Comments on: Why We’re Not Parasites

by: Elliott Lake

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 06:16:33 +0000

Seems like a lot of the media’s received wisdom is of the default assumption variety–the kind of thing where one hears doctor or police officer (now soldier) and thinks male, not female.
I think the media has generally the assumption that good/smart/correct/worthy attributes all belong to male, white, republican, big business——so it just won’t fit into their heads that someone outside that category could matter. Of course the dems are In Disarray! Republicans are Patriotic! Pelosi is Whiney! Blogs are Upstarts! Secularists are Anti-Religious and Hateful (new meme from NPR on Saturday).
We had a dog like that–he thought if something looked spherical, it was a ball to chase; he’d bark at the light bulbs in the chandelier, to try to get us to throw them for him. The old fashioned media seems stuck in its categories too.

by: QrazyQat

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 20:38:48 +0000

Just a coincidence I’m sure that the clueless blogger in question, Paul Staines (aka Guido Fawkes) is a right-wing libertarian. If you want informed bloggers you have to go left; go right and you inevitably run into clueless fonts of non-facts.

by: felicity

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 17:52:26 +0000

According to Russert “Bloggers all force candidates to accept a position, to play {an adversarial} role.” Russert doesn’t approve because it “puts pressure on those of us in the mainstream media {if we’re not} sufficiently adversarial.”

I am at a loss to understand what Russert is saying. Is it wrong to force a candidate to accept a position? Is Russert saying that he resents being pressured (by bloggers) to be adversarial? What’s his job-description, television journalist or television cipher?

Finally, Fred Barnes pronounced, “I can speak to almost anything with a lot of authority.” E. Alterman translates, “I can speak to almost anything without anyone pointing out how full of shit I usually am.” I can think of no better argument in favor of the vast blog-wing conspiracy

by: sb

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 13:12:28 +0000

oops.. pully = bully

by: sb

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 13:10:47 +0000

To me, if the press in print or on tv did anything other than parrot the spin line they would be more useful. As it is, they just repeat the lies or half truths of the administration. I keep hearing about how this or that congressperson voted for the war. I remember that vote and it was if diplomatic efforts failed we authorized the president to use force. Who would have thought we had no diplomatic efforts? I think we had one UN speech that was pretty much like a pully with a big club swaggering in and saying it’s our way or the highway and that was it. I remember the teensy artical on Joe Wilson saying nothing was going on and thinking this would be reported on more. Did I hear another word until the end of this year? Nope. The news is more like a gossip these days. I am not interested in Anna Nicole stuff. I am not interested in the hyped up sensationalized stories. What I would like is a fact check whenever I get a talking point from either side and I don’t see any of that. What I would like is someone finding out if a story like Joe Wilson’s is true or not (preferably BEFORE a vote). What I would like is information on all of the republicans being placed in government agencies to censor the information coming out of them. As soon as the newspapers and tv news start addressing those things, I will take more interest in them.

by: Swami

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 02:07:37 +0000

If it weren’t for the blogs ( the good ones) I’d probably still be wondering where Saddam hide those WMD’s. I’m not ashamed to admit that through MSM I got played like a fiddle, and through the blogs I got to see how they played me. The blogs are the only line of defense to come against the mechanisms of manipulation that have been set in place to make us sheeple.

Oliver Kamm calls the blogs an echo chamber..and to some degree it’s true, but there is also a strategy of manipulation called an echo chamber that we learned about through the blogs, and that our government used it so effectively on us in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. “I don’t want the smoking gun to be in the form of a mushroom cloud”

by: maha

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 00:09:40 +0000

D.R.: Yeah, they had real reporters in them days.

by: D.R. Marvel

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 23:41:31 +0000

“…when this nation was young, when there was a healthy plethora of little newspapers.”

May I refer you to Mark Twain’s Classic Memoir: “Journalism in Tennessee”…

by: Donna

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 22:45:06 +0000

The old power brokers are upset that the internet allows a model much more in line with real democracy. With the internet, issues get quickly and widely addressed in a way that puts citizens directly into the process.

by: joanr16

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 21:55:39 +0000

It all boils down to the relative weight that the MSM gives its stories; I should think even a champion Upperclass Twit would realize that. Case in point: as I write this, the red-lined “Breaking News” story on the CNN website is that the real father of Anna Nicole’s baby has been identified!

CNN’s “afterthought” news of the day is that Congress has subpoenaed Gonzo’s documents, and the African-American women athletes that Don Imus insulted have a few words of their own to say. Oh, and BTW, a battle is raging in Baghdad between American/Iraqi forces and insurgents.

Political bloggers pay attention to real news because the MSM abdicated that task years ago. If Upperclass Twit feels professionally threatened by bloggers, well, that’s just survival of the fittest.