Looks like he likes to dress up as a woman.
Posted on 11/25/2004 7:52:43 AM PST by HighWheeler
Hoo-boy. It's a hot time in the old blogtown.
The pajamahadeen are firing their virtual bullets into the cyber-air in celebration of CBS anchor Dan Rather's announcement on Tuesday that he was retiring as the top talking face of the network after 24 years.
"This has been a simply outstanding month," crowed a poster on http://www.freerepublic.com. "Bush won, Arafat died, we're kicking ass in Fallujah, and now this!"
Typically, the above-quoted "Freeper" didn't get that Rather may be down, but he certainly isn't out. When he steps down as front man for The CBS Evening News on March 9, he will stay on as correspondent for the still much-watched 60 Minutes, as well as perform other assignments.
So it was a bit premature to be celebrating the defeat of the veteran journalist who has inspired anti-liberal websites such as http://www.RatherBiased.com and http://www.BoycottCBS.com, not to mention Doonesbury's ridiculous foreign correspondent Roland Hedley Jr., an R.E.M. hit and "Rather-gate."
As comic Jon Stewart recently pointed out, last September's 60 Minutes II fiasco, which had Rather questioning President George W. Bush's National Guard service with documents that could not be authenticated, was the only scandal of the election campaign to have merited a "-gate."
Which brings us to those pajamahadeen, the online brigades who claim credit for bringing those documents into question — and forcing Rather to apologize for his reporting.
The right-wing bloggers proudly dubbed themselves that — a play on muhajadeen, as in Muslim guerrilla fighters — when former CBS exec Jonathan Klein, in the wake of the scandal, complained to Fox News that "bloggers have no checks and balances.
"You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances (on network news) and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing."
By checks and balances, Klein meant the rigours of professional journalism — and not the opinionating of the blogosphere.
Ironically, bloggers mostly feed off the work of professional journalists who do the legwork. But, like parasites too stupid to realize they are killing off their hosts, the pajamahadeen don't get it every time they dig more dirt for our mass grave.
"Network news is dying and good riddence (sic)!" jubilated one of them yesterday.
It's true that journalism's checks and balances have been known to fail. When they do, news organizations crash and burn in spectacular fashion. But, much like the thousands of airplanes that land safely every day and don't make the news, major disasters are few and far between.
Still, the credibility of the corporate media continues to plummet.
In March, the Washington-based Project for Excellence in Journalism published The State of the News Media 2004, which documents an increase in superficiality and sensationalism, the declining reach of newspapers and network newscasts, cutbacks in newsroom resources and, most significantly, rising public distrust and disdain for our reportage.
Then, in June, the Canadian Media Research Consortium, a national project led by three University-based organizations to promote research on the media, (http://www.cmrcccrm.ca) came out with its Report Card On Canadian News Media. While it showed that Canadians are significantly more positive about our news sources than Americans are, citizens here believe that "powerful people or organizations" have too much influence on the media agenda.
One thing is clear from both studies: The shift from mainstream media to alternate sources such as the ethnic press, cable networks and the Internet, are threatening the future of the solid, stolid mainstream journalism.
And we don't know how to deal with it. Recently, for example, the news came from the U.K. that staid old papers are going tabloid, while the Washington Post will lighten up — all to attract elusive younger readers.
As for the newscasts of the type that Rather hosts, well, one look at the commercials for arthritis pills will tell you plenty about their demographics.
Paradoxically, young people are crowding into journalism schools, many of them in search of network TV stardom.
Still, the pajamahadeen are waging war on the mainstream media.
That includes the paper you're reading, even if you're not reading it on paper, since it is the actually selling of this paper which pays for the content you may now be reading gratis.
By the end of today, who knows how many bloggers will have had at this column? Many of them often shoot me down — and some do a pretty good job. (See letitbleed.blogs.com)
But, just like trigger happy celebrants in the Middle East, who have yet to figure out that what goes up must come down, they can't see that, by firing up at us, they will also kill themselves.
Antonio Zerbisias is a complete moron. She's deathly afraid of blogs since she appears to be on a personal crusade against them nowadays. She just can't get over the fact that she is no longer able to dictate to people what their agenda should be.
Exercise of free speech kill itself? The author's fondest wish, maybe. I don't think so.
Typically, the above-quoted "Freeper" didn't get that Rather may be down, but he certainly isn't out. When he steps down as front man for The CBS Evening News on March 9, he will stay on as correspondent for the still much-watched 60 Minutes, as well as perform other assignments.
Typical leftist reporter. I read that thread, and it was commented just a few posts down that Rather would still be doing 60 Minutes. Looks like this idiot didn't read the rest of the thread and just cherry picked the comment. I'm shocked.
One word for 'em: SKEERED!(frightened or scared).
Very true too about FR reporting breaking news before the monolithic main-waste-stream media.
Antonia Zobiased also joins the pantheon of rabid leftists like Thomas, Dowd, Clift, and Ivins. They have it so wrong. We are the check and balances for their lies and distortions. And we have great original articles too...some posted as vanities, but original and interesting. They just cannot stand it, they cannot accept that the New media is beating the crap out of them
Oh, please! Another blind, mentally challenged liberal.
LOL, no, news companies will arise that actually do the job without looking down on everyone and making stuff up.
And we'll still be around to keep them honest.
And the guy who wrote this piece will still be a sad loser.
:P
Hmmmm, I thought they all were.
Hehe, you gotta love the last line of the article. In the eyes of this guy (and the MSM) the bloggers and others who depend on the Internet for their news are no different from the trigger happy third-worlders who blindly fire their weapons into the air, and are puzzled by the lethal lead falling from the sky.
Just another reason why the MSM needs a slap in the face. They are completely missing the change in the status quo.
It's certainly nice to see them stew...
Should read:"The author sucketh(sic)"
Notice how he assumes that he is in the "up" direction, making him higher, mightier, and superior to we little people.
What a pompous Clymer!
Oh ho ho ho!!
It's not just a "failure" when the emphasis of modern journalism is a constant drumbeat for the destruction of free enterprise and in favor of complete centralized government control of all aspects of our lives.
Don't you have something worthwhile in Canada to write about, Tony? Why don't you quit looking over the fence and sticking your nose in our affairs?
I'll take the opinionating of the bloggosphere over the bloviating of the MSM any day, ANY DAY!!!
OOPS! Missed that it was "Antonia" not "Antonio"...little Freudian slip maybe?
1 - She?, ANTONIA ZERBISIAS, hasn't seemed to figure out, that if the old media would do their job properly, in reporting the news without bias, they would not be out of a job.
Ok Zerbisias, repeat after me "Freerepublic is not a blog, Freerepublic is not a blog" if he can't even get this part right, why pay attention to the rest of it?
Hey Antonia, feeling like your job is threatened right now? If MSM would tell the truth and not be a mouthpiece for the Left then your job would be secure.
The internet and talk radio is thriving because it is the only place to get the truth. If it takes the MSM to die (which it is doing) to get the truth out then so be it.
You guys on the Left don't get it and I don't think ever will.
Looks like he likes to dress up as a woman.
"....better put some ice on it", eh?
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