Former Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle, appearing on some cable show called “Morning Joe” with Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart, had the following to say about candidate gaffes:
What about this theory, Jonathan, about, you know, the Auschwitz-Buchenwald flap, whatever, John McCain’s misspeaking in Iraq. Shiite, Sunni. What about the theory that we in the news media have taken ourselves so seriously, because of this 24-hour news cycle that we’re all involved in, that we don’t give enough credit for people being over-tired, exhausted, campaigning 20 hours a day, misspeakingâ€â€including Senator Clinton at times misspeakingâ€â€and then we jump all over them. And then these nitwits at home with their computers, these bloggers, who [snorts] think they’re part of the news media, can then accuse us of being soft on this candidate or that candidate. Just a theory.
I didn’t see this exchange, but read about it at NewsBusters, which is relevant for two reasons. First, one wonders if Barnicle knows he is appearing on a show that gets lower ratings than CNBC’s reruns of “Deal or No Deal,” and that MSNBC gets lower ratings than the Sci-Fi Channel (which is arguably more realistic).ÂÂ
Second, NewsBusters — like many political blogs — really focus on criticizing the news media, not aspiring to be part of it, other than to improve it. I see bloggers on cable news shows from time to time, but generally on FNC and CNN — networks people actually watch. That Mike Barnicle, serial fabricator and plagarist, still has any establishment media gigs is really a prime example of why most Americans continue to say that journalists are often inaccurate, are biased, one-sided and try to cover up their mistakes.ÂÂ
Indeed, Howie Kurtz reports today that some top NBC journalists say privately they are troubled by the taint of MSNBC. When those in a profession that is routinely ranked alongside used car salesmen in trustworthiness worry they may be tainted, perhaps it is time for arrrogant, lying, thieving morons like Mike Barnicle to be shown the door.
Update: Allah-lanche!
Sci-Fi has better original series, too.
by the taint of MSNBC
I threw up a little in my mouth when I read that.
But Karl he’s a journalist and so his opinion is just better than ours. It’s science.
Barnicle is a clown, a Kennedy apologist and Clinton cabana boy who writes like his street cred and tough no nonsense whatevers make him Studs Terkel squared. In reality, he is the hackiest of partisan leftist elitist hacks whose ego allows him to make crap up and then pretend that his credibility isn’t somewhere just north of Mike Nifong and Steven Glass.
Other than that, he’s OK.
by the taint of MSNBC
Ewwwww. Just ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
The taint … it smells like … OLBERMANN!!!
Wrong, BJ. The Olberman is what gets smeared on the taint when you do not wipe properly after a 5-alarm burrito for lunch.
I’m sensing a certain hostility towards Keith, JD! :-(
And the nominees in the category for “Best Appropriate Repeated Usage of the Word Taint in a Blog Post” are…
If “a certain hostility” equals the white hot hatred of 10,000 supernovas, then, yeah.
Funny how the nitwits at home on their computers manage to make fools out of Professional Journalists (a self cancelling phrase if there evar was one)by exposing their mendoucheousness and incompetence daily.
I mean really. If the military was as incompetent as the MSM in doing its job, Osama Bin Laden would be having Prayer Calls blasted out on the Speakers of the White House Mosque 5 times a day by now.
[…] Karl and the ‘Busters are indignant, sufficiently so that I’m guessing this will be of some interest to our readers, but I honestly couldn’t care less. I don’t mind being reminded that I’m not “part of the news media”; I happily concede the point, if by “news media” he means reporters. (If he means we’re not part of the media at all, how’d the Obama/Auschwitz thing end up on MSNBC’s plate?) What he misunderstands is that blogger antagonism towards the press, at least among the blogs I read, has always been less about “elevating” blogs to parity with journalists than denying that most journalists operate on some elevated plain to begin with. That’s why the sharpest criticism is usually reserved for especially egregious examples of hauteur, in which some tool congratulates himself for his influence (”the deciders”) or speaks in purple prose about the secular priesthood of which he’s a member. No one I know would claim that he could do John Burns’s job, but oddly enough, it’s rare that you’ll find anyone of Burns’s stature worrying about bloggers. It’s usually guys like this, convinced that he’s operating at some intellectual depth that would crush the average lowly nitwit chained to the computer in his mother’s basement. Follow the link to Karl’s post and revisit some of his career lowlights to see just how deep that depth is. […]
Uh, Morning Joe is a cable show hosted by former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough. He hardly needs lessons in conservative bona fides from bloggers like “Karl.” He was part of the Gingrich Revolution and spends his show backing Hillary and playing Reverend Wright clips, just like Rush.
As for Barnicle, I doubt he needs to take lessons in ethics from people Brent Bozelle and the dolts who run the Media Research Center, aka Newsbusters.
You just don’t understand, it’s good media to report on GOP gaffes and mistakes like spelling potato wrong. It’s cheap underhanded amateurism to report on Democrats doing so.
Hey, it’s Earl Warren / Thurgood Marshall / Winston Smith / timmah / timb / IJS / asshat of the day !!!!!!!
Thurgood – Barnicle has proven to have no ethics, so taking lessons in ethics from practically anyone would improve his standing.
Barnicle could take ethics lessons from Hedley Lamarr.
JD,
The troll has more alisases than facts (and more aliases than you listed). Shocka.
For the humor-challenged, I know who Joe is. And how tiny his audience is. And those baselessly attacking Bozell’s ethics might want to consider their potential liability for libel after implying he’s worse than a guy who got fired from the Globe for ethics reasons. The ’96 Telecom act immunizes the site, not the commenter.
I think Allah has a great take on this, basically “yeah bloggers are minor and silly… but so are journalists, you pompous dork.”
Karl – One can change their name, but the preening arrogant pompous mendacious holier-than-thou attitude always leaks right through.
sure Barnicle is a liar and plagiarist, but if you can make heads or tails of that graf, then youre better than me.
Adama/Six ’08
It changes in the middle. You can actually watch his brain fail.
He starts out with a self/Obama-serving lie-by-rhetorical-question, querying to the heavens whether journalists, by covering politicians’ (by which he means Obama’s) “gaffes,” are being insensitive to them (him) and their (his) noble daily struggle. Sensing the transparency of this, he grafts a mention of Hillary onto his spin. But because he identifies so intensely and personally with Obama, whose current struggle is against Hillary, conjuring her image makes his gears slip. The pack-animal underbrain fires up, and aims its rage outward–or as outward as a journalist can conceive: to critics of journalism. The id speaks: politicians and journalists are in the shit together, and you pussies back home don’t get it, man, so shut the fuck up.
“Just a theory.”
I wondered once why media outlets don’t audit or fact-check each other and keep each other in line, but then I realized that it’s a game of musical chairs among the various stations or newspapers or whatnot.
Here in my little market, the local news anchors and weathermen hop around the dial like fleas on a hot griddle. I guess if you work for CBS and you take NBC to task for screwing up, you can forget being offered a juicy post at NBC when you’re tired of CBS, etc.
That plus the fact that it’s the ultimate insider club, and the first rule of the insider club is that you don’t criticize the insider club.
Hence the need for the intartubes. Someone’s gotta watch the watchers.
That and they’re generally quite ignorant people. It’s hard for them to fact-check others when they really don’t have any way to discerning BS from reality.
Hence the need for the intartubes. Someone’s gotta watch the watchers.
…and we’re just the nitwits to do it!
Mike Barnicle? I think this is more appropriate and descriptive:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnacle
[…] Protein Wisdom – Barnicle Mike blasts bloggers on some cable show [Karl] […]
That and they’re generally quite ignorant people.
Puh-leeze. They went to J-school. They know the True Narrative. All else is irrelevant.
And what do they learn in j-school? It must be DNC sponsored chairs teaching about how to announce one’s objectivity while lying through your teeth. They learn how to write stories, to report on someone else who is actually doing something, and somehow that gives them the undeserved air of knowledge and intellect. They are the jocksniffers of the non-sports world.
Since learning how to write a news item is a 3 credit class I honestly am not sure what else they work on. Certainly ethics is not high on the list.
So, uh, this might not be a good time to admit that I’m a reporter, huh?
[backs away slowly]
Yes, but their original movies, how can we put this delicately; “toad the
wet sprocket”
Dude! Don’t ask, DON’T TELL!
I was a Journo major. If I remember correctly – I was a bartender during undergrad, thus much is a blur- you had to take the intro courses from every school. For balance, you know.
Are you a reporter or a journalist? Do you subscribe to the journalistic credo that “Your right to know supersedes your right to exist”?
If you’re a reporter, then you’re OK. It’s just when you start to believe the “journalist” mythology that I start to worry.
Barnacle Bill the Sailor? I think I heard a song about him once…
I’ve never referred to myself as a journalist. I didn’t go to j-school, either. So I’ve got that going for me.
Sean M – We need more like you and mcgruder permeating the ranks of journalists.
[…] threshold have to do with how far it’s already spread? This was my point about Mike Barnicle, fabricator and plagiarist, calling bloggers nitwits: I don’t mind being condescended to, but good lord, at least earn […]