News Media: Stop Digging
by Kurt Schlichter
The first rule of getting out of a hole you have dug yourself into is to stop digging. But at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday, they handed out shovels at the door.
Let’s review the state of American journalism. Newspapers are teetering on the edge of collapse, with a savvy investor sooner scooping up a handful of Chrysler common stock then pumping cash into the Boston Globe. The New York Times’ stock is so toxic it can only be stored inside the Yucca Mountain repository, and I can’t drive by the Los Angeles Times building without some laid-off lifestyle columnist offering to wash my windshield for a buck. Some newspapers have gone entirely on-line, making them not even newspapers at all.
How about the traditional networks? I’m not even sure that NBC has news anymore. The audience for the CBS Evening News is getting so wizened that a recent survey revealed that the majority of its elderly viewers consider Murder, She Wrote reruns ‘too edgy.” And their news department had the most efficient business model too – why pay to gather real news when you can just make it up? By the way, was that Dan Rather I saw ranting on one of those weird networks at the far end of the cable box, between the channel running 24-hour a day Hummel figurine sales and the one devoted to large and loving it women?
Now, if I remember correctly, about 53% of voters voted for the President. Well, there’s no disputing that American journalism serves that chunk of the audience. Their fawning subservience to those in presently in power is even starting to creep out President Obama. “Most of you covered me; all of you voted for me,” he told his audience of tingle-legged supplicants. The audience seemed to miss the point, which is that they have abandoned their cherished no-holds barred objectivity and that he now owns them body and soul. Maybe I misunderstood from the assembled journalists’ delight, but isn’t that what the hip kids today call a “dis?”
So, what about the other 47% who didn’t vote for this president? With the Internet and cable undercutting newspapers and network news as business models, one might think that trying to appeal to this massive potential audience might pay dividends. Apparently, one would be wrong.
In an example of outside the envelope thinking, America’s journalists have decided that the smart move to save their disintegrating industry is not to simply ignore this half of the populace but to actively insult it. Guest comic Wanda Sykes set the tone by expressing her heartfelt desire that Rush Limbaugh’s kidney’s fail. I’m no marketing genius, but I’m not sure that it’s smart to publicly wish for the death of the spokesman for a good portion of your potential consumers. Sometimes it’s just best to keep the thinking inside the envelope.
Alienating potential customers is not proving to be an awesome strategy. But instead of, say, not insulting them anymore, the journalism establishment is trying a new tactic. It’s going to keep insulting its more conservative customers but tell these customers that it is in fact not insulting them and that they are stupid for believing they are being insulted.
For example, I cancelled the Los Angeles Times years ago, and every time some boiler room flunky would call me to re-subscribe I would patiently explain that I didn’t particularly want to pay for regurgitated leftism when I could just turn on MSNBC for free. I must not have been the only one because I started getting a scripted response that the caller would read off of a sheet that was probably labeled “Right Wing Idiot Spiel.” I was told that I was wrong and that the Times provides and respects “a wide range of differing views.” That’s true – it provides and respects the whole range of views from old fashioned New Deal liberal all the way to neo-Trotskyite communist.
The Times recently had another marketing brainstorm. Not enough people were buying the paper so they raised the newsstand price. I like that – the Times not only opposes capitalism but engages in passive resistance to its most basic laws.
The traditional news media needs to put aside their shovels and stop digging. But they won’t. They don’t even realize what kind of hole they are in. I just hope they keep those shovels handy - they’ll need them for their next job.
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150 Comments
Your encounter with the LA Times caller reminds me of the quote form the Blues Brothers about having both kinds of music: Country and Western.
I think that the media and perhaps some of the Democrat leadership thinks that since the majority voted for us last time, we don't need them next time. And they probably won't win over any of them anyway. "We won" is the default position.
The republicans have a great opportunity, if they can figure out how to do anything with it.
The media doesn't want the other side. That's cool cuz I don't want them. But eventually they are going to want my money. Let's hope the feds don't bail them out. Maybe they will change thier tune.
The pendulum will swing back and forth. the wise media outlet will keep this in mind.
one of the great disconnects in modern media is the the blindness the MSM has towards their editorial bias.
One can, using point and counterpoint, spell out the clear cases of issue advocacy (gay rights, gun confiscation, big government, etc.) and lockstep ideology.
The response, amazingly enough, is utter disbelief. 'You mean you don't think this way?', or 'all clear thinking citizens believe this' … whether it is an institutional blindeness or a concious choice is actually hard to pin down.
This is why we must take back the dialogue and realize the old media needs to either wise up or wither away…
Main stream media has zero credibility with a growing number of people, for a darned good reason. If any biased news outlet is in a hole, they have no one to blame but themselves. If they can't do their job properly and lose revenue, they should be allowed to fail. Just like any free market enterprise. Oh wait………. that was before we had a socialist president in the WH.
Off topic: Biden has such loose lips they didn't even have to threaten him with waterboarding before he gave up classified information at a dinner.
Lord, what is happening to this country???
but the consensus is in. haven't you heard? No one disputes that issue anymore.
This approach only works for those subject to peer pressure. Problem is way too many politicians are.
The news is always conservative because it's, like, run by corporations. Liberal bias is a total myth. I read it in the Times.
Sometime back I wrote an email to a reporter from a now-defunct newspaper letting him know that I found newspapers to be insulting to my positions and that is why I cancelled my sub long ago. His response was that…"They're not supposed to confirm or deny your worldview, whatever that may be. They're not intended to be conservative or liberal, at least not in the news pages. And there's a difference between reporting and opinion writing, or at least there's supposed to be…"
Ok, newspapers aren't supposed to be conservative or liberal, but they choose by default. My local newspaper gleefully holds onto a leftist worldview, and I gleefully vote with my dollars elswhere.
well if you read it it must be true.
That is why i like the interwebs. I can read all kinds of stuff about all kinds of topics that is also 100% certified. It might also be true.
Biden is a one-man tard carnival. what a buffoon. I think Obama (all hail) was genius to pick him as a VP. Who would want any harm to come to Obama (all hail) with Biden in the wings?
I had a similar experience with my own local paper several years ago, the Austin American Statesman. I told them I didn't want to subscribe because I thought they were too liberal, and their reply was "Oh, we fired that guy."
Excellent point, Kurt. I love that analogy: "Newspaper subscribership (word?) is plummeting, so let's be even MORE antagonistic to the political Right." Brilliant plan.
And, all the while, they keep declaring that Fox News is the biased one… and Fox News viewership is skyrocketing.
Personally, I can't wait until the Old Gray Mare gives up the ghost. We should all have one MASSIVE national wake when that day occurs. I'll be the first to drive a nail into a well-deserved symbolic coffin.
Eagerly awaiting the New Hollywood…
good points- cynical indeed, but pretty much correct. Yes, there is an awareness of being ideologically hard left (MSNBC?) and the New York Times to be sure. However, CNN and others appear to really be in a dither over this… not sure which way the winds needsto blow. Of course, like FOX they could just tell the truth, give both sides and let you choose.
Then again, they can't have that either, can they?
"but isn’t that what the hip kids today call a “dis?”
Kurt, the "hip kids" that used to use that word are now in their 30's.
"but isn’t that what the hip kids today call a “dis?”
Kurt, the "hip kids" that used to use that word are now in their 30's.
I have a little routine I use on boiler room callers trying to sell me left wing propaganda, I tell them yes I do want to buy your paper, I was just telling the wife we should and then in mid sentence, I hang up. Since most of the calls are robot dialed, they can't get back to me. Priceless.
The MSM is so much surrounded by the forest they can't see any trees; in other words, the liberal reporters & editors are so steeped in liberalism in the press room they either believe everyone else shares their world view or they are indeed being objective. Reporters seem to be cut off from the real world in their minds it's all a bit shocking to find such arrogance & stupidity wrapped into one being or groups. The MSM takes group think to a whole new level. They seem to foster group think as well.
It's too late for the MSM to change their tactics. They sold their soul to get Obama elected, and now, for better or for worse, are hooked to him. If the Obama administration goes down in flames, so does the MSM. So they will cling to this story line like an over board, drunken tourist clinging to a flotation device, as the ship sails off into the sunset.
Biden is a great example of really how clueless Barry truly is. Anyone who has followed Biden's career in even the faintest of contexts knows him to be a purveyor of fictions and a gasbag to boot… the 'Joe Biden Resume' was a standing joke back in the 80's. However, Barry O thought him to be the pentultimate in stentorian manner and policy wisdoms. This from a man who thought the solution to Iraq was to split it into three countries- that would've worked, right?- and is usually spectacularly wrong on foreign policy.
Everyone else knew this, including most Democrats. But, starstruck, he picked this guy and now regrets it more than any other decision he has made. And this was his running mate, a heartbeat away as they say…
So, you expect much from his other judgements?
"you can't handle the truth"? yeah
I always tried to engage in a debate with the Hopey campaigners that called my house. They were pretty quick to end the call once they heard me talk about limited government.
The best part of the demise of newspapers is that the newspapers pay a consultant to give them the answer to their problem and they still won't do it. Luckily, the consultant gets paid for their time and effort. They are so opposed to the solution it will kill them.
I gave up on the local paper years ago, and the only things I missed were the comics and the ads for new toys. I can find them online, but its not as convenient. I could live with a more moderate viewpoint, but the local paper just beat me over the head with their liberal bias day in and day out. The dribble that passes for informative reporting is laughable, yet they get a pass when its election time. McCain-Feingold protects them, and their end can't come soon enough.
i thought so too, but didn't want to "Harsh on his happy"
And it just gets worse in succession- after Biden, it's Pelosi, then Reid, then Clinton, then Geithner, then Gates. EEEEEEECK!
We have two papers here. On is pretty balanced, and the other is far left (It's nickname is the Star Sickle). Guess which one is bankrupt.
What I don't understand is Sam Zell. He was a successful radio TV buyer/seller.. that risked the farm for the Trib group. Now bankrupt, Sam is blaming everything from a sour economy to the sad state of the reading public, while reducing the actual size of his papers to pamplet status. Magnifying glass not included.
It's axiomatic – nobody wants to read how rotten we are, when we can tune into MSNBC and see it. Oops, noone is doing that either.
To (mis)quote Steely Dan:
Don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard,
I just read the [New York Times] and swear by every word.
Make love, not war!
Hee, hee, you frightened them away.
indeed. The single worst thing about this administration is the dearth of talent from top to bottom. There simply is not an honest, hard working qualified citizen anywhere in this pipeline; so, to a certain extent, the Immaculated One has little competition… sheeesh…
Dude, the symbolism doesn’t escape me, but I feel bad for the burro (donkey/Democrat) down in that culvert, now if it’s Chris Mathews, Keif Olberdork, Pinch Sulzberger, etc., that are down there, who cares.
The White House Correspondents Dinner last week proved that class no longer resides at the White House.
The problem is, that I can see anyway, is that we the public will be bailing these morons out on our dime, thanks to obama being in bed with them.
I have no sympathy for failing newspapers. If the internet revolution is 12 years old now, that means they've had 12 years to adapt. The stubbornness is a symptom related to the root cause of the dot com bust— Senior decision makers and investors are not sensitized to the relationship between the new medium and culture. They have no vision for it. They don’t grasp that making no decision is just as damaging as making a bad one. The market changed into one where the product – information – is almost free, while wholesale news outlets like AP, Reuters, CNN, UPI, and Agence-France Presse no longer need hundreds of local publications to distribute their content when they can do it directly. Local papers need to provide value by synchronizing with consumer habits. For instance, I go to the Houston Chronicle’s website because their beat writer for my football team (the Texans) has embraced blogging and live chats with readers. After I get my fix, I am diverted to other content within the site. Interactivity distinguishes the internet from other media, and it shouldn't be ignored.
As for a high profile publication like the New York Times, they deserve to bleed to death by a thousand self-inflicted shots to the feet. The idea that Fox News has proven that there is strategic viability in making your bias overt has sabotaged liberal news outlets that try it. The overt bias works for Fox News because they have no competitors in their target market, and patriotism is not a turn-off to political moderates. What is a turn-off is self-indulgent elitism.
The articles coming out of the MSM today hold about as much weight as the "state run" media reports from Iran, Cuba, or China. The worst part about it is the MSM has made the shift willingly, no one is pressing them into it. When they shifted focus from news agency to Ministry of Truth they ceased to be valid media outlets, all that's left to do now is close the doors.
The reading public knows exactly what the problem is, and blaming them is confirmation that he does not.
The simple solution is for all of the "reports" to unionize. That way they will be protected by the president.
Unfortunately for the lefties they chose to make their true selves known too early for most people. They should have waited another 20 years when the last proud Americans were gone. When no one would care about what they did because by then they would have brainwashed millions of more unsuspecting citizens with their clap trap.
Brisco, you hit right on the head… 12 years to adapt to the internet.. if they can't manage that, then they need to die out like old-dinosaurs..
To paraphrase: "Newspapers, uh, *had* their shot, and capitalism *selected* them for extinction! "
The real reason Biden was chosen as VP is so Obama could look smart by comparison.
One time when one of the robo-sales people from the Pittsburgh-Tribune Review called, I said I didn't want any paper whose news was so heavily slanted to the right and whose editorials read like they were written by Archie Bunker, and she replied, "Yeah, we get that a lot.."
Exactly. They didn't adapt so they deserve to die. It makes you wonder why those poor buggy makers didn't get bailouts when that newfangled automobile started rolling off the assembly lines, or the candlemakers when those pesky kids started putting lightbulbs in their houses, and don't get me started on the tragedy of the pike industry when any old bloke could fire off a mass produced musket.
As technology shifts, outdated industries die off. That's always been how it is, and that's how it should remain. If the newspaper industry can't figure out a way to make people want their product by adapting, well maybe they can start learning to make pikes, I hear Renaissance Fairs are big bucks these days…
Doesn't this remind anyone of the dying record business and the dying car business? An economist needs to write his/her dissertation about how entrenched institutions can't adjust and lose their businesses.
wow you are clever.
thank you for pointing out that we are all so wrong about everything we have ever believed. I see now, thanks to your blistering wit, that my opinion is ill informerd and that I need to be reeducated. Please teach me to be as correct as you are. You raise me up.
Hahahahaha!
Nothing's funnier than a winger pulling "facts"out of his Fox Noise wannabe ass,and then trying to be all "Red Eye " with them.
I think the L.A. Times doesn't get it when it comes to conservatives. They send me subscription offers every week with a prepaid return envelope. I just send the envelope back empty. I bet others in L.A. are doing that ,also. I would love to find out somehow how many they get back empty. That could be one reason that they loose money and their reporters have to wash windows to survive. The MSM is in another world and the fantasy they want isn't the reality they lhave. I thought the MSM and newspapers that lean left were 'progressive', but it sure doesn't seem like they are progressing anywhere except directly to the waste bin in my house.
"They don’t even realize what kind of hole they are in"
They believe they are on a pedestal and the masses are looking up to them with adoring eyes.
This commentary is ridiculous. Newspapers are not dying because they are showing insufficient deference to conservatives. Get real! Ever hear about disruptive technologies? It's like saying that brick and mortar music stores are going out of business because they don't sell enough classical or country music, while completely ignoring digital distribution like iTunes.
Also… I don't think Wanda Sykes considers Limbaugh a spokesman for a significant number of her potential audience. On top of that, she is not part of the journalistic establishment so her criticism has nothing to do with the mainstream media.
Nice try selecting different events and trying to tie them together into a narrative!
BWAHAHAHAHa, nothing's funnier then a left wing whack job trying to be witty. Somehow it just doesn't fit BUT I'm still laughing. Bwaahahahahahaaaa..
Wow Billy, how long have you been out of your cave? Not long I'm guessing. Don't they have the internet in your cave. How out of touch with reality you are. *pats poor, misguided Billy on the head". Tsk*
wow! what the heck are YOU smoking?
fox news not biased? where have i been living these past 8 years? this is the station that ranted about how not supporting the president is anti-american, and now that Obama is in, they take every opportunity to bash him? I know you Repubtards like to assume your viewpoints are always right and that the liberals are all evil commies, but seriously, Fox News is not news, it's Bush's cronies showing scantily clad women all day long and denouncing it as evil.
Not to put down what I'm sure was a comeback you put much thought into, but I think by "disruptive technologies" he *meant* the internet. Kinda negates the comeback. Sorry about that.
So the big question is, if all the newspapers go out of business and the TV news shows are cutting back on their budgets, who will provide the investigative journalism that the bloggers latch onto and depend upon? FOX news and talk radio? Oooooh, I get it…
All these years wasted! I have been such a fool. with one paragraph, everything i ever stood for had been laid to waste. We've been scammed!!
Everyone, John Doe has spoken the truth don't you see? Wake up! Stop believeing every word that Fox Nudes says. Mr Doe has let it be known that they do not tow the government line. Stop being anti- government. Stop being anti-CNN. Come into the collective!!! Mr. John Doe has spoken!!
Well, she's in sales, so it must be true.
Well, she's in sales, so it must be true.
Then how do you explain MSNBC & CNN ratings going down and Fox News way up? Coincidence? Try supply and demand. Fox is the only alternative source to liberal nonsense. That's how capitalism works. Find a niche and then fill it. Since the MSM are all socialists, they are incapable of understanding this and should be doomed. However, this administration won't want to lose its propaganda wing and will bail them out at all our expense. Capitalism should allow us to vote with our dollars, but these fascists will force us to subsidize the losers. Fairness doctrine indeed, sir.
Explain why Fox is beating MSNBC & CNN in ratings? Explain why conservative talk radio is a profitable business and NPR relies on government theft (taxes)?
Billy, it is simply not smart power to insult half your audience; this is what liberal papers in denial of their partiality push. Therefore, they continue to lose readers.
Newsweek's executive editor was on television recently bragging about cutting their distribution in half! His spin was charming, but any thinking person would see through his drivel in minutes. Worse, these liberal elitists believe they are smarter than most of us normal folk.
Smart power is no power. Just ask Hillary Clinton.
Yeah, you don't want to read the Pittsburgh-Trib sojourner so you came here…a conservative opinion site. Makes perfect sense.
It's called sarcasm. Look it up.
Don't be foolish!
You can shovel a pound of used kitty litter lumps into a bigger envelope, stick that prepaid return card to the outside, and let the Times pay for it.
Turnabout is fair play.
How about because the right wing media and political elites have brainwashed you right-wingers into thinking that they're somehow unbiased and the only source of "truth," so you dutifully listen to the commentary that they pass off as news and disregard any fact that conflicts with what they tell you and that you want to hear?
How do you reconcile the idea that FOX is the dominant news source, conservative news sources and talk radio are beating out their liberal competition with the idea that the media is dominated by liberals? One or the other has to be wrong…
Mr. Doe, it may shock you to learn that I don't necessarily dispute your contention: Fox News does present the news from the perspective of the political Right… in that it actually presents both sides. Fox News frequently has those little face-to-face sound-offs between those on the differing ends of the political spectrum. If you don't mind, please, name for me one cable news channel that offers the conservative viewpoint as much microphone time as Fox News offers to the liberal veiwpoint. I will await your answer with bated breath.
In my original post, I was merely observing that the incredibly biased (liberal) mainstream media has the bellicose audacity to accuse Fox News of bias… all the while ignoring their own bias. "Fox News is biased." Whether that is true or false… it does not address the contention of liberal bias found in every other news outlet.
Here's my latest example of liberal media bias: Just last week, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives accused the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation of LYING TO CONGRESS!!! And, the increasingly-irrelevant New York Times puts that minor little news item on page A-20.
Mr. Doe, I can guarantee you that if Speaker Newt Gingrich had accused the FBI of lying, it would have been front-page, and nearly-career-ending news, sparking all kinds of investigations. THEN, if it turned out that Newt Gingrich was reading a painfully-orchestrated statement at a news conference, he would have been pilloried for obvious politically-motivated parsing of words.
But… in this real-life scenario… the accuser is a Democrat Speaker of the House… the current head of the FBI is a long-time Democrat flack. So, how does the New York Times respond? "We mentioned it on page A-20. Nothing to see here. Keep moving."
You want another: What about the recent outing of two undercover CIA operatives who were involved in the harsh interrogation? When worthless Valerie Plame was outed, the MSM was apoplectic in its coverage, digging, digging, digging, to find the Bush insider who did this horrible, despicable thing. Then, when one of Obama's insiders outs TWO undercover agents… who were actively engaged in undercover operations… you can hear the crickets chirping inside the studios of every MSM outlet. The double-standard is breathtaking.
Anyway… ultimately, I hope you continue to buy into the tripe about Fox News being the anti-Christ of modern day media. That kind of sychophancy will simply expedite the long-awaited demise of MSM. Keep it up: "Fox News is the devil."
Eagerly awaiting the New Hollywood.
Fox News makes money and MSNBC doesn't. Proof positive that capitalism works. Consumers pay for the products they want.
One cable channel and some staticy AM stations must be destroyed!! Repuglickins can not be allowed even this small section of the dominant media. It matters not that every other news network (and all of the ones that we proclaim to be mainstream) is solidly in our camp. We will not rest UNTIL all media preaches the message of the collective. Ignorance is stregnth!! Think not for yourself. Listen to party approved media only. Dissent is not patriotic and never was. The world was only evil before January 20. Now the sun shines!! Ocean Levels are rising or falling which ever is better!!11
Why cant you see you are wrong !! Come follow US!!!!1111 Do not belive the thought criminals on the Dominant yet un-important FOX NUDES!!!!!!1111111111
"Kurt, the "hip kids" that used to use that word are now in their 30's.
"
No we aren't. Oh wait. Yes we are.
You're welcome!
Rupert Murdoch pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into FOX news before it made a penny. Proof that patronage by conservative media elites works.
Y'see, what's fascinating is not that you think that virtually all the media in the country has a liberal bias, it's that you think any criticism of right-wing biased media is censorship. Project much?
"Your encounter with the LA Times caller reminds me of the quote form the Blues Brothers about having both kinds of music: Country and Western."
I too have often thought of that great line whenever this topic comes up. I am waiting for the day when one of the MSM defenders declares:
"We support both sides of the political spectrum: liberal and progressive!"
sojourner.. you do know that most every legitimate business tends to lose money before they actually start making money? Once they started making money however, I've never known FOX to have a negative number since…
Here I can present opposing ideas and discuss. Not so much with a newspaper.
Oh, I agree. But because of the way cable television works, I wonder if FOX news would have done so well if it didn't have Murdoch's mega bucks behind it, and the conservative media elite pushing it as the only legitimate news source.
By the way, that joke was in Cheech & Chong's Up in Smoke first…. "We play everything man, from Santana to El Chicano…you know, everything".
Barry wasn't starstruck or clueless this time…Biden (the mouth that roared) is Barry's insurance against impeachment or worse…who would want Joe Verbal Diarhea in charge????????
Seems you don't have problem with another rich guy Ted Turner who pumped millions of his dollars when he started CNN. You don't get what this is all about. The news media has been liberal for years and in this election it threw in everything it had for Obama yet it still has the nerve to stare people in the face and say it's objective. Oh and I wouldn't be pointing fingers at being brainwashed since the election of the Dear Leader.
John, you can't even get your own ridiculous complaint right. It is not anti american to not support the president . However it is anti american to not support your own countriy in a time of war. You may feel clever, mistating facts & accusing everyone else of the evils you harbor in your own heart. Traitor. You're lucky Thomas Jefferson isn't around anymore. He was known to shoot traitors right there on the White House lawn.
If BO gets it, the secret service is instructed to take out Biden.
Ah yes, here in South Florida with the Sun Sentinel, they went "all in" for Obama. Now when they call I just say that I don't want to subscribe to the "Obama Sun Sentinel". They either hang up, or don't know what to say. Delicious.
Don't worry sarge, no bailout will save them. They sold their souls to the devil to defend Bill Clinton. Integrity was their only asset, and they sold it in exchange for a promise of power. They are unredeemable.
It's OK; the comics are now so small that you can't read them without a magnifying glass. It's actually better to get them on-line. Given that, they have nothing to say that should interest a thinking American. Once a month I try the Sunday paper, because the guy selling it on the street looks like he could use a buck. Actually I should just give him five and dump the paper.
Well dying or not this new state run media we have still had enough power to elect a president (he would have never made it without them) and that scares the you know what out of me. What is to keep them from continuing to do this? What is to stop them from turning Conservatives into a punchline? No offense but blogging will do little to turn the tide we have to be more active in the culture at large, in our newsrooms, and our media. Sitting back sniping at their blatant bias to each other is simply "preaching to the choir" and making us feel better for a minute or two. It does nothing to slow down or stop the left's idealogical genocide.
Oh, you mean like GE pumping millions into money losing nbc & msnbc?????Or like the NY Times buying The Boston Globe & losing about a billion a year????
You just can tie together the music business with the News Media. With the exception of a few big names, no one is making any money in the Pop music business, even with the technology change and the download issues. Actually Country Bands still have a hefty income, but only because they tour constantly, and have a large ticket-buying audience. Oops, I think it's those pesky Conservatives again!
The News media will get a government subsidy. Obama needs them to sustain his power, and so he will find a way to keep them in his little pet zoo. But lets face it, this is no longer about Right and Left. This is now about Obama's "mission" and the power he needs to fully transform the country into his vision of a National Socialist society.
Is it a requirement that you have to make up some inane code word for a attempt at pithy humor to use in name calling in order to be a liberal? I understand that they have trouble winning intellectual arguments so they default to name calling (I know you are but what am I?) as a last word for their equally intellectually deficient friends. Must Fox News always be referred to as Faux News, Fox Noise or Fox Nudes (don't worry Buckwheat I recognize sarcasm 8 out 10 times now – I listened to JimBob7 and looked it up!) With the exception to references to Keith Olberdork (let's face it, he is) I see a lot of comments from conservatives about the issue and an occasional liberal calling names and using strawman attacks. The only thing missing so far is how newspaper circulation decline is somehow Bush's fault…but, the night is still young.
Weird. I don't normally hear crickets in my office..go figure.
Watch "V for Vendetta" and tell me that the fictional state control of that movie is not a prediction for where the "High Chancellor" is taking this country. The only disconnect was that the British High Chancellor was called a conservative, Hollywood could not call it what it was really representing – liberal fascism, using classical definitions – had to paint "Big Brother" as a conservative. The state control of everything in that movie is exactly where the current administration is taking the country. If there is not a crisis to take advantage of, how long before they create one of their own to get another one of their unconstitutionally granted power grabs pushed through the "system." I agree the time to act is coming and it needs to manifest in the 2010 elections or we may not recognized our country much longer.
You must be kidding. Limbaugh and Coulter have built careers on namecalling (fema-nazis, anyone?). I could fill a page with the libby lefty "celebutard" childish namecalling on this site alone.
Or your various "intellectual arguments" against Janemean Ga-beast-rafalo or whatever hilariously sub-witty mocks you guys came up with.
Don't get me wrong, it's wrong when either side does it–but to constantly pretend the left does it, but the right doesn't is disingenuous at best. And if you use the excuse "well they did it first" that's even more childish.
Hmmm censoring comments. What a bunch of socialists.
you got me – it was a childish attempt at getting away with calling Olbermann – Olberdork – and I would have gotten away with it too if not for those pesky kids and their dumb dog!!!!
A lot of these papers would survive if they'd just lower the newsstand price and start cutting staff (although the unions wouldn't like that part).
Our local "indie" rag, the Phoenix New Times, is absolutely free — it manages to subsist by selling half its space for advertising. Of course, advertising in the New Times is a joke because I don't know anyone who reads it, other than college students and old Lefties. Any chance they had of appealing to more than 45% of their potential audience went down the toilet last week, when they had a cover story about Sheriff Joe Arpaio that literally made him out to be a Nazi, right down to the ersatz Triumph of the Will imagery in the cover illustration; they've been calling him a fascist in their pages for over ten years, but I admit it's rather refreshing to see their bias right out in the open.
That's cool. I just think it's ridiculous when either side claims the moral high ground in namecalling. Both sides do it, and both sides do it ALOT. But it seems to be conservatives that like to pretend they're above it somehow.
I remember reviewing one of Coulter's books, the one with Rush doing the Foreword–a Foreward spent "bemoaning" how the left always resorts to namecalling, and Rush and Ann patting themselves on the back for the right always resorting to the strength of their intellectual discourse–
And then, hilariously, reading the book itself, the reader was inundated with chapter after chapter of namecalling from Coulter–you could almost just open a page a random and there was some childish (and usually not that clever) spat of namecalling. I started to make a list of the names, and it was ridiculous how large it got after just a few chapters.
Anyway, this is just one of those easily-debunkable conservative memes–(often using namecalling in the very same breath)–that gives more than a bit of truth to Letterman's accusation (he said it about Rush but you can apply it one a wider scale), that "He can't really believe what he says."
You could make a comedy routine on that line of succession – who is after Pelosi? I'm taking my rifle and dawg and heading for the hills!
What planet are you from?
you've gotta admit that Olberdork rises above sub-witty mock – he really deserves it. I've never heard Janemean Ga-beast-rafalo though – that is kinda lame. Whoever came up with that was not an intellectual – she gives way too much ammunition to play with to have to default to that kind of name calling.
I also agree with your other point – that Limbaugh and Coulter built careers, as in professional entertainers, commentators – as in they get paid to be witty (and they must be doing it well judging by how much they are getting paid) – most of the blog name calling is just mean spirited. Except when I call Olbermann – Olberdork, that's not mean – that's true. Please don't tell me you are going to try to defend that guy because he represents your worldview. If he does I'm truly sorry…for you.
All in the spirit of debate and discourse…
Nahh, it's not about defending Olbermann, or anyone.
It's conservatives pretending to be above namecalling when they aren't. Then acting all high and mighty about it, when they're lying about not doing what they're obviously doing, usually for cheap attention and money.
And yes, Limbaugh and Coulter make a lot of bucks. So does Al Franken. So does Howard Stern. So does Jerry Springer. (So I guess Rush and Ann are in good company.) So, probably, do all the people conservatives selectively look down upon for the very namecalling, witty or otherwise, they do themselves. Namecalling they actually CELEBRATE when their "team" does it.
Not really off topic, jack; if the media was not covering for these demonstrable fools, Biden would have been gone long ago. Bev is right too; Obi (PBOH) has the shield of the herd of goofs in line of succession. Really yechky and scary they are, much too much to allow the children to watch, or adults either.
I DO get what this is all about. Atwater and Gingrich cooked up their grand theories about how to "frame" issues and control the media, and through them to control the people. So Gingrich starts demagoguing about how the media is so liberal, and the Republicans jump on the bandwagon, and after a few years of playing the suffering, persecuted elite, they're able to "game the ref" and claim any news item that doesn't push the conservative point of view must therefore be "liberal." And when Rush says "jump" you dittoheads ask, "how high?"
And still, no one can answer the question, IF FOX is the dominant news source, and conservative news sources and talk radio are beating out their liberal competition, how can you say the media is dominated by liberals?
Very true about Zell – I have a relative just let go by Zells fools, Zell is killing the value of his own properties and I can't figure that out. Drugs, maybe???
It's all a game to Rush and the gang. They just say the same thing over and over, as if what they're complaining about, even if true, never could change.
Thus, Fox News dominates, but somehow isn't mainstream. Or Fox dominates, but is supposedly out numbered by liberal news, but wait–that would mean their combined audience hugely surpasses Fox's–which you would think would point out that, well, most people DON'T want their news Fox-style.
So it's easier just to repeat "Fox is Number 1" over and over.
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