hear a journalist proclaim that his twenty minutes of research makes him an expert on any subject - I've heard the same from actors and believe it just as little.

But "work"? Joel, I hate to have to break it to you but a gassy opinion column in the LA Times isn't exactly War And Peace. Sometimes the folks most in need of a little correction are the last to know it.

You want to know what's really bothering typewriter-boy here? It's that anyone with an Internet account can do precisely what he does and that not a few of us do it better. I'm hoping he sticks to his sinecure behind a desk because it doesn't sound like he could cut it out here on the Wild Wild Web.

Or maybe he's just lonely. I have a great idea - let's all send Joel an email to show him how much we care. He says he doesn't read them but he's lying, and his quote up top verifies it.

[philman_36]

Another one for you...
Outside Voices: Samuel Freedman On The Difference Between The Amateur And The Pro
Instead of providing the ultimate marketplace of ideas, however, cable TV and the Internet have become the ultimate amen corner, where nobody ever need encounter an opinion, much less a fact, that runs counter to what he or she already believes. To treat an amateur as equally credible as a professional, to congratulate the wannabe with the title “journalist,” is only to further erode the line between raw material and finished product. For those people who believe that editorial gate-keeping is a form of censorship, if not mind control, then I suppose the absence of any mediating intelligence is considered a good thing.

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” ("Who shall watch the watchers themselves?")

[Milhous]

Thanks.

"Who shall watch the watchers themselves?"

We the people shall watch watchers with cell phone cameras in hand.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[ReleaseTheHounds]

Hey, Mr. Stein: The genie is out of the bottle thanks to the internet. Viewers and readers no longer have to accept your abuse. We can dispatch with your garbage point of view with the click of a mouse. And we can talk back. More importantly, we can dig into your columns and detect your bias and untruths. The genie is not going back into the bottle. MSM: RIP.

[Doctor Raoul]

What can put journalists in a funk is when their work -- sometimes under tough or dangerous conditions -- is constantly second-guessed or not appreciated by readers.

Hahahahaha.....

It's funny how REPORTERS never cut their subjects any slack under the same conditions. So from now on, it's not that the reporters are wrong, I say they lied. If it's good enough for Bush, it's good enough for these bastards.

[Doctor Raoul]

Los Angeles Times Readers' Representative Office
E-mail: readers.rep@latimes.com
Telephone message line: (877) 554-4000
Fax: (213) 237-3535

[Milhous]

Speaking of usenet a fair number of big media "celebrities" act like r/l trolls desperately craving yet another spanking from Middle America.

Too many trolls
not enough time...
Left wing trolls
get in line!

[Doctor Raoul]

[MovementConservative]

Joel Stein is a sanctimonius bed-wetter.

Perhaps, but that column is pretty clearly tongue in cheek.

[an amused spectator]

It is pretty amusing from a journalistic standpoint.

However, when Joel sarcastically writes "First of all, I did a tiny bit of research for my column, so I'm already familiar with your brilliant argument", the time comes to mind when I busted a famous writer for an incorrect factoid (directly related to his specialty, and the subject of the column) in his nationally released article.

He emailed me back with the news that the editor of the Times who he was working with basically stuck the incorrect line in his opinion piece (for effect, I guess).

Maybe Joel has total editorial control - or maybe he's in single-A ball, journalistically speaking. ;-)

[GOPJ]

It seems that Mr Stein has no interest in hearing what I have to say. Fair enough. I can't force him to listen to me, and I don't even want to.

Too bad the rest of us can't treat Mr. Stein with the same "respect".

Car designers could give Mr. Stein a car they would like to drive, computer programmers could give him a computer system they, and only they, could use - superior but much too difficult for a mere journalist.

There's lots of us who would like to ignore our customers ... it's easier. Easier except that, like the MSM, we'd go out of business...

[Grampa Dave]

The photo below and the quote are from this Girlie Metro Sexual Woosie:

"That guy behind me? Totally gay for me. Hell, I'd be too. In case you stumbled here by accident, I'm the guy who loves porn and hates America!"

[Texas Songwriter]

Shadenfreude is so much better when a bedwetter is feeling sorry for himself. This guy is a cheap-shot artist who is loosing his forum and does not know what to do.