The Media Memes

I am sad to say that I have neglected this blog of late and so it feels good to be back in the saddle. I cannot guarantee how often I shall be able to post, but i shall commit to doing better this year than I did last year.

Why am I posting again? Well, I was depressed and concerned after the epic wipeout by the left in the 2008 elections, not to mention the media malfeasance that allowed a woefully unprepared and inexperienced politicians without a single achievement or any experience in much of anything to be elected President of the United States. In the past two years, we have clearly seen how much damage this unqualified President has done. And the voters rightfully paid back the tone-deaf and arrogant leftists who would not listen to their concerns. Can the Republicans do a better job? I am unconvinced, but i am willing to give them a chance. Certainly new Speaker John Boehner seems to understand that his party is governing on a very thin tolerance. We shall see.

However, that is not the main reason for this post. Recently there has been a vicious and well-planned campaign by the Left to blame conservative voices - particularly former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin - for the attempted murder of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords. At this time I shall not engage in dealing that piece of verbal assassination - it has been well-debunked in many other places. However, I would like to remind anyone who stumbles across this blog that the media has a long and sordid history of trying to manipulate public opinion with false and misleading reporting. Walter Cronkite's infamous lie about the Tet Offensive comes to mind fairly quickly, as does Dan Rather and Mary Mapes' failed attempt to use forged documents to swing a Presidential election. Yes, I know I'm linking to a very sympathetic report from NPR, but the point is that even NPR was forced to admit that what Mapes and Rather did was utterly wrong.

More recently, a large group of leftist writers and bloggers put together a well-organized machine for coordinating memes called JournoList. Though JournoList is supposedly dead, I have no doubt that a successor (probably with a slightly smaller membership) still exists.

Just as a reminder, these are the people who tried (and are almost certainly still trying) to shape the news to ensure that their particular agenda gets the best possible coverage. They also engaged in some extremely hateful speech and used far more violent terminology than anything any figure on the political Right has done in the last forty years. In other words, they did exactly what they are accusing the Right of doing in the Loughner case - they incited hate with their rhetoric.

The 150 names on this list come from (The Vail Spot). I haven't confirmed them on my own, so this may not be entirely accurate. Suffice to say that any time you read anything from any one of these would-be propagandists or the media that employs them, I recommend both a hearty dose of skepticism AND a thorough fact-checking. They have proven themselves to be untrustworthy.

The JournoList:

1. Spencer Ackerman - Wired, FireDogLake, Washington Independent, Talking Points Memo, TheAmerican Prospect
2. Thomas Adcock - New York Law Journal
3. Ben Adler - Newsweek, POLITICO
4. Mike Allen - POLITICO
5. Eric Alterman - The Nation, Media Matters for America
6. Marc Ambinder - The Atlantic
7. Greg Anrig - The Century Foundation
8. Ryan Avent - Economist
9. Dean Baker - The American Prospect
10. Nick Baumann - Mother Jones
11. Josh Bearman - LA Weekly
12. Steven Benen - The Carpetbagger Report
13. Ari Berman - The Nation
14. Jared Bernstein - Economic Policy Institute
15. Michael Berube - Crooked Timer, Pennsylvania State University
16. Brian Beutler - The Media Consortium
17. Lindsay Beyerstein - Freelance journalist
18. Joel Bleifuss - In These Times
19. John Blevins - South Texas College of Law
20. Sam Boyd - The American Prospect
21. Ben Brandzel - MoveOn.org, John Edwards Campaign
22. Shannon Brownlee - Author, New America Foundation
23. Will Bunch - Philadelphia Daily News
24. Rich Byrne - Playwright
25. Jonathan Chait - The New Republic
26. Lakshmi Chaudry - In These Times
27. Isaac Chotiner - The New Republic
28. Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic
29. Michael Cohen - New America Foundation
30. Jonathan Cohn - The New Republic
31. Joe Conason - The New York Observer
32. Lark Corbeil - Public News Service
33. David Corn - Mother Jones
34. Daniel Davies - The Guardian
35. David Dayen - FireDogLake
36. Brad DeLong - The Economists’ Voice, University of California at Berkeley
37. Ryan Donmoyer - Bloomberg News
38. Adam Doster - In These Times
39. Kevin Drum - Washington Monthly
40. Matt Duss - Center for American Progress
41. Gerald Dworkin - UC Davis
42. Eve Fairbanks - The New Republic
43. Henry Farrell - George Washington University
44. Tim Fernholz - American Prospect
45. Dan Froomkin - Huffington Post, Washington Post
46. Jason Furman - Brookings Institution
47. James Galbraith - University of Texas at Austin
48. Kathleen Geier - Talking Points Memo
49. Todd Gitlin - Columbia University
50. Ilan Goldenberg - National Security Network
51. Arthur Goldhammer - Harvard University
52. Dana Goldstein - The Daily Beast
53. Andrew Golis - Talking Points Memo
54. Jaana Goodrich - Blogger
55. Merrill Goozner - Chicago Tribune
56. David Greenberg - Slate
57. Robert Greenwald - Brave New Films
58. Chris Hayes - The Nation
59. Don Hazen - Alternet
60. Jeet Heer - Canadian Journolist
61. Jeff Hauser - Political Action Committee, Dennis Shulman Campaign
62. Michael Hirsh - Newsweek
63. James Johnson - University of Rochester
64. John Judis - The New Republic, The American Prospect
65. Foster Kamer - The Village Voice
66. Michael Kazin - Georgetown University
67. Ed Kilgore - Democratic Strategist
68. Richard Kim - The Nation
69. Charlie Kireker - Air America Media
70. Mark Kleiman - UCLA The Reality Based Community
71. Ezra Klein - Washington Post, Newsweek, The American Prospect
72. Joe Klein - TIME
73. Robert Kuttner - American Prospect, Economic Policy Institute
74. Paul Krugman - The New York Times, Princeton University
75. Lisa Lerer - POLITICO
76. Daniel Levy - Century Foundation
77. Ralph Luker - Cliopatria
78. Annie Lowrey - Washington Independent
79. Robert Mackey - New York Times
80. Mike Madden - Salon
81. Maggie Mahar - The Century Foundation
82. Dylan Matthews - Harvard University
83. Alec McGillis - Washington Post
84. Scott McLemee - Inside Higher Ed
85. Sara Mead - New America Foundation
86. Ari Melber - The Nation
87. David Meyer - University of California at Irvine
88. Seth Michaels - MyDD.com
89. Luke Mitchell - Harper’s Magazine
90. Gautham Nagesh - The Hill, Daily Caller
91. Suzanne Nossel - Human Rights Watch
92. Michael O’Hare - University of California at Berkeley
93. Josh Orton - MyDD.com, Air America Media
94. Rodger Payne - University of Louisville
95. Rick Perlstein - Author, Campaign for America’s Future
96. Nico Pitney - Huffington Post
97. Harold Pollack - University of Chicago
98. Katha Pollitt - The Nation
99. Ari Rabin-Havt - Media Matters
100. Joy-Ann Reid - South Florida Times
101. David Roberts - Grist
102. Lamar Robertson - Partnership for Public Service
103. Sara Robinson - Campaign For America's Future
104. Alyssa Rosenberg - Washingtonian, The Atlantic, Government Executive
105. Alex Rossmiller - National Security Network
106. Michael Roston - Newsbroke
107. Laura Rozen - POLITICO, Mother Jones
108. Felix Salmon - Reuters
109. Greg Sargent - Washington Post
110. Thomas Schaller - Baltimore Sun
111. Noam Scheiber - The New Republic
112. Michael Scherer - TIME
113. Mark Schmitt - American Prospect, The New America Foundation
114. Rinku Sen - ColorLines Magazine
115. Julie Bergman Sender - Balcony Films
116. Adam Serwer - American Prospect
117. Walter Shapiro - PoliticsDaily.com
118. Kate Sheppard - Mother Jones
119. Matthew Shugart - UC San Diego
120. Nate Silver - FiveThirtyEight.com
121. Jesse Singal - The Boston Globe, Washington Monthly
122. Ann-Marie Slaughter - Princeton University
123. Ben Smith - POLITICO
124. Sarah Spitz - KCRW
125. Adele Stan - The Media Consortium
126. Paul Starr - The Atlantic
127. Kate Steadman - Kaiser Health News
128. Jonathan Stein - Mother Jones
129. Sam Stein - Huffington Post
130. Matt Steinglass - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
131. James Surowiecki - The New Yorker
132. Jesse Taylor - Pandagon.net
133. Steven Teles - Yale University
134. Mark Thoma - The Economists' View
135. Michael Tomasky - The Guardian
136. Jeffrey Toobin - CNN, The New Yorker
137. Rebecca Traister - Salon
138. Tracy Van Slyke - The Media Consortium
139. Paul Waldman - Author, American Prospect
140. Dave Weigel - Washington Post, MSNBC, The Washington Independent
141. Moira Whelan - National Security Network
142. Scott Winship - Pew Economic Mobility Project
143. J. Harry Wray - DePaul University
144. D. Brad Wright - University of NC at Chapel Hill
145. Kai Wright - The Root
146. Holly Yeager - Columbia Journalism Review
147. Rich Yeselson - Change to Win
148. Matthew Yglesias - Center for American Progress, The Atlantic Monthly
149. Jonathan Zasloff - UCLA
150. Julian Zelizer - Princeton University
151. Avi Zenilman - POLITICO


The source:
Free Republic Webcache

My Take:
Again, I have not done the legwork to confirm these are really all Journolisters. However, none of these names have so far challenged the accusation of being members. So I think that the odds are pretty good that they really were Journolisters. And if so, then they are folks that have forfeited any trust on the part of the general public. They are no more honest reporters than was the infamous Walter Duranty (Stalin's tool who worked so hard to cover up the man-made famine in 1930s-era Ukraine). Feel free to pass this on to remind people just how dishonest and hypocritical the media really is.

Oh, and one more thing. The next time these self-satisfied hypocritical hatemongers try to call for 'civility', or blame a politician for the acts of a madman, let's remind them of their own words in the privacy of their little community. Remind them too that every single political act of violence since 1960 - with the sole possible exception of Tim McVeigh - has been perpetrated by the Left.

Media (Un)Ethics

The media loves to destroy careers and damage peoples' lives. if someone is unfortunate enough to be in the media spotlight due to their iridescent talents, that person can count on being treated like the subject of the Truman Show. Especially if something in that microscopically-studied life should happen to occur that promises lots of free publicity for the jackals of the Press.

Tiger Woods is one of these unfortunates. The man is a supremely skilled golfer. He is athletic, rich, attractive to the fair sex and seemingly lives the Perfect Life. But he is also an intensely private person off the golf course. He doesn't appear on frothy 'celebrity' shows. He doesn't appreciate fake topless shots of his wife. And he certainly doesn't enjoy the media intruding into what he does off the golf course. All of which stands should be uncontroversial. But the media can't let it go. In a world populated by self-serving trash like TMZ and Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr (who calls himself Perez Hilton), if the media cannot catch a celebrity in an embarrassing, headline-provoking scandal, they are perfectly prepared to create it out of whole cloth.

Such is the case here. The undisputed facts are these:

1. The National Enquirer magazine published a story claiming Mr. Woods had an affair with a woman.


2. Both Woods and the woman (Rachel Uchitel, 34) promptly denied the report.


3. Mr. Woods and his wife may have had an argument, possibly caused by the Enquirer's story. No physical force has been reported to have been involved.


4. Mr. Woods left the house at a very early hour and was involved in a minor automobile accident.


5. Mrs. Woods assisted in rescuing her husband, who suffered minor injuries.

As far as I am aware, no laws were broken by either Mr. or Mrs. Woods. However, the media, having created the situation that caused the problem, are now in full-throated roar demanding that Mr. Woods somehow owes them an explanation.

Er, how to put this in language our logically- and ethically-challenged media will understand? NO. Tiger Woods owes the the press nothing at all. In addition, unless some evidence emerges that he broke the law in some manner, neither does he owe the police an explanation. Jason Whitlock, one of the very few members of the press who has both respect for others' privacy and common sense (he was virtually the only member of the national media to get the Duke Rape Hoax right), put it best in his column this morning, writing,

The media members/outlets asserting Tiger Woods owes the public and the Florida Highway Patrol an explanation for a fender-bender and his wife's jaws-of-9-iron rescue owe America an explanation for their self-serving jealousy and obvious stupidity.
...

The price of fame and wealth should not be the sacrifice of marital privacy. Tiger Woods plays golf for our enjoyment. He didn't marry Elin Nordegren for our entertainment.

Jason Whitlock gets it. Why don't the rest of America's supposedly 'professional' press corps? The media does not have a right to invade the privacy of people just because their professions bring them into the public eye.

America's media has a lot of problems, from their abject failure to actually display any professional objectivity (11 'fact-checkers' for Sarah Palin's book, zero for Barack Obama's or Joe Biden's)to their complete failure to accurately inform the American public about many important stories currently ongoing (ACORN's corruption, the University of East Anglia's emails, etc.). But while they don't seem to have enough time to actually deal with actual issues of real importance to most Americans, they do have enough time to descend on a professional athlete who has done nothing wrong and try to wreck his life. For shame!

Beck, Letterman and Censorship

It appears that Fox News host Glenn Beck has gotten himself into some trouble of late. According to the New York Daily News, he referred to President Barack Obama as racist:

The combustable Beck ignited a firestorm when, during a Tuesday morning appearance on FNC's freewheeling "Fox and Friends," he said the President's reaction to the Henry Louis Gates Jr. arrest situation in Cambridge, Mass., suggested a "deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."

To his credit, "Fox & Friends" co-host Brian Kilmeade — who recently had to apologize for comments he made about racial issues — immediately responded, saying that most of the faces people see of the Obama administration are white, such as spokesman Robert Gibbs or chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

"I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem," Beck responded. "This guy is, I believe, a racist."

Around the Internet, this comment seems to have outraged a number of people, to the point where there is a Facebook poll asking if Beck should be fired. Funny how the same people calling for beck to be fired for suggesting that Obama is racist were silent when late-night host Dave Letterman suggested that baseball player Alex Rodriguez had sex with former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's 14-year old daughter. As reported by the Hollywood Grind,

On Tuesday’s show, David Letterman joked in his opening monologue that the Alaska Governor Sarah Palin visited Yankee Stadium, sitting in "far, far right field" with Rudy Giuliani. "They had a wonderful time," he continued. "The toughest part of her visit was keeping Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter." Letterman also said that Alex Rodriquez knocked up Palin’s daughter at the game, except the daughter at the game was not 18 year-old Bristol Palin, it was Palin’s 14 year-old daughter.

Neither Beck's nor Letterman's comments are useful additions to political discourse in this country, and both are despicable. However, I disagreed with the campaign to ask CBS to fire Letterman and I also disagree with the campaign to have Fox fire Beck. What both these campaigns are trying to accomplish is pure censorship, albeit in the name of decency. I ask those calling for him to be fired - do you agree with censorship? Because that is what you are proposing. By all means show your disapproval and refute his statements. But to try to get him fired for speech with which you disagree is censorship, which is anathema to me. Censorship makes totalitarian governments like Cuba and Communist China possible.

As far as Beck and Letterman and all the other commentators making extreme statements - and yes, this definitely includes the many on the Left who used Nazi terminology to refer to former President Bush for the last eight years - should they face some sort of discipline? Maybe, but that is up to their employers. As far as we consumers, we can choose not to watch their shows. But we should never risk employing the whip of censorship. The power of censorship, once granted to a government authority, can never be revoked and can easily be employed against any subject. Censorship is the weapon most desired by totalitarian governments, and we should be exceedingly wary in its use here. Censorship in a war zone to protect troops? Absolutely. Censorship for two brainless commentators? Both needless and dangerous. The First Amendment was written for a reason and that reason has everything to do with political speech.

It's........Palin!

Republican Presidential candiadte John McCain selected Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate today. According to the announcement sent out by the McCain campaign,

Governor Palin is a tough executive who has demonstrated during her time in office that she is ready to be president. She has brought Republicans and Democrats together within her Administration and has a record of delivering on the change and reform that we need in Washington.

Governor Palin has challenged the influence of the big oil companies while fighting for the development of new energy resources. She leads a state that matters to every one of us -- Alaska has significant energy resources and she has been a leader in the fight to make America energy independent.

In Alaska, Governor Palin challenged a corrupt system and passed a landmark ethics reform bill. She has actually used her veto and cut budgetary spending. She put a stop to the "bridge to nowhere" that would have cost taxpayers $400 million dollars.

As the head of Alaska's National Guard and as the mother of a soldier herself, Governor Palin understands what it takes to lead our nation and she understands the importance of supporting our troops.

I think this is an excellent choice on many levels. First, Governor Palin has the executive experience that both Biden and Obama (and McCain himself, to be honest) so conspicuously lack. Secondly, as the youngest member of either ticket, she is able to challenge Obama's youth-based celebrity (she was herself a beauty contestant in her younger days). And she, like McCain, is a maverick- she has consistently fought the special interests and corruption in her own party and defeated several Establishment candidates to win her current position. She is someone who can bring a voice of reason to the energy debate, as she is Governor of the state with American's largest oil reserves. Finally, as a working mom, she can connect to women on a level that neither Biden nor Obama can, and McCain's choice shows once again that he is the real agent for change and is willing to take risks- in short, as Pajamas Media's Jennifer Rubin so aptly put it "he thinks he can win".

Palin is solidly conservative. As governor, she reduced spending, exposed corruption and worked to make Alaska independent of federal money. She has a long record of fighting corruption and is not close to either of Alaka's corrupt Congressmen- Senator Stevens or Representative Young. She is also a hunter, a lifelong member of the NRA and she is a confirmed pro-life candidate- she chose to have her latest child even though doctors told her that the child had Downs Syndrome. Her oldest son is in the Army, and is preparing to deploy to Iraq.

The risk here is that Palin's experience is limited. Before being elected governor, she was a member of the city council and later mayor of Wasilla, a small town of only 5400 residents in Alaska. However, both her mayoral and her gubernatorial experience trump either Biden or Obama- neither has any executive experience at all. And she, like McCain, has a long record of reformism- in fact, her reformer credentials are even more solid than McCain's- she was never involved with the Keating Five.

In conclusion, Palin may be weak on the experience bit, having less than ten years in elected office. But she has executive experience as both a mayor and as a governor- no one else on either ticket can make that claim. And she is as much the outsider as McCain- in contrast to the Chicago machine politician Obama and the ultimate Washington insider Biden. And she also brings intangibles that neither Biden nor even Obama himself can- she is a woman, and with the Hillary supporters still unhappy with the way their candidate was treated, she may be able to siphon off some of the female support Obama desperately needs in order to win.