Why we despise them ...

Glenn Greenwald summarizes it so well:

It makes perfect sense that the country loathes the political establishment. Just look at its rancid fruits over the past decade: a devastating war justified by weapons that did not exist; a financial crisis that our Nation's Genuises failed to detect and which its elites caused with lawless and piggish greed; elections that seem increasingly irrelevant in terms of how the Government functions; grotesquely lavish rewards for the worst culprits juxtaposed with miserable unemployment and serious risks of having basic entitlements (Social Security) cut for ordinary Americans; and a Congress that continues to be owned, right out in the open, by the very interests that have caused so much damage. The political establishment is rotten to its core, and the only thing that's surprising is that the citizenry's contempt isn't even more intense than it is. ...

Then he slams the incompetence and utter decrepitude of the media:

... But precisely because that dynamic so clearly transcends Left/Right or Democratic/GOP dichotomies, little effort is expended to understand or explain it.

The media can't/won't attempt to understand the world they inhabit because it may not suit their little preprogrammed minds.

What do the do in all those journalism schools? Teach journalistic creationism?

The goal of journalists ...

... the prime function of establishment journalism in the U.S.: to uncritically amplify the views of those who wield political power. And it is also perfectly consistent with their first mandate: the U.S. is incapable of acts of evil (and certainly incapable of "Terrorism"), which is reserved only for those foreigners who dislike and "protest" the United States.

I wonder, is this mind set taught in journalism class?

In my opinion, journalists as government, or ruling class, propagandists is not limited to the US. I listen to BBC News podcasts and most follow the same style of putting words into their subjects mouths and unquestioningly or deliberately accepting mostly propaganda from those they interview. The BBC and other foreign news organizations may report on topics that American news deliberately ignores but that does not mean that they are any more open minded, logical, thorough or inquisitive than their American counterparts.

Today's quote ... and a second one ...

... Someone in the Obama administration is hiding and manipulating behind secret identity and this “journalist” is their co-conspirator of bullshit. ...

--Didn’t Work, Senior Administration Official by paradox, The Left Coaster
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But for Washington's real journalists to rush to the defense of Fox News would be extremely short-sighted, and yet another dismal example of inside-the-Beltway camaraderie run amok. Sure, some of these people may be our friends -- and there are a few journalists at Fox who have maintained a modicum of integrity -- but the fact is that overall, these are people who have made a conscious decision to get out of the truth business. They don't deserve our support -- or our silence about what they really are.

--Why Journalists Shouldn't Be Defending Fox News by Dan Froomkin, The Huffington Post

Ending news articles with inanities ...

Gail Russell Chaddock ends an article in The Christian Science Monitor entitled "Who will rein in healthcare costs? Don’t look to Congress." with the following quote:

“There aren’t any easy deficit reductions anymore,” says Stanley Collender, a budget analyst at Qorvis Communications here. “If there were easy reductions, they would have been done already.”

Well, a real easy way to reduce US spending would be to end the Afghanistan (and the Iraq) wars. This would pay for healthy health care for every single American. And that's not even counting all the lives, American and not, that would be saved.

Perhaps, though, easy reductions doesn't mean sane reductions, nor logical reductions, nor reductions one would arrive at with a working intellect.

Perhaps, reductions refers to cheating the voters and engorging the corporations. Perhaps reductions refers to how the elected representatives in the Senate can perform the transfer of funds without the populace noticing. If this is the case then I must agree, reductions that are not reductions but monetary transfers from citizens to citizen-killing corporations, who cynically use the word 'health' in their corporate titles, is not always easy to do without vocal disapproval, at least not permanently.

Why is George Stephanopoulos such a jerk? ...

He's always seemed rather weaselly to me. Along with the majority of the corporate controlled media he has spent his career meeting out unequal investigation and/or observation to Dems and Repubs.

Digby documents his latest:

Hissy Fit Of The Day

by digby

So, let me get this straight: the same party that's been saying the Democrats are planning to pull the plug on Grandma for months is having an epic fit of the vapors because Alan Grayson said that the Republican Health Care plan is "Don't get sick and if you do get sick, die quickly?" Really? How do they live with this much gall?

Apparently, they are going to introduce a privileged resolution to sanction Grayson today. And Stephanopopulos says they deserve an apology. Seriously.

Follow this link for video examples.

Just imagine what the reaction would have been ...

... if some had suggested that it would be right for the US military to stage a coup during the Bush years!

Newsmax: Military Coup Would Take Care Of "Obama Problem"

And the press just rolls on with their decades old path of amplifying all things crazy and obscuring all things rational.

All hail the unified corporate press!

... and without the obnoxious TV commentators!

Via The Left Coaster, this clip of Secretary of State Clinton's welcome at the State Department is refreshing and inspiring and it's all done without a single 'journalistic' moron telling us what to think.

If newspapers die ...

Another McClatchy Commentary, this one by Barbara Shelly, The Kansas City Star: Communities will feel loss of newspapers

But if newspapers die, what forum will exist for stories like the fish vendor's? Small in the scheme of things but large to the persons involved.

Haven't newspapers died already? Where are the reporters she talks about. They've been homogenized and pasteurized by corporate control. The Arizona Daily Star here in Tucson was at one time --seems like eons ago-- quite a good paper. They had periodic special reporting on topics of interest to Southern Arizona. Not any more. Today's corporate Star is like imitation vanilla. Superfluous. Tasteless. Insipid. There's nothing there that I am willing to pay for. I visit the online version once in a while hoping to see a change. I would really like an active local area newspaper. But we will not get any 'news' from corporate newsrooms. We will get messages and indoctrination. I don't blame the individuals that still call themselves reporters. They need jobs and wish to do well at those jobs. Well, yes, I do blame them, but I also think I can understand the dilemma for any who would be more reporter-ish in their work.

Internet sites can give you the big stories. Bloggers can give you opinions and snappy lines. Watchdog sites can give you good investigative reports.

But if newspapers die, what forum will exist for stories like the fish vendor's? Small in the scheme of things but large to the persons involved.

Internet sites? Bloggers. Watchdog sites? Something's missing here. Bloggers and internet sites and watchdogs and reporters and commentators etc. are not mutually exclusive.

Blogger is one of those terms that can mean anything and nothing at the same time. I'm a blogger, I suppose, as I have this blog call Arizona Eclectic on a service called Blogger that is on the Internet. Gee.

I'm one of those who "give you opinions and snappy lines." Except that I post other people's 'snappy lines' and opinions. It's how I learn and how I remember. In class I learned to write everything down. Even if I never read my notes (which were mostly illegible), just the process of writing it helped me remember the subject matter. Don't know why but it worked for me.

Shelly, however, seems unaware of the range of skills in this world she so handily writes off as bloggers. There are reporters blogging. Real reporters like the Border Reporter, who writes about a local geographical area. Now just try to tell me that Larisa Alexandrovna at at-Largely is not a reporter AND a blogger.

What about firedoglake.com. Seems to encompass opinion, analysis, research and reporting. Certainly it's no more biased that the corporate controlled GOP media though it's much more intelligent, thorough and rational, most of the time.

Seems to me that the newspapers are already dead in the sense of being a place for real reporters. Local public interest stories, neighborhood stories, community interest stories? When there are reporters with incentive and a way to provide themselves a livelihood then they will find the stories. That environment has already been killed by greed obsessed corporate media. Sex, crime and political gotchas are what they expect us to swallow. And pay for? Sorry, I resist.

When I get calls trying to get me to subscribe (it's probable close to 10 years since I finally got fed up with the Star) to the local paper the callers script never includes any information about the actual reporting in the star. They try to sell me on the coupons. They've become a marketer of coupons. That's how I see them. News quality? Information accuracy. Completeness of facts. All secondary, if that. I would pay for quality, completeness, dependability, facts and a little bit of decent writing and organization skills. I paid for the paper for years. As much as I use the Internet I still like having a paper or magazine or book in my hand and reading it relaxed in a comfortable chair.

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Today's QUOTES:

... I don't know who tanked Brennan, but the fact that a whole bunch of people are still whining about bloggers doing it a solid month after it happened strikes me as a sign that something's amiss. --The Great And Powerful Left by digby, Hullabaloo ... There's the central axiom driving coverage by our American media: the more significant a matter it is, the less attention it receives ... --Politico reviews the year in American "political journalism" by Glenn Greenwald, salon.com

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The US propaganda machine ...

... and it's embedded 'journalists'

The CIA and its reporter friends: Anatomy of a backlash

... The "reporting" is all from the perspective of Brennan and his CIA supporters. None of these journalists even entertain the idea of disputing or challenging the pro-Brennan version.
[ ... ]
But, as has been historically true, many in "the intelligence community" are outraged by what they perceive as outside "interference" -- as though the CIA shouldn't be subjected to the same set of oversight, limitations, and democratic accountability, debate and restrictions as every other part of government. That something as straightforward as the John Brennan controversy can produce this level of backlash from the intelligence community is a very potent sign of the formidible barriers to real reform of our interrogation and detention framework and, especially, to the prospects for meaningful disclosure of, and accountability for, past crimes.

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Today's QUOTES:

[Arizona Eclectic Comment: It's BushCo, Blackwater and the like who are the leaders in US perfidy. The lack of accountability for these vile and depraved individuals and organizations will come back to haunt this country. That the US does not have the moral courage to right wrongs committed by us and ours makes us irrelevant when we speak to the wrongs of others. The hubristic folly in our continuing to speak to what is right for others while assuming that absolutely anything we do is right is glaringly apparent to all the world but us.] ... They are making sure to make it very clear it's an indictment of the five guards, not of Blackwater. And we're again haunted by the ghosts of Abu Ghraib - kids gets hauled into court and blamed for being part of a situation that wasn't really entirely of their making. Old men and war profiteers say tsk-tsk and cash their paychecks. It's only partial justice, which is almost worse than no justice. --Abu Ghraib: The Sequel by Lee Stranahan, bobcesca.com To paraphrase Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, rather than now criticize "the left," it would be better if these insiders just said thank you and went on their way. --Mandate Watch: Were Democrats Elected to Attack "The Left?" Part II by David Sirota, OpenLeft ... infuriating DC assholes put on a clown show of humiliating Ford and GM CEO’s begging for a pittance $25 billion just because they employ UAW workers, but AIG gets $152 billion on the fly, no questions asked. --Out of Time by paradox, The Left Coaster ... The 35-hour policy was a "qualified success." But you wouldn't have known that from reading the English speaking press. ... --"Lunatic Scheme" a Qualified Success by the Sandwichman, EconoSpeak

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Politico again ...

Don't reporters have anything worthwhile to write about? The economy? The environment? The hungry? Even the greedy rich?

Guess not as Politico has an entire article by Michael Calderone grousing about which reporters Obama chooses or does not choose to ask questions. Their whole pecking order has been turned topsy turvy. They much preferred to be treated as pets by BushCo than as adults (which, of course, many of them are not).

Pick a reporter, any reporter by Michael Calderone
When President-elect Barack Obama meets the press Wednesday morning for his third news conference in as many days, it’s anyone’s guess which reporters he’ll call on.

Poor, poor babies.

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Today's QUOTES:

Make no mistake about another thing: Obama doesn’t care one damn bit what liberal blogs say about him, so the notion that heat from the blogs caused this is laughable on its face. The real issue here, aside from Brennan’s lack of integrity, is that Obama seemingly was prepared to nominate someone for either of these posts who willfully carried out Dick Cheney’s playbook. We know that Obama isn't a progressive, but is it that hard to find a tough intelligence professional who isn't stained with Cheney residue? And can someone tell me what exactly Gates has done to warrant being kept around for 6-12 months as a reminder of Bush's Iraq and Afghanistan disasters? --Retaining Gates; Bye Bye Brennan by Deacon Blues, The Left Coaster

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More poor reporting from McClatchy ...

White House's help to automakers might defuse Democrats' plans by David 'Congress-wants-to-spend-more' Lightman

If you are interested in well organized facts, strategies and possible motivations go to firedoglake.com. Certainly McClatchy has given up on real reporting, I gather. One expects loaded words on most blogs (I certainly use them) but I would not expect to use them if writing a news article, nor did I used them when I wrote reports for businesses. David Lightman, however, starts right out with loaded words and phrases:

• defuse,
• Congress wants to spend more,
• take steam out of;

and that's just between the title and the first two paragraphs.

The Auto Bailout: Who Is In Favor of What by emptywheel Monday

Now firedoglake.com is a partisan blog, yet manages to produce a more a straightforward report than does McClatchy. Why?

I'm aware that news oriented bloggers could not exist with out the media. I just wish, and no longer expect, the news media to act responsibly. It is my opinion that they are dragging the country down and if this Constitutional representative Democracy finally fails it will be in large part due to news media malfeasance.

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Many eyes opening about the Mormon and Catholic Churches while the Dem 'leadership' keeps its eyes wide shut. Today's QUOTES:

... Seeing them [the Mormon Church] come out for Prop 8 when they had declined to act on torture was all the extra motivation I needed. --JC Christian, Tremonton, UT - Redemption, signing for something.org ... [Congressional Democratic leaders] consider it a good thing -- not a bad thing -- when they anger their own base. They're thrilled when they get accused -- accurately -- of acting like Republicans and supporting right-wing measures, particularly on national security and "terrorism" issues. They consider it a benefit -- an incentive -- when they are attacked for embracing Republican political policies and violating the principals of their own base. --The mind of the Democratic leadership by Glenn Greenwald, salon.com

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Intimidation vs lobbying ...

I wonder if intimidate is a direct quote of what Joe Trippi said or if it was McClatchy's Frank Greve who selected the word intimidate over the word lobby? Wonder if Grevie would suggest that corporate lobbyists throwing around lots of money are trying to intimidate Congress?

Joe Trippi, the Internet politics guru whose computer geeks made Howard Dean a contender in 2004 and who went on to design Obama's socially networked campaign machine, offers a provocative and educated guess.

Trippi predicted that Obama would use his forces, first and foremost, to intimidate congressional foes of his agenda, rally his allies and forge "one of the most powerful presidencies in American history."

Money lobbies. Masses of voters intimidate.

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Intimidate: frighten, menace, terrify, scare, terrorize, cow, dragoon, subdue; threaten, browbeat, bully, pressure, harass, harry, hassle, hound, torment, tyrannize, persecute; informal lean on, push around, bulldoze, railroad, twist someone's arm, strong-arm.

Lobby: 1) seek to influence, try to persuade, bring pressure to bear on, importune, sway; petition, solicit, appeal to, pressurize. And 2) campaign for, crusade for, press for, push for, ask for, call for, demand; promote, advocate, champion.

Marana in the dumps ...

Pima County Board of Supervisors plans to close the Tangerine Road landfill (near Marana) to the public and as a result Marana residents would need to travel at least 20 miles to Catalina Transfer Station. Then the Catalina Transfer Station will truck the refuge to the to the Tangerine Road landfill which will be 'open' to such well travelled rubbish.

Complete closing the Tangerine Road landfill to the public will cost $9 million for which the county does not have the money to pay and is " looking to have a bond election in the future." It's not clear, to me, whether 'complete closing' refers to some time after which Tangerine landfill no longer accepts transferred rubbish from Catalina nor is it clear, to me, what 'complete' closing entails. But it is clear, even to me, that complete closing does not mean just locking the doors and turning off the lights as it costs much dinero.

The above is what I gleaned from this article: Marana council irate over dump closure --Plan to shut Tangerine Landfill next year called irresponsible, but county disagrees by Shelley Shelton, Arizona Daily Star

Notice how the he said/he said nature of the article begins right in the subheading?

He said/he said journalism is a journalistic strategy that provides that the reporter never has to understand the subject matter.

McClatchy has a right wing extremist hack masquerading as a reporter: Steven Thomma ...

Do they have an equivalent left wing hack for balance?

This is what passes for political reporting for Thomma-boy and McClatchy:

It's debate night: Which candidate will prove riskier?

NASHVILLE — Who does America want at the helm in a time of crisis, an erratic gambler or a dangerous radical?

Another he said/he said fantasy from Thomma's brain through McClatchy servers to your eyes.

Facts, perspective, objectivity, truth and lies ...

Excerpt from The myth of objectivity by Suzie at ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

Before the 20th century, many newspapers trumpeted biases to attract readers who shared their views or wanted another opinion. Now, when few cities have more than one daily newspaper, and a few corporations monopolize the media, it makes sense to claim objectivity. Media owners want readers, viewers and listeners to think they can get all sides, all viewpoints, from just one source. And they do not want to offend advertisers. This translates into a lowest-common-denominator journalism that supports the status quo.

"Liberal media, my patooties."

Looking for a concise demonstration of just how much like GOP trained propagandists most of the pigs, who refer to themselves as journalists or reporters or commentators or news show hosts, are?

If so, read this: Compare And Contrast by tristero.

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Would that progressives would stop using the Republican terminology when dealing with the GOP's 24/7 misinformation campaign. Not a day goes by that I don't see the term 'liberal media' used as irony on liberal leaning blogs. Once, twice. That's interesting. Time after time? Day after day?

The blogosphere has many progressive voices who are great writers. Couldn't some of these coin a phrase that identifies the scum that pretends to report the news but instead massages it into GOP propaganda? Then work to turn that phrase, or word, into instant dirty word recognition like the GOP's media scum have done with the word 'liberal.'

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My other request into the void is to turn the word liberal back into a word that has a meaning, rather than an epithet controlled by GOP worms.

From Wikipedia:

Liberalism is a broad array of related ideas and theories of government that consider individual liberty to be the most important political goal.^[1] Modern liberalism has its roots in the Age of Enlightenment.

Liberalism emphasizes individual rights and equality of opportunity. Different forms of liberalism may propose very different policies, but they are generally united by their support for a number of principles, including extensive freedom of thought and speech, limitations on the power of governments, the rule of law, the free exchange of ideas, a market or mixed economy, and a transparent system of government.^[2] All liberals — as well as some adherents of other political ideologies — support some variant of the form of government known as liberal democracy, with open and fair elections, where all citizens have equal rights by law.^[3]

...

Here's some of what Conservapedia says about liberals:

Historical Liberalism

In history, the word "liberal" has meant different things at different times, and was associated with individual liberty in prior centuries. In the postwar period, liberals supported government intervention in the economy and welfare state policies, as well as peaceful coexistence with the communist block, which are not liberal policies in the sense of classical liberalism. After the end of the cold war, with the demise of socialism and communism, many liberals embraced some ideas from economic neo-liberalism, and coined it the "Third Way". In the area of national security and foreign policy liberals in the U.S. failed to define a consistent stance, even after the events of 9/11 and the beginning of the war in Iraq. Liberals generally support affirmative action, gay marriage, and abortion.^[13]

Original meaning: Classical Liberalism

Liberalism is a political philosophy with freedom as its core value. The term was originally applied to supporters of individual liberties and equal rights, but, in America, the term has come to represent a movement of social change that often conflicts with conservative values such as moral values and tradition.

The phrase "liberals in the U.S. failed to define a consistent stance even after the events of 9/11 and the beginning of the war in Iraq" caught my eye. --Is consistent stance anything like a wide stance? Never mind.-- But it is an interesting choice of words. Stance instead of position or reasoning or conclusion. Stance has to do with posture and posturing. Not with information, reasoning and judgement.

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Added: It's really comical (in a depressing sort of way) that McCain is now attacking the media as a campaign strategy. The media who have doted on him for years. The media who have covered up about his lies, his temper, his meanness, his pettiness. The media who have attended his barbecues. The media that pushed his image as a maverick. Now he's using them as fodder in his campaign for the Presidency. Couldn't happen to nicer 'people.'

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

... Isn’t it interesting that advocating tax breaks for the wealthy is unlikely to get someone called an elitist by the media.

When you think about it, Obama actually has more experience than McCain. Sure, a guy named "John McCain" has been in the Senate since 1987, but he's not the Republican nominee.

There was a guy by that name who supported Roe v. Wade, but the new John McCain replaced him two years ago.

There was a guy by that name who called Jerry Falwell an "agent of intolerance", but the new John McCain replaced him two years ago.

There was a guy by that name who proposed comprehensive immigration reform, but the new John McCain replaced him in February.

There was a guy by that name who was against waterboarding, but the new John McCain replaced him in February.

... and on and on ...

This amalgamation of major business interests with state power, this system of oligopoly and governance of, by and for the ruling class, has metastasized beyond imagining since the Progressive era. It has expanded in every direction and subsumed virtually every industry and business in America, large and small. It is this system of "political capitalism" that dictates domestic and foreign policy, including a foreign policy of endless war, preparation for war, and various forms of "cleaning up" after war. You the ordinary citizen, you "the people," figure nowhere in this -- except to provide the necessary labor and, when required, your blood and your life.<

That [Tim Russert] is who was canonized -- by the media and, revealingly, by the Right -- as the Model of Great Journalism. That's because the core function of the establishment press is to obtain and then disseminate government claims. ...

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

"Disorder and diffusion crop up all the time and are mainly a nuisance," Pendry says. “But by understanding them, we can maybe use them to our advantage." ... So we discuss light through opaque objects. Politics should be as easy

... there is no place left for the kind of action that Thoreau advocated. His way – and that of Gandhi and King, who took so much from him – envisions a state opponent which one could hope to shame into honorable action by the superior moral force of principled civil disobedience. But the very hallmark of the present regime is its shamelessness, its utter lack of any sense of honor or principle, its bestial addiction to raw power.

A promise from Georgie-boy Bush, eight years ago: “So when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not only uphold the laws of our land, I will swear to uphold the honor and dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God.” -- One can see how important God and the Bible is to Georgie-boy as he began breaking his oath immediately, probably from second #1.

The great Digby of Hullabaloo has in instant answer to that riddle, the same answer as to why America has no single-payer health care, no trains, no daycare, slums of violent hell in every major city, and brutal working conditions: racism.

... the idea that the Rule of Law is only for common people, but not for our political leaders and Washington elite, is pervasive among the political and pundit class, in both parties. ...

Re: Caribbean Coral: "The take-home message seems to be that the most glaring problems--like bombing--might not be as serious in the long term as the quiet or silent problems, like runoff and development," says David Niebuhr, a marine biologist ...

Survey Finds Citations Growing Narrower as Journals Move Online "...Searching online is more efficient and following hyperlinks quickly puts researchers in touch with prevailing opinion, but this may accelerate consensus and narrow the range of findings and ideas built upon." --Interesting that what turns out to be a boon in access to information for the public may do further harm to 'journalistic' endeavors.

Is this a joke?

When I read an excerpt from this article on Krugman's blog I was sure this had to be satire. There's nothing, however, on the webpage to indicate it might be satire. It appears to be a 'serious' article from an insane person who who gets published by an insane propaganda organization the WSJ?

Too Fit to Be President?

Facing an Overweight Electorate,
Barack Obama Might Find
Low Body Fat a Drawback

By AMY CHOZICK
August 1, 2008; Page W1

The writer, if she was determined to write about the ridiculous, could just as easily have taken the tack --that is if one wasn't writing to the command of the character destroying artisans of the GOP to select what in most would be seen as the positive aspects of Obama and turning them into a liability-- taken the tack that Obama's fitness was something to inspire the populace. Really, I think it past time to get rid of all the news related propaganda media as start over. The result couldn't be worse than this.

Rob Christensen, just another hack writer? ...

The completion of a three year pilot program set up by John Edwards is morphed by Rob Christensen into a case to attack Edwards' reputation. Christensen writes in the second paragraph:

Edwards' presidential hopes have evaporated. And he recently informed Greene County officials that he would end the pilot program at Greene Central High School.

Funny how those two sentences are tied together neither by facts nor logic. It's not until much later in the article that we learn that this program was established as a three year pilot program. The apparent success of the program seems unimportant to Christensen. After all, providing opportunities and encouraging the education of all America's young'uns is the last thing the GOP would look forward to.

Is Rob Christensen just another good little 'staff writter' doing his imperialist GOP duty by turning the completion of a successful pilot program into a cement block aimed at John Edwards?