Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Best article I've read in ages

This article by Jeffrey Lord, "Media Malpractice: Tom Brokaw's World Implodes," is an absolute must read in my opinion. It is so well written, and so accurate, that I am in awe. The age of Old Media is passing before our eyes, and the internet is ascendant. The world will never be the same.

P.S. The article is long, but well worth your time.

HT: Lynn

P.P.S. For those whose interest was piqued by the relationships between Mary Meyer, JFK, the CIA, and the press, check out this article. I don't think you can make this stuff up; it's worthy of a spy novel. HT: Ashby Foote

7 comments:

randy said...

Outstanding. It is unarguably for the good that information is becoming less controlled by the media plutocracy. The alternate decentralized / public production of news isn't nirvana either yet. I think the pendulum is skipping straight to something of information anarchy at the moment. There are zero costs to become a heavily followed pundit, just the ability to stimulate. The potential to profit (either dollars or simply exposure) from being a better stimulator, certainly leads a weird mix of infotainment that makes it difficult to sort through. And as with anything else, most gravitate to sources that support their bias (or maybe a more fair word is instincts.) For those willing to look, the good news is that there are more and more outlets for high quality, thoughtful analysis and reporting.

x said...

All this article does is argue that each media outlet has their biases, and they will report or not report stories based on those biases. I would agree. Remember, the media business long ceased to be about reporting facts and is now primarily a business about selling advertising.

Scott Grannis said...

I take a much more positive view. In the era of Old Media, there were huge barriers to entry. Now those barriers have been torn down by the internet. Lots more competition among news providers and commentators now, and the market will reward those who turn out the best product. And then you have people like me that do it for free. I will only have readers if I turn out a quality product.

The big bloggers have built their reputations on doing good work, not on catering to biased or bigoted audiences. And when it comes to the market, you've got to be right and/or have some value added content, or else it's not worth anyone's time.

Public Library said...

I think this an all to-do about nothing. Scott you should take you economics advice about believing the current crisis is no different than any other in our history.

In that vein, drawing a line between new/old media is a waste of time.

The delivery methods might be different but the content and results are the same.


Bloggers are not high priests of un-biased content. That is a load of poppy-cock.

The same rules apply today as they did in 1950, 1850, 1650. Do your own due diligence or suffer the consequences of blindly following the blind.

Jeff said...

This is NOT a waste of time. We have 4 convincing examples of liberal media bias in just the last week .

1) Van Jones. Not covered at all by the mainstream until AFTER his resignation. The other CZARS have gotten even less coverage than this self-proclaimed communist! (Have you heard about the Czar who has called for mass sterilization?)

2) The 9/12 Rally in DC. On Monday morning on CNBC, Joe Kernen asked Rick Santelli what he thought about the rally in Washington over the weekend. His response was, “what rally?” I laughed so hard I almost fell out of my chair. (Rick was joking.)

3) ACORN videos. Charlie Gibson from Good Morning America claimed in a radio interview yesterday that he hadn’t even heard of the ACORN videos…let alone cover them. (I wonder if he's heard about the Senate vote cutting of their funding!)

4 Joe Wilson. Lawrence O'Donnell on Morning Joe (MSNBC) on Monday said that Joe Wilson was attacking Obama because he was black and gave a long history of the ‘racist white congressman from South Carolina’. More scary, the NYTimes and others have been repeating this same charge. So if you think Obama has been misrepresenting the health care bill, you are a racist. (I thought Marx was color blind!)

OK, and one more…the biggest example of all.

5) Murder is murder! On May 31, 2009, George Tiller was shot and killed by Scott Roeder. Tiller was a doctor from Kansas who had performed thousands of abortions included hundreds of late-term abortions. You probably remember hearing about this in the news.

On September 11, 2009, James Pouillon was shot dead by Harlan Drake. Pouillon was a pro-life activist holding a sign against abortion. You probably haven’t hear anything about this murder.

Yesterday on his radio program, Glenn Beck compared the number of news stories on Tiller versus Pouillon. You’d think they’d be similar—one man kills another man over the issue of abortion. Nay. Beck counted 21 stories on Pouillon…over 800 on Tiller.

But the media is NOT BIASED. Actually, “biased” doesn’t come close to accurately describing the leftist media. They are purposefully and relentlessly advancing an agenda. As such, they shouldn’t even be called “media” any more.

From now on, they should be called Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf media!

Do you remember Saeed al-Sahhaf? He was the Iraqi Information Minister who would make these television announcement of sweeping Iraqi victories during the second Gulf War even as the split screen was showing American tanks driving down the streets of Baghdad.

It’s now official. The phrase ‘main-stream media’ is out. From this moment on it shall be call the ‘Saeed al-Sahhaf media’.

So let it be written. So let it be done.

Public Library said...

Jeff,

Stop the copy/paste efforts. If you seriously think the left has the edge over the right or vice-versa, then God help you.

Jeff said...

God has already helped me...through faith in Christ He has saved me.

But I don't get your point. Are you defending the ‘Saeed al-Sahhaf media’?

And I though I wrote a clever, accurate, and entertaining post. But maybe I'm biased!