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.
His ignorance implies we exist because he writes professionally. The really ironic stupidity is that his "journalistic legwork" is just a poor regurgetation of our statements here on the FREE REPUBLIC. He has no original thought as a journalist except this personal self-discovery that his demise as a professional "journalist" is imminent. Wow what a load of self-absorbed hot air.
It is far better to comment from a distance from the stench, where the air is clean and the commentary is unfettered.
And, don't forget, we get to wear our pajamas.
"Moreover- while I enjoy editorials that agree with my thinking- I make it a point to SEEK pieces that I don't agree with. It sharpens my mind, keeps me from getting one-dimensional and helps me understand why I believe as I do on a variety of topics. "
Yes, my approach exactly. I have found this to be an extremely valuable exercise throughout my life. Without this approach I would never have been confronted by the fact that Jesus Christ claimed to be God, just for one example.
Poor,pathetic, previousely sequestered and pampered, proffessional MSM prostitutes for the liberal left, whether US, Canadaian or elsewhere. Punks, all. They really strutted in regal arrogance, when those with opposing views, had no vent for their frustration except for kicking the picture tubes out of their TeeVee screens.
Rather, Brokaw and Jennings, felt not a whit of pain from the destruction of those TeeVee screens, while the frustrationees, were forced to buy a replacement, and as soon as the new teevee came into focus, there was those same three liberal sonovabitches, spewing the same old liberal sh*t, that caused the untimely demise of the previous Teevee.
Thanks to the internet, we the once speechless and frustrated viewers, can express our on views, as well as often scooping the mighty MSM on major events, and the competition is giving the MSM and their Divas of both genders, the vapors.
Truth has at last found a detour around the barracades set up by the MSM, and the bulldozers are enroute to destroy the barricade, completely. You blew our trust, MSM, and insulted the memory of our fore bears who thought you could be trusted in the first place.
Best line in the whinefest!! Must be out of cheese in Canada after this!
Pray for W and Our Troops
There are exactly three types of columnists at the Toronto Star: leftist, far-leftist, and insanely leftist. Guess which category Zerbisas falls into.
A "professional" writer simply means that they work and get paid doing that.
In every discipline, there are far more educated and experienced members here at Free Republic and blogland. These "jounalism" creeps in the MSM do not understand that there is an army of highly intelligent people with specialities in many disciplines who write and comment on the crucial issues, and do a mighty fine job of ripping to shreds the news stories the liberal arts grads with experience in nothing publish.
And the stereotype of hideously ugly women being knee-jerk leftists goes unchallenged...
Actually, The Toronto Star is more of an NDP mouthpiece. The Liberal party is still too wishy-washy for them.
We don't all want to see the MSM gone. It's funny how one quote off an internet forum can be used to characterize all "bloggers"--and remember that FR is not even a blog. This is just another example of mainstream media screwing up a story.
The real story is that the MSM is made up of arrogant elites who can't take any criticism. They treat businessmen and politicians with extreme scrutiny, but if you want to turn half of that same scrutiny back on them, they accuse you of trying to destroy this country's free press.
Haha bub, firing my guns in the air right now!
snicker
Those which fail to get broadcasting careers are nonetheless successfully brainwashed by their professors, and become far-left media "critics" like Zerbisas. Noam Chomsky is worshipped like a god in journalism and communication departments.
Old Zerbisias just doesn't get it ~ what's with these arrogant, patronizing, snobs. *sigh*
Well said.
This paragraph gives me an idea, a way for JimRob to collect more revenue:
"I think you may not understand or appreciate the pleasure we take when our typos and misspellings are pointed out. To us this indicates that we amateurs who do not have the support of proof-readers, fact-checkers, and style books do a better job of getting the news out than you professionals."
The idea is that JimRob could set up a subscription service where someone checks the grammar, spelling and basic sense of posts and sends them back to the poster with recommended changes prior to posting, just like the editorial services of a major newspaper. Anyone who posts with obvious misspellings and poor grammar could be pinged in a friendly manner, suggesting that they subscribe to this service for their next posting. This could be "hugh".
Thank you for making us laugh here at Pajamadeen HQ. Cute column.
However, we both know that you and your incompetent cohorts need to be checking and confirming ALL the real "news" with the FR network from now on...
So WARNING: Do not attempt to adjust the news. We are controlling the truth. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical...
From now on sit quietly at your PC at the Toronto Star, and we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... FREE REPUBLIC!
I think mediots fear the fact that we are everywhere not just at home. Some of us have FR during working hours (its good to be the king).
Their once a week or once a day articles are always seconds away from being discredited and exposed as opinions based on DNC talking points.
Almost 200,000 Freepers.
The Dan Rather story about President Bush's National Guard service was not an "accident" due to checks and balances failing. The story was intended to be a journalistic cruise missile aimed directly at the President to influence the outcome of an election. It was done on purpose with purpose. This is not an accident. The checks and balances did not fail. They were not used.
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