Posted on 03/15/2009 10:03:55 AM PDT by Zakeet
Pseudo-conservative Kathleen Parker’s ongoing method of getting her columns published in the Washington Post – bashing conservatives – took another sleazy turn on Sunday, with Parker asserting in the Post that conservatives who accuse the media of a liberal bias are "non-journalists" who stoking "ignorance," like Rush Limbaugh (not to mention groups like the Media Research Center.)
The biggest challenge facing America's struggling newspaper industry may not be the high cost of newsprint or lost ad revenue, but ignorance stoked by drive-by punditry.Yes, Dittoheads, you heard it right.
Drive-by pundits, to spin off of Rush Limbaugh's "drive-by media," are non-journalists who have been demonizing the media for the past 20 years or so and who blame the current news crisis on bias.
That would seem to be a direct slap at MRC, who could be accused by a liberal of "demonizing the media for the past 20 years or so" (founded in 1987). Could there be a better way for Parker to bow and scrape before her syndicators at the Washington Post Company than to decry that American newspapers are the lifeblood of democracy, and they’re being unfairly maligned by ignorant and unprofessional hooligans?
Frankly, the idea that "drive-by pundits" who decry liberal bias are "non-journalists" is simply not true in many cases. Start with Bernard Goldberg, a long-time veteran of CBS. (I’m not a "non-journalist." I’m a journalist who writes about journalism. Just because the Washington Post wouldn’t hire me doesn’t mean I’m not a journalist.)
Then, there’s simply the flawed logic that a "non-journalist" can’t criticize the journalist. If a plumber came into your home to a fix a leak and instead flooded the place, could the plumber argue "non-plumbers" have too much "ignorance" to complain?
She makes a lame feint to the idea that "there is some room for media criticism" and yes, some newspapers are liberal, but the charges of conservative media critics are comical:
Constant criticism of the "elite media" is comical to most reporters, whose paychecks wouldn't cover Limbaugh's annual dry cleaning bill. The truly elite media are the people most Americans have never heard of -- the daily-grind reporters who turn out for city council and school board meetings. Or the investigative teams who chase leads for months to expose abuse or corruption.These are the champions of the industry, not the food-fighters on TV or the grenade throwers on radio. Or the bloggers (with a few exceptions), who may be excellent critics and fact-checkers, but who rely on newspapers to provide their material.
As others have noted, the Internet can't quickly enough fill the void created by lost newspapers. In time, some markets simply won't have a town crier -- and then who will go to all those meetings where news is made? What will people not know? In such a vacuum, gossip rules the mob.
That is simply a cartoon, a mudslinging campaign commercial script that could be paid for by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Clearly, the average talk-radio host doesn't make Limbaugh money, just like the average newspaper reporter doesn't make Katie Couric money. You don't dismiss the overwhelming evidence of liberal media bias by trying to distract people by talking salaries, that somehow, newspaper reporters are heroes because they helped install Obama while they made a five-figure salary.
The column is titled "Frayed Thread in a Free Society." Parker’s not a conservative. Because a conservative would argue the opposite: that liberal newspapers are a threat to a free society, not conservative media critics. Liberal newspapers are the ones who wanted to make America safe for terrorist suspects. Liberal newspapers are the ones whose coverage of Iraq screamed that they wanted America to fail. Liberal newspapers are fully behind turning America into just another European-style no-growth socialist republic.
If Parker wants to fly her liberal flag and claim that only the "ignorant" believe in consistent liberal bias, then why doesn't she actually address the evidence, instead of just throwing bombs?
Kathleen Parker should look in the mirror and see just who is the "drive-by pundit."
Got any good cookie recipes Kathy? How about a column on how you keep your died hair so nice and bouncy? Something you know something about.
... and also our local liberal rag the PostIntelligencer (which is an oxymoron right there) - complaining that there’s nobody to buy it ... no evil corrupt corporation isn’t coming to their rescue ...(they’ve constantly ragged on them) ....
Ms Parker, Ms Noonan dead to me
Not conservative.
Freedom always annoys busybodies, tyrants, control freaks and collectivists.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” — C. S. Lewis
If there was something in the newspaper besides the comics page worth looking at, I’d might buy....but the newspapers don’t give much that’s really news...even if it’s not biased, the news cycle is too slow. I’m certainly not buying a paper for its op/ed page.
Lots of times I get more info about local events from the freebee weekly papers.
Between the slowness, the bias, and the fact I have other options, I haven’t really been into newspapers for years. It doesn’t have much of anything to do with ditto-headness.
It has to do they are selling a product that doesn’t meet my needs.
The college educated journalists were all inspired by Woodward and Bernstein to believe that they could shape public opinion and events through agenda driven coverage of the issues.
Let’s see.... there has been a full-thottle demonization of a good portion of the American public and what they hold dear, for 40 years or so—and it keeps getting worse.
The same people provide aid and comfort to our internal and external enemies. They champion values that range from the questionable to the repugnant to the unthinkable.
And then if anyone objects, they are “ignorant”—just like that. If that does not shut someone up—if they supply facts, then they are termed “extremists”, or”haters” or “jingoists” or “Islamophobes” or “racists”. There is never any validity to any criticism of these media people or whatever scumbags they suck up to.
This toxic woman needs to join the rest of them swirling down the crapper......Buh-Bye!
If you get it wrong, deliberately distort the information or editorialize the story....what's the point?
Sell your elitist, self-important agenda elsewhere.
Kathleen Parker was ignorant enough to spend her parents’ hard-earned money on a worthless degree in Journalism, so I would certainly not value her opinion.
She will soon be collecting her unemployment, along with other Journalism majors.
This is what happens when people feel their occupation is losing importance.
In earlier times, Kathleen would have destroyed the looms.
Obama knee-pad gal.
Now this makes my day! Another squeal from an airhead! Music, I tell you!
“Kathleen Parker: There are a lot of ignorant people on Free Republic who are destroying newspapers.”
Is this a recent photo? I have to say she has a nice mouth...
She is in survival mode.
As she sees newspapers shutting down and laying off staff she wants to continue receiving a paycheck for her syndicated column. Since she knows that liberal editors will cancel the more conservative columnists first, she’s just trying to stay viable by taking the backstabbing RINO position.
DITTOES TO THAT!!
“Kathleen Parker: There are a lot of ignorant people on Free Republic who are destroying newspapers.”
For the first - and probably last - time I say:
God bless ignorant people!
ping
Puhleese, lady, when have they done that sort of investigations about Obama's multiple lies or the liberal RATs in Congress who pass costly laws without even a read? Answer: Like never!
yes!
the j-schools began in the 1960’s when the u.s. congress decided to expand public education for the masses.
remnants of the communist left and the then emerging new left took over the j-schools.
the j-schools are often islands in universities. they have their own requirements,
ignoring math, the sciences, latin, classical greek, rigorous history and english classes, economics etc. thus, they escape discipline.
in sum, sending your kid to a j-school substitutes a bowl of leftist mush for a real education.
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