From Dan Collins at Bloody Scott:
Wednesday afternoon, driving home from teaching, I was treated to Daniel Schorr’s reconstruction of the lies, in his opinion, and hewing closely to the progressive narrative, that led us into the quagmire in Iraq. He urges Mr. Bush to use the Easter break to reflect on these lies and their consequences.
The problem with his tidy narrative is that it hinges on the “sixteen words” from the State of the Union address, and deliberately, it would seem, misinterprets them by claiming that Bush said that the Iraqis had bought uranium from Niger, rather than sought it (which is what he said), according to British intelligence. Patterico has an excellent piece up on this, linked from here.
Now, Daniel Schorr has always been a sententious partisan hack, but as the Dean of the American radio news scene–NPR is the closest thing that the US has to BBC radio–he ought to be able to suss out the difference. The state of affairs is such, though, that progressives don’t care about the differences between what they report and what happens, as long as they can disseminate their narrative, which has been getting more polished by the week, that “proves” the mendacity of BushCo. And because that narrative both posits and demonstrates that BushCo. is EVIL, they have no obligation to extend any kind of honesty towards the subjects.
Some things transcend simple facts, Dan. Like the service of a greater Truth.
Which is ironic only in that the premier enablers for such an advocacy worldview—one that holds to ends justifying the means—is the very “estate” we’ve set up in this country to provide us with the ability to derive truth from events reported with an eye toward objectivity.
But of course, that supposed “neutral” or “objective” facade is now simply used as cover for pointed advocacy—nearly all of it coming from the “progressive” camp. Which, as I’ve noted before, is why you don’t find news organizations calling for an open acknowledgment of biases (though these same sources loudly deride the biases of “right wing radio” or “Faux News”). After all, to engage in that kind of intellectual honesty would require two capitulations that progressives are loath to make: 1) surrendering the assumed moral authority that goes along with being ostensibly “objective”; and 2) allowing the free market to decide how news is delivered and assimilated by the public.
Personally, I’ve always advocated for a journalism where biases are out in the open. Such a dynamic would, in my opinion, serve to force journalists to adhere more closely to the facts, or else risk being ridiculed for their attempts to finesse facts to fit into a narrative that they believe serves a greater purpose. Which is to say, “Truthiness” would be more easily hamstrung by open competition.
Instead, what we have is a legacy media that is still largely assumed to be “neutral,” and then a parasitic blogosphere acting as both adversary and supporter of said legacy media—sometimes with success, sometimes not. Because what has sprung up from this new media dynamic is the left-wing advocacy site whose primary function, it seems to me, is to attempt to undermine the credibility of those who presume to question the prevailing “progressive” narrative—one that is generally supported and furthered by the “neutral” media. Which explains why so much of leftwing blog posting is dedicated to “watching” rightwing sites, personally attacking the administrators and commenters of those sites, and rebutting the claims of self-styled media fact checkers (here I am reminded of the lengths many on the left went to to place a certain kind of specialized typeset machine in TANG offices to protect Dan Rather and Mary Mapes).
So the dynamic still heavily favors the ideological position of the mainstream press, and the inroads made by cyber media critics in the early days of the blogosphere have been mitigated some by the pushback from well-organized mainstream media allies on the left—some of whom have even developed email lists and talking point sheets to launch coordinated memetic countermeasures against opposition positions.
Having the news media advertise its ideological positions would be one step toward allowing the marketplace to decide how news is disseminated—and for that matter, what “news” actually is.
Critics of this kind of free-market approach to information dissemination argue that selection bias will simply polarize the polity even moreso than it already is, but I think the force of such a criticism only obtains in a dynamic like we have now, with the central institution maintaining a position of neutrality, while the parasitic offshoots gather up those prone to selection bias—not out of ideological blindness, but more out of either frustration (on one side) and the desire to protect the status quo (on the other).
If, however, it became necessary to view multiple sources—and examine facts through multiple biases—I think more news consumers would come away better informed and, ultimately, more comfortable with whom they can rely on to present the facts most forthrightly.
But as such a media culture would inevitably break the hold progressive advocates have on shaping the national narrative, it will never happen until the mainstream press becomes economically untenable—and even then, there will be those willing to prop it up as an “investment” that will pay greater dividends in power and control down the road.
Sadly, in a world that is often viewed through the philosophical lens of contingent truth and competing narratives, many have decided that achieving their ends is more important than engaging in small acts of intellectual honesty. This is the information age we live in. The question is, how do those of us who find such opportunistic pragmatism dangerous to liberal democracy fight back?
If you want to make five quick bucks, go check out Frank Warner’s site. He has a bet still out there: prove the president’s statement wrong and win a fiver. Show anywhere it was a lie.
You can’t and as he says it’s the safest five bucks on earth. And Frank is a liberal. He doesn’t especially like President Bush, but he likes the war on terror and especially liberating Iraq. He’s an old school liberal, the kind that understood that liberal stands for “liberty” not “libertine.”
I like listening to Schorr. It sounds like he has a pork chop in his mouth when he talks. Mmmmm… pork chops.
That and the fact I know what he’s going to say before he slurs the words.
I’ve thrown more than one radio at the wall because of Schorr’s non-stop falsehoods on NPR. He manages to give greasy propagandists a bad name.
It would help if NPR could be coaxed into using some of our tax money to make the transcripts freely available. They stand in a very privileged space – subsidized to attract a prized demographic while remaining relatively unaccountable for their evanescent propaganda. If the text of their reports were available online in more or less real time, their slants and distortions could be analyzed in spaces such as this and understood for what they are.
Also – notice that they got rid of their ombudsman … conveniently … 6 months before the election. (They brought in some loser to write one column in November who quit immediately thereafter.) Unaccountable and oversubsidized.
WHERE’S TEH OVERSIGHT???!?!?
It sure is hard work defending the neocon’s Maginot Timeline for Iraq, isn’t it?
How would we classify the Washington Post or the Times, who, along with their left wingers have neocons like Brooks and Kraufthammer screaming for Muslim blood several times a week, too?
Wouldn’t the bias label have to be applied to individual jouranalists instead of their media outlets?
And even then, a simple left-right designator wouldn’t work, because biases vary even among the most partisan right and left wingers.
Could get messy.
Anyone pay a cable bill?
Take a newspaper?
Fill out a Nielsen diary … honestly?
Subscribe to Time Warner mags?
Use AOL messenger?
Own an extensive dvd collection?
The defense is quite easy, the difficult part is getting heard over the prevaricators who buy ink by the barrel and electrons by the MWh.
Alphie,
Is there any comment in particular that you’re making here? Or are you just exercising your fingers with a little keyboard dance?
If you actually intend to make a statement, I invite to please go ahead and make it.
BRD
alphie,
Your self-narrative rings so hollow, you could be a mummified gourd. Where is the “To Steal the Presidency” movie on HBO?
alphie—just like cleo in the thread about Jeff’s bad day at home—can’t help but try to turn every discussion into an Iraq rant.
And youenable it, Karl.
Please resist temptation.
BRD,
Media outlets are interested in “big” stories that will increase their revenue.
An honest look back at the pre-invasion stories run in so-called “liberal” outlets like the Washington Post and the NYT will show they cheered just as loudly for the colonization of Iraq as neocon bullhorns like the WSJ and Fox news.
The real problem now is that our failed colonization attempt is kinda, well, boring, and is not generating much revenue these days.
So now the shattered pro war media alliance turns on each other to generate a little heat.
It’s not bias, it’s business.
Colonization, huh, alph?
You need a fucking colonoscopy, asshole?
All of those soldiers on their third tours being awarded plantations by Emperor Bush. You are such a fuckhead it’s almost impossible to express.
Merrily erasing a decades worth of warnings and worries BEFORE Dear leader.
It’s easy to believe the WAPO and NYT’s never, ever printed a story on the grave dangers posed by Saddam or “quoted” a Democrat politician warning the same when you don’t allow history to get in the way of your tunnel vision of Bush hate.
Lovely post, Jeff. A few points.
Journalistic “Libertarianism”. With more and loud and controversial being appropriate terms to describe pop media (Time Magazine, anyone?) utter freedom to speak any angle, any slant, nearly any smear, and any bias should be, as you say, embraced. The bullshit pop press needs contrast to show it for what it is.
That the country debates how such preconceived positions exist in the shoddy American mainstream press isn’t the issue. That anyone could yet challenge that they do—the Left simultaneously and with a straight face proclaiming traditional media miraculously objective but new media highly biased—is.
Of course a very sizable portion of media is impossibly biased, albeit as much in ommission as commission. Even FOX exists only out of opportunity, in the previous vacuum of all-Left, all the time reason.
Linearity. Pursuant the Left’s irrational view of the entrenched press versus, as you say, the parasitic new press, there’s a profound difference between hard Left—the vocal Left—and mainstream Right, the core of the fantastic, proverbial evil of Republicanism.
These are not co-equal collective intellects on a simple balance. They’re, as alphie chronically exemplifies, the contrast between rationality and accountability on the one hand, and shameless opportunism on the other.
Those opposing forces cannot center on constructively assessing issues and working out their solutions because they do not adhere to the same strategies and tactics. Rather, they hang on the conservation of proved values on the one hand and a cancerous, constant erosion of those principles by moral dependents on the other—a classic host/parasite relationship increasingly plagued by ever encroaching law designed to take from the one and give to the other, fiscally, emotionally, and spiritually.
Morality. In other words, as temperature is the active energy in an absolute zero background, or as light illuminates a default of darkness, or as pressure is the exception to natural vacuum, hard leftism is the amoral base condition against which energy must always be expended. If that energy, that moral principle, that honesty, that accountability, ceases, the background’s moral absolute zero simply reasserts itself.
They—energy and the lack thereof—are not co-equal. Rather, the one is the passive default and the other the active, temporary exception.
So it is with morality: All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing. Therefore, all it takes for the lie to succeed is for it to not be challenged. And all it takes for the political lie to succeed in print, that being the default for the politically opportune*, is for it to never be challenged.
I only state the obvious. But it is also to state the difficult reality of beating back the constant undercurrent of lazy, self-indulgent dishonesty that not only writes so much of the popular press, but pays it to do so.
The defense is quite easy, the difficult part is getting heard over the prevaricators who buy ink by the barrel and electrons by the MWh.
This reminds me of the Bury Brigade over at Digg, which systematically buries everything it finds politically objectionable. (See LGF’s recent frustration with Digg.)
The only way to fight back on Digg is to get together enough people with the energy, time, and drive to hit the “Digg” button more times than the Bury Brigade hits “Bury.”
But people on the Right aren’t obsessed with silencing the opposition, have jobs, have other priorities, and frankly find having to fight this degree of stupidity to onerous to take on.
We don’t have the time to go to dozens of protests during business hours or during precious weekends. We don’t have the desire to build papier mache puppets or stage mock impeachment trials or strip naked to promote breasts AND bombs.
Et cetera.
How do you fight people who are willing to play dirtier than you are, who have more free time, and who, as Jeffersonian said, buy ink by the barrel and pixels by the MWh. And tin foil by the square mile.
How do you muster the energy and enthusiasm to battle people who are so incredibly unserious? With logic? Hardly.
I don’t know, Jeff. I really don’t know. If someone figures something out, sign me up.
Of course, electing an articulate Republican president ::coughromneycough:: could go a long way toward getting the word out. That bully pulpit still carries some weight, I believe.
There is one thing that we can do relatively inexpensively: interview moonbats and let them discredit themselves as often as possible. They’re alway anxious to be heard.
alphie, even you’d have to agree that your analysis doesn’t work very well with NPR, who either beg for their money or simply cash a government check.
NPR doesn’t give a damn if a story is boring. Here’s what their former news director/ombudsman had to say about Katrina:
dicentra, that link was evil.
Of course, if they were actually winning the marchers would showcase much better ‘force packages’ than those that were dispalyed. I mean, really! Those folks look like they had first protested Napoleon’s Austerlitz campaign!
I’m glad Jeff posted this, as it saves me the trouble of doing a weekend piece about it.
First, the environment is not as bad as it might seem when we look at the legacy media.
The number of people who regularly watch or read the legacy media is on a downward trend.
The credibility of the legacy media is also on a downward trend.
And just for alphie,I’ll throw in that more people are confident that the US military is giving the public an accurate picture of the situation in Iraq than are confident in the legacy media.
Moreover, I must disagree that the legacy media is assumed to be “neutral.” There are decades of data showing that on balance, people think the legacy media is biased to the left. Arguably, one source of public distrust of the media is the media’s attempt to potray itself as “neutral” when most do not think that it is. So while I would prefer the legacy media be more transparent about their biases, the extent to which they are not probably hurts them.
The legacy media can at times act like a headwind against conservatives, classic liberals, libertarians, etc. But media crit from the blogosphere is able to gain traction in part because of the pre-existing, growing distrust of that media. The sites dedicating themselves to policing media critics are rarely going to be a factor because distrust of the media acts as a headwind against them. Plus, such sites are inherently a niche of diminishing returns. And efforts like the wacky TANG folks trying to prove that those memos were real were, on balance, conter-productive to their own cause.
In December, Wretchard posted a long piece basically on Jeff’s topic, though using the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict last summer as his springboard. I was ultimately unconvinced of his proposed model for “fighting back” against leftist activist propaganda, as it assumes that the legacy media will assist bloggers in gaining influence relative to the media. I’ve seen little evidence that the legacy media is not going to try to cling to their marketshare and mindshare. (We can be supportive of media efforts that do recognize the new dynamic. Drop the WaPo a line congratulating them for putting those Technorati links in their sidebars!)
But returning to my first point, it seems that the current trend is away from legacy media—or, at the very least, the legacy methods of disseminating information. People are increasingly getting their information on-demand. This trend is likely to accelerate as broadband technologies allow greater convergence of the Internet and legacy media systems.
Thus, borrowing a point from Wretchard (and PJM, really), generating original reporting, research and content will further challenge the legacy media. Doing so with video—e.g., as Hot Air does with The Vent—will be increasingly important, simply because more people are more likely to consume video than text.
Indeed, to make this a bit PW-specific, one of the saddest parts for me of the interruption of Jeff’s blogging was that the first thing to go was the Citizen Journalist’s Report at Hot Air.
Why?
Because I recognize that while people like me (and you, as you’re reading this) are interested in the big-picture thinkpieces Jeff does here, it seemed likely to me that Jeff’s ideas would more likely reach a wider audience when transformed into video segments like the “pilot” in which he posed as an anti-Zionist Buchananite and an anti-Zionist hippie-leftist. Though still allowing for their individual quirks, the comedy immediately drives home the similarity in their views effectively to casual viewer who would never bother to read something like “The Paranoid Style In Brazilian Blogging.” Or like this.
Well, I am happy that the modern age allows a quick check of codes of ethics and standards of conduct and such of the MSM… its the only way you can find someone like Dan Froomkin advocating breaking of same. Or see how AP’s reporting and non-responsiveness to public inquiry does not square with their ethics code, and the questions that gets. Amazing how *not* sticking to those things then becomes a major problem for credibility. Then there is the WaPo itself, not even being able to understand its main beat, which is the Federal Government, and so misreporting things that the people they are misreporting on then have to speak up for themselves. Or lacking investigative journalists altogether for a ‘big story’ which turns out to be not very much and missing a real story while doing so. Or just offering a platform for personal vindictiveness that lack substance.
Can’t say that I trust them for much of anything. And when I check up their reporting on something that I *do* know a lot about, their credibility flies out the window. Simplifies reading when you require three, independent reports on a single event. Frees up much time to do other things, when the noise is eliminated.
happy,
Are NPR’s pledge weeks more or less dignified than airing Cialis commercials every 5 minutes? And why are those people in the bathtub? Never could figure that out?
Karl,
Your link shows that over the past 4 years, the percentage of Americans that trust the U.S. military’s spin has fallen from 85% to 46%
In fact, a majority of Americans (52%), now distrust U.S. military spin.
Not sure that’s what you wanted to show, it’s quite a drop off.
I think if you look at the numbers, the “new” media (blogs & such) are losing more people than the “legacy” media are.
I agree with you, Karl. I hope Jeff will resume.
…and even less trust the media spin, which had a larger drop-off over the same period. And the drop-off was biggest with independent voters.
But you almost had a point there.
alphie, when you start defending the diginity of NPR’s pledge week it’s, um, well, you should look at yourself. Really take a look at yourself.
Link?
Of course not.
He still does…the one on top of his head.
Surge in blog statistics as medium goes exponential.
There’s something you’ll never understand, alphmaggot: Under the duress of life and death, men don’t tend to spin. There tends to be a vivid, palpable quality of hyperrealism living there.
Contrast that with, say, your environment, you inconsequential little vermin.
Then there’s David Sifry:
Been watching 300 again, JHoward?
It doesn’t really matter what U.S. military personnel believe about what they’re doing in Iraq.
What matters is what the people of Iraq think about our troops occupying their country.
Karl,
We throwing in MySpace page hits to make it look like politcal blogs are still growing?
Looked at the sitemeter trends for your favorite political blogs lately?
[url=”http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009900″ target=”_blank”]Say what?
[/url]
Wow, BRD, jinx.
I just wrote about our latest attempt to turn the tribes of al Anbar province into a Sunni militia on my tiny blog.
Some people might think that if the surge depends on Sunni militias to bring peace to Iraq, we might be more desperate than we thought.
Alphie, you beautiful infidel, the transformation is complete. You are Markg8. Every time an Israeli dies we will sing your praises here in the Lake of Fire. Rejoice and bask in the glory of your baseness.
And as to what you should do about your Media, Goldstein, you might ask part of it to report truthfully on the knowing falsehoods the rest of it tells. Because to be honest, reading “When the Media is Right,” during the Jamil Hussein dust up I wondered if Mr. Schorr was working for the NRO.
Likewise I notice that after Tim Russert filed a false affadavit with the court during the Libby trial many “conservative commentators” were more than happy to go on his show and dance for him like trained poodles.
And during the Katrina coverage the right side of your media was more than happy to sling propaganda I would have had trouble dreaming of. Of course when they’re not doing that they are all searching diligently for another administration official to throw under the bus as they have this Gonzales infidel.
Perhaps it is not that you infidels have no voice. Perhaps it is that the most influential among you refuse to use it. Or only wish to use it in ways that lands them on television.
You see, I am fighting a war agaist America, reason and civilization, Alphie is also fighting this war and whether he likes me or not he ceratianly oppses the same things I do. So does your media.
There seem to be other parts of your media who do no support the things I do, but they do not actively oppose them either. They are, shall we say conscientous objectors. I think it is them I value the most, and respect the least.
Which is it, asshole?
By the headline, I though you were going to tell us about Daniel Schorr having been outed as a gay porn star, which is pretty revolting because the dude was like 80 back during the Vietnam War, so he is now older than Yoda, or even Larry King. And if you think Larry King is only 73, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell you.
Ywhay areway ouyay uysgay eedingfay ethay alphway-olltray?
I think the most important thing about the new media is not that it provides a space where a different bias can flourish. I think the vast increase in the amount of raw facts available to the average news consumer is far more significant. Actual news is so easy to get I have to skip almost all of it. Piles of legal documents, YouTube videos, lengthy first hand reports from random eyewitnesses are new to the news business. I can Google anything and find out what happened or at least what a large range of people say happened. Some of it will be deliberate lies but almost certainly the truth will be available too.
Sure the people who live by lies and propaganda try to bury the facts. But now instead of years between the Cronkite lie about Tet and my hearing the truth there’s days, hours, minutes between Rather’s TANG document forgery and my finding out about the MS Word font it used. Those truths are now out there for anyone who looks. I know I will get fooled again but now there’s also a good possiblility I can find out the facts if I look for them.
Another problem. The talking points the liars and propagandists use are really a weak point for them. How many times can you read the same thing from different people without wondering where it came from originally? I remember watching the CBS, NBC and ABC news broadcasts and wondering why they were all so similar. Why would they all have the same news with the same slant and even the same odd ball stories? Long before I realized their bias, long before I found out they were lying, I was suspicious just because they were all so monolithic. Just like nutroot trolls today. Can’t these people think for themselves? As far as I can tell the answer is no. They all sound the same because they don’t think, just regurgitate.
Try the charts at the Sifry link; no one’s MySpace blog is in the top 100.
Or provide links of your own.
Insty.
LGF.
HotAir.
He walked right into that one, didn’t he?
And if I may expand on the comments of my friend Musab, I would also point out that CNN was not treated as a pariah after they announced they had covered up my worst crimes to preserve their access. No other media outlet even questioned them much about it. No one has attmepted ot interview Eason Jordan, or the people who still work there about such things. Or even asked exaclty how they managed to get thier hands on that sniper video that seemdd so disgusting to most of your countrymen. It is enough to make one wonder what deals the other media outlets struck with me for access, or what deals they strike my firends in Hamas or Hezbollah or even with that rat-dung-testicle-breath Ahmhenj-crazy.
Do all of you truly belive that Eason Jordan was the only news person to think of such a thing, the only person ever to do such a thing? Silly, silly.
But you will never know, because none of the reporters who ostensibly claim to be patriots or to be on your side will ever lift one finger to find out, not one. In fact they will write things like “When the Media is Right.” And they will tell you that Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews and Daniel Schorr are inconsequntial and have no support within the community of journalists, and that Barabara Walters has no control over her own show, and that all those Peabody awards Dan Rather received were just and proper.
These alibis they sound rather like those of my friend Kofi Annan don’t they?
Robert – that’s 73 in Base 8…or something like that. Personally I am guessing he’s 632 in dog years.
One day, people will come to read this terribly interesting blog and it won’t be about an obtuse, ass flashing, contrarian nitwit.
And rivers of chocolate will flow beneath cotton candy rainbows.
Meanwhile, why don’t we take turns pissing in the punchbowl?
Karl, have you not learned that poll results are only the result the pollster wants. Quit quoting polls to back up your lack of knowledge about the hero’s that serve in the military. I thought JFK was a total AH but I helped keep the nuclear weapons flying and ready to destroy half the world to satisfy his personal ego and his hate for the leader of the USSR. Actually they both shared a personal hate for each other and the world almost got in they’re way. One word and boom, you wouldn’t be here. Who died a violent death at the hands of a man trained in the USSR and who died of old age? Not a conspiricy theory, just a question.
I think it’s safe to preemptively say that Daniel Schorr died of old age. Not to jump right out there or anything.
I think we’re doing it, right here and all around the blogosphere. Not that long ago folks like us had no options other than to write the occasional irate Letter to the Editor, a good luck getting it published.
Now, well, if blogs are so impotent, why do all the legacy media websites now include blogs? Notice too that they’re starting to allow comments on many legacy media sites. If we were ignorable they would most certainly ignore us. That they’re trying to coopt the blog style, albeit without much success, speaks volumes.
And ‘interview leftards’! You bet. The best reason to keep alphie around is as a graphic illustration of the modern liberal “mind”. No parody could possibly match the real thing. Every time I read little alphie I’m reminded that the reason we have a nanny state is because some folks really do need nannies.
Nice, Karl,
Those numbers do look good good for Instapundit.
But, looking at the individual hits, the longest visit I could find was 2 seconds, and almost all of them are for zero seconds.
Hmmm.
I not saying these big sites have automated their hits to boost revenue, but it sure would be hard to call them “news” sites with visit lengths like that.
I rest my case.
alphie
learn with me.
Instapundit’s site has ONE page. To gauge “time spent, you have to calculate the interval between page requests within the measured domain.
Instapundit has only outbound links.
Questions?
The only honest thing that aphid has ever posted here.
The competing media bombardments overwhelm the best of us: much depends on our ability to sort the messages. Unfortunately, we don’t have the time or interest in that. So we go with the most conveniently presented concepts. If you have kids that watch TV or go on the Internet, look at them; they are already programmed.
I will state it once more and plainly, then back to the lake of fire for poker with Lenin, Stalin and Mao.
If you infidels want honsety from your media then you have to convince the media that you control that it should report on the scandals of the media you do not control.
If you do not they will continue to carry my water painlessly. And so long as it does not harm their careers they will carry my water forever.
Alphie, Cleo, Markg8 and all the rest as much as I love them are inconsequential. The difference makers are those silent and to this point rather useless, token “patriots” muddling through your media juggernaut.
I don’t follow. Instapundit does a fantastic job of filtering. Drudge as well. I think what you’re getting at is the difference between passively consuming media (channel surfing, magazine subscriptions) and actively consuming media (internet, tivo). At this point on the technology curve, I think you’re describing more a question of self-discipline rather than any machinations of the media.
Jeff,
Dan’s always had a good nose for truffles and he’s dug up a tasty one this time. Your analysis of it gave me goosebumps.
I’m just gonna break down and say it: slap warning labels on media products. We put warning labels on mattresses, roller-skates and toy airplanes. I think it’s time to stick warning labels on political, junk media – to enforce the viewers’ personal responsibililty
That’s the purpose for the warning label on the 25 gallons of Brush-Kill I just bought at Ace.
In a nut-shell, the media lied that Joe Wilson’s report from Niger made Bush a liar. The fact that the media lied is incontrovertible. But if the media’s product-wrapper sported a consumer warning, then, when the Legacy Media purposely lies to me again, and I act on the lie (ie. vote for Clinton/Obama), then it is my fault. I was forewarned.
Right now, whose fault is it?
How do we win?
Keep speaking truth to reactionary leftist lies.
In the end truth always wins.
The one example that comes to mind is the Soviet Union.
[Oooo, look, alphie got a boner]
Everything about communism is predicated upon lies. From the moment of it’s conception in Russia it was a lie and lived by lies.
Taken from wiki-p:
The Bolsheviks (Russian bolshinstvo, “majority”)
The thing they called themselves was a lie. They were a tiny minority.
My point is this: truth always wins out over lies. Even if it took 70 years, the Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of it’s own mendacity.
N. O’Brain wrote:
Even with alphie? I mean, he spews faster than most gatling-weapons. Which, I suspect, counts as some sort of strategery to his tiny overheated little head…
happy,
Thanks for the click info. Interesting stuff.
Looks like some political blogs are doing quite well indeed.
I stand corrected.
N.O.,
In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes…
Karl Marx, 1848.
Doesn’t look like a lie to me.
It’s no more fair to blame Marx for what happened in Russia 70 years later than it is to blame Adam Smith for the hellhole we’ve turned Iraq into.
Try reading Republicans and CBS and left-wing in there to get a taste of how surreal the world trial lawyer boy is living in.
Plus, they totally faked the moon landing. That’s why O.J. was set up. The truth is out there…
Just saw alphie’s last post. That may be a first. And just when I had given up all hope.
Kudos to him. I withdraw the O.J. comment.
“First, get the facts. Then you can manipulate them as you please.”
— Mark Twain
Of course, HE was a dedicated yellow journalist.
Wow. Alphie’s really racking up the traffic today, huh?
Its fun to watch a nobody trying to get attention.
I stop by alphie’s site sometimes. This week I learned exactly why it was that everyone told me that the little baby turtles I had gotten in Chinatown were illegal. I had honestly hypothesized that maybe it was cause at the time they were small enough to be flushed. They may or may not be legal now, but good people are working on the problem.
It’s the Hoaxer’s Advantage – they spend virtually no effort creating bullshit, and everyone else has to expend enormous effort cleaning it up.
We are bombarded with lies in every area of life. One jackass notices his Coeliac symptoms disappear if he takes enzymes, he “spreads the word” on the internet, and 20 years later he and 500 other happy people die of bowel cancer as a result, because he was an idiot.
People believe all kinds of inane bullshit. BMW wiring harnesses are resistor-keyed to the ECU, and aftermarket wires won’t work. Bullshit, I’m running Magnecors on mine, they work better than stock.
I could write 500 million words on a million myths, and you know what? A million more would crop up. Heck, I’d be guaranteed to screw up at least a thousand myself.
And you know what, I can accept all that as human fallibility.
But the TANG memos, the sixteen words, that politically motivated bullshit that the assholes KNOW are lies – that’s what really does the damage.
Schorr should apologize, and step down, or be carried out. But he knows he’s as safe as Cold Cash Jefferson or Dirty DiFi, because he knows his allies will repeat his lies (in fact his are just repetitions or other lies) to justify their own, and his enemies expect him to lie and so will bitch, and whine, and tomorrow they will have a new lie to deal with.
And it’s not illegal to lie, anyway.
Unless you’re a Republican, like Scooter Libby.
Forget institutional media bias, how about institutional legal bias? Or is that part of the same problem?
Well, I continually remind my representatives that I am adamantly opposed to public subsidy of PBS/NPR. I don’t mind Bill Moyers & Daniel Schorr advancing their point of view, but I do mind being forced to pay for it.
Some things are beyond effective spin, Mero.
There is no good way to spin the fact that we’re in our fifth year of occupying Iraq and we’re sending even more troops there, for example.
Or the fact that you bought a German car.
Talk to lady about that…she invoked the Study Group for her whirlwind – that group is also adamantly against timetables, so go figure. What a clusterfuck.
It’s like she’s the little fabulous that didn’t.
Tell me again why buying American cars is patriotic?
JINGOIST!
Is the idea that in order to have a good economy, we have to subsidize an organization that wants to socialize 1/7th of it?
By that measure, just about every major invasion or combat operation involving American troops during WWII was a disaster. Which is why I’m actually here in California, writing this in Japanese, I guess.
Not really, Sean.
There was no fifth year for America in WWII.
This long in, all our troops were home makin’ little boomers (’cept for a few volunteers who stayed behind in Germany and Japan to see to our peaceful occupations, of course).
No, there wasn’t. But you know that wasn’t my point, you disingenuous little prick. And there was a sixth year for the rest of the allies. More, if you consider China, which Japan invaded as early as 1931, if you consider Manchuria a province of China.
My point, by the way, was that you’re full of shit if you measure military ventures as failures if additional troops are sent in as reinforcements. But you knew that, didn’t you?
I agree that having to send more troops in doesn’t necessarily mean a military operation is a failure, Sean.
But it certainly means it ain’t a success yet.
The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage.
-Emperor Hirohito, Aug. 1945
Yeah, a few as in about as many as we have in Iraq right now. And that was just in Germany. And that occupation wasn’t always so peaceful.
Oh, and we’re now entering our 63rd year of “occupying’ Germany. Whadda ya mean there was no 5th year, “a”?
Our troops stayed in Germany because of the “Red Menace” that developed shorty after the end of WWII, pablo, not because we had any problems with the occupation itself.
Why they’re still there, I have no idea.
Who could they possibly be defending Europe from these days?
Total economic colapse.
Nonsense, of course, which is par for the little “a” course.
63 years! We need a vote of the German people to see if they want us to stay.
I had a rubber-band gatling gun once. Now that you bring up gatling guns, alphie reminds me of it.
There was no fifth year for America in WWII.
There would have been had it not been for a couple of thermo-nuclear devices. You might want to take a history refresher Alph, the invasion of Japan was imminent. Had it occurred, it was expected to be the most costly & protracted battle in the Pacific theater.
OK – I have had enough of this threadjacking. I will no longer address anything toward alphie that is not on point. Will all of you join me in this? I don’t have BRD’s Job-like patience, or Karl’s dogged determination. So, what do you say everyone?
Major John, I haven’t addressed the a-bot directly in a couple of weeks. He’s like Los Angeles – a lot of noise and a big stink, but at the heart there’s no there there.
timmyb is almost as bad, but mostly long-winded.
heet just brings his hate and nothing else.
Cynn is an honorable debater.
Not much else to say, I think.
It would be a mistake to directly address anything jihadi boy says, even if it appears to be on point to start.
I vote for putting him up against the virtual wall.
To wrench this back toward the topic:
The underlying problem here is the same one that makes it impossible for me to buy shoes that fit. American business has decided collectively that “niche market” is an insult—only the biggest one gets any respect. The result is that they have to cater, and only cater, to the center as their marketing research sees it, to the middle +/- one-sigma of the audience or customer base.
The media discovered long ago that the stories that got the biggest audience were the ones in which violence or controversy were foremost. As a matter of business efficiency, they then attempt to present only such stories, reasoning that effort spent in collecting stories that don’t get the most eyeballs is wasted. That’s why their metrics for “good” always include things like “provocative” and cognates. Bias exists and generates a slant, but it’s a second-order effect behind “if it bleeds it leads”.
So success -> quiet conditions -> no controversy or violence -> no story. Disaster -> violent conditions -> beautifully bloody pictures for the front page -> massive coverage. Note that according to Instapundit, ABC News is collecting firearms self-defense stories. It remains to be seen what slant they’ll put on them, but the recent Supreme Court decision has a lot of lefties up in arms, which generates hot controversy, which in turn generates “stories” by their definition.
The problem they are running into now is not so much reduced credibility as it is habituation. If you live next to the refinery or feedlot you soon stop noticing the smell. If everything you read in the paper is hammer-and-tongs conflict, you get used to it, and mere bloody fights won’t cut it, they have to find something more exciting. Unfortunately there’s an upper limit to how titillating anything can be in the real world, and they got there long ago.
Blogs, lacking the direct business model of the MSM, can go for niche markets and survive nicely. Unless the MSM expands their definition of “target market” past the one-sigma-off-the-mean they now go for, they will die on the vine, because their target audience got bored with car crashes and went elsewhere. Note that the same is true of other businesses—the reason people buy foreign cars is that foreign manufacturers are happy to make money off a niche market, without having to be the only-biggest.
Regards,
Ric
I don’t agree that the media is business driven. Otherwise they would be leading the blog revolution, and making money on their daily readership. Mainstream print and electronic media are in serious financial and viewership trouble. I think it is truely ideogically driven.
A successful night of poker. To be committed socialists Mao, and Joe and Vladimir sure have a great deal of cash lying about. Funny how it always seems to work that way, no?
I have read the thread with some interest and noticed that the point I have tried to make is missed.
I will try again. Your media does not necessarily love jihad as much as Alphie does. However they have decided that they hate America and her interests. Of course her interests happen to be democracy, women’s rights and pluralism.
This is not unsuaul, most media folk are leftists, mosly becuase in thier social circles it is cool to be a leftist. Leftists are by definition committed hypocrits, people who use the language of democracy and tolerance to build societies that are anything but. The reason they say one thing and do another is this. They do not have the courage to tell you, or even themselves, what they truly believe.
If you wish to wrest the truth from your newsrooms you must find someone who will report what the people in those newsromms truly belive and say. You have people who can do that. Who claim to be loyal to things such as democracy and pluralism and women’s rights and who work in the media. If the media is to become truthful those people must report what they see in the newsrooms and at the cocktail parties.
They must tell you how the WaPo managed to call a Carl Levin press release news. They must tell you how Tim Russert managed to have his lawyer lie to a Federal Judge. They must tell you how CNN managed to get its hands on that blessed sniper video. They must tell you how the Katrina Hurricane become a dishonest hack job. And in telling you how they must name names. If the dishonesty is not exposed, thoroughly, it will continue. Leftists are not brave, sunlight aimed directly upon them changes their value systems.
You must convince the people who have access to reporters to provide that sunlight and stop dancing to the MSM tune. I do not know how I can be any more plain that that.
It is like a mafia invesitgation. You need someone to roll and you need to listen to them when they do, not ignore it like you did when you disocvered that the NYT was knowingly employing North Vietnamies spies in the sixties.
Musab is right. If you demanded the transparency from the media that they selelctively demand from some others (not me praise Allah) you would solve a good many of your troubles and create many more for me and those like me. It is just that simple. In this one case, you must see how the sausage is made. What is more there is no reason you shouldn’t. There is no national security interest that demands the media’s workings be more covert than those of your CIA.
BTW tell Nance and Joey “Hi” for me and let them know I appreciate the cover.
Hey Collins.
How come BRD ain’t on yer new digs?
Rusty, I don’t say that ideology isn’t important. It is, but it’s a secondary driver—a synergistic secondary driver, but secondary nonetheless. Without the “business-oriented” effects, it would be minor and almost ignorable. Nor do I say that the business people are correct; I think they’re massively wrong, in fact.
Consider the pecking order in the News. At the bottom, despised by all, are the mere “reporters”, the ones who collect facts. Next are the “journalists”, who are charged with explicating the “why” of any story. At the very top are “editorialists” like Schorr, whose output is pure opinion.
Now think about costs vs. benefits, from the point of view of a bean-counter firmly imbued with the notion that only the biggest is satisfactory. It costs the f*ing Earth to keep a decent reporter in the field—just the ticket to Baghdad is a month’s worth of any conceivable salary for Schorr. On top of that the reporter needs to be knowledgeable about the subject, and those are hard to find and have to be paid well to stay around, especially since they get no respect. Schorr buys no air tickets and submits only modest expense accounts, and here we are talking about him—he’s attracted eyeballs. From the bean-counter’s point of view, Schorr attracts more eyeballs per dollar spent than the reporter does, and that’s the only metric.
Since WWII, as the currently-popular business model grew, journalism has internalized the bean-counter case and justified it. Reporters are expensive per eyeball; opinion-based “journalists” are less so; “opinion columnists” are cheapest. This is perfectly reflected in the current pecking order in the news media.
What’s happening in the blogosphere is not that independent reporting is getting important—it is, but that’s minor. The blogosphere reveals that opinion is cheap. After all, here I am giving mine for free, and even Jeff gets a modest return. Even by the bean-counter metric, Schorr isn’t worth what he costs. Jeff or Glenn get more eyeballs per dollar spent.
Ideology makes it worse, because by selecting its opinionators only from a single ideological base the news media further restrict their audience. But the effect would be the same if they weren’t biased—an enormous range of opinion, much of it more informed, is available cheaply or free in the blogosphere, and the MSM wouldn’t be able to compete with that even with a range of opinion-based “journalism” because they still have to pay for it. Bias is important, but if the basic problem—the business model—weren’t there it would be much less so.
Regards,
Ric
RSS readers. They still represent increasing hits, because the users are reading the items only when new items are available. Commenters are rare; more common are simple readers.
There’s a decision-making process (or description of one) used in some circles called the “OODA Loop.” That stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.
Unfortunately, for many people, especially in politics, and doubly especially in political discussions, it becomes the “OOD Loop.” It’s like a collective case of ADHD driven indecision.
On the other hand, there have been brilliant moments in these online discussions, like Rathergate, and there is a gradual trend away from monolithic “pressroom”-driven news.
And there’s the oft-observed fact that, despite petulant denials in some circles, the “right” tends to be more individualistic than the left, and to “do their own thing” and not be so very interested in collective action. The end result being fitful, disorganized efforts to counter larger more organized efforts.
Notice that I’m still stuck in Observe mode. I think that’s part of the problem with the blogosphere. Diversity is a strength and a weakness – all those different opinions, facts, and observations give you plenty of things to do before (and instead of) acting.
Some people protest, a couple write books, a couple try to compete, but most are content to complain. I complain like any of them, but I’m not content… I just don’t have the answers, I guess.
Ultimately, the only way to argue with a dishonest person is to ignore them – and we’re not really in a position, in a larger sense, to do that. That’s the problem I really haven’t solved.
Ghosts of Zarkman and Saddam:
I have also wondered why, for example, none of the more conservative guests on MTP ever had the temerity to ask Timmah certain pointed questions about his role in the Libby situation. Perhaps the answer is this would occur only once, after which said guest would never be invited again.
I agree that sunlight would be an excellent disinfectant. But how would you propose to bring this sunlight to an industry that believes itself above the law, and is distinctly unwilling to permit any outsiders access to the sausagemaking machinery?
I have little hope for the blogosphere as anything beyond an opinion domain, as it already appears it is being coopted.
I see Zarkman’s ghost addressed my question in the other thread.
Thank you.
For example, I’m unaware of any secret mailing list coordinating the message among conservative and libertarian bloggers.
Rob Crawford:
You are not cleared for th-*!^!*@^!!! CONNECTION LOST…
Major John: Robert – that’s 73 in Base 8.
7*8 + 3 = 59
Try base 16 (hex):
7*16 + 3 = 115
More like it, but King and Schorr are older than that.
Yoda died at the age of 900.
King and Schorr are each older than that.