Posted on 12/18/2004 9:11:20 AM PST by CHARLITE
Our friends at CBS News are at it again -- suggesting that blogs, bloggers, and everything related to non-mainstream media reporting is at the root cause of the troubles in the industry. Not the almost unconscionably poor job that the CBS News research division has been doing in vetting stories for accuracy, nor the obvious left-leaning bias of most of its broadcasters…but blogs.
Haven’t these people heard the warnings from one of the organizations that they hold in such high esteem -- the Occupational Safety and Health Administration -- regarding the tossing of inanimate missiles from the confines of one’s transparent residential structure? I guess not.
Well, in case you missed our last episode, retired CBS News stegosaurus Eric Engberg in November reemerged from the Jurassic Period to suggest to the unwitting populace that bloggers were responsible for the premature predictions of exit polls on Election Day. To catch a rerun of the pilot, please see CBS Blasts The Blogs. Now, with enough time having passed so that most of the nation has composed itself, another CBS News correspondent obviously working his way towards an early extinction, David Paul Kuhn, has this to say about all things not MSM:
Internet blogs are providing a new and unregulated medium for politically motivated attacks. With the same First Amendment protections as newspapers, blogs are increasingly gaining influence. While many are must-reads for political junkies, are some Internet blogs also being used as proxies for campaigns?
You gotta love it. The highest profile member of the organization that this man works for just resigned in a cloud of shame over allegations that he reported information apparently coming from forged documents, and within weeks, the same outlet is pointing fingers at volunteer writers across the nation who mostly share their thoughts with the public out of a passion to do so. This is akin to exiting a restroom with toilet paper stuck to the bottom of your shoe, and then standing on top of a desk in your office so that everybody can see. Frankly, I’m half expecting Emily Latella to at any moment look up at the camera and whisper innocently, “Never mind!”
And, what pray tell, is truly bothering Mr. Kuhn and his employer about the blogs this time? Well, hold on to your seats, for it appears that a couple of bloggers in South Dakota who were pro-John Thune took money from his campaign…$35,000 BETWEEN THEM, to be exact. Oh, the HUMANITY!!! Of course, Mr. Kuhn conveniently neglects to inform the reader that Jon Lauck of Daschle v Thune, a university professor, and Jason Van Beek of South Dakota Politics, a university student, were hired by the Thune campaign well after establishing these blogs. Or that the $35,000 given to them for such nefarious and clandestine activities as analyzing polling data represented 0.0875% of the $40 million the two candidates spent on this campaign. The horror.
Speaking of missing the forest for the trees, I haven’t been able to find any articles written by Mr. Kuhn wherein he expresses a commensurate level of shock and dismay concerning the fund raising and distribution activities of the group MoveOn.org, or the possibility that it was a “[proxy] for campaigns.” I guess Mr. Kuhn hasn’t heard of them, or that the very day after his article came out concerning these bloggers receiving shameful sums of money in the tens of thousands of dollars, MoveOn.org announced with pride that it contributed as much as $300 million to Kerry and other Democratic candidates in 2004 -- potentially including Tom Daschle.
Actually, I just made a Kuhn pas. Of course he’s heard of MoveOn.org. He’s even written about them. Quite glowingly, in fact. Here’s one of Mr. Kuhn’s masterstrokes from September 8, 2004:
A newly formed organization will soon begin airing ads stating that President Bush “dodged his own military duty during Vietnam.” Called Texans for Truth, the group has ties to the liberal organization MoveOn.org.
In addition, Mr. Kuhn had previously written an article referencing this fabulous organization on June 29, 2004 while gushing with exultations about Hollywood’s favorite left-wing propagandist:
Michael Moore has a war plan to defeat President Bush. With MoveOn.org, he now has his army.
The excruciatingly delicious irony here is that Mr. Kuhn obviously had much less of an ethical problem with Mr. Moore and MoveOn.org’s plan that involved hundreds of millions of dollars and the potential for countless campaign finance violations than the completely legal payment of $35,000 by the Thune campaign to these bloggers -- that is, until the plan failed of course.
Regardless, our heroes from South Dakota have been receiving some well-deserved accolades for their fine efforts -- although I imagine that defeating Mr. Daschle was what they are truly thankful for…as are we all. Whichever the case, John Fund did a story about these two gentlemen in a recent Wall Street Journal column:
South Dakota Republicans decided that the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, which dominates the state's media since it's the only paper with a statewide circulation, was hopelessly biased in favor of Mr. Daschle. 'The ability to use the Internet to circumvent concentrated media power became a 21st-century updating of 19th-century Dakota populism,' says John Lauck, a history professor at the University of South Dakota who was allied with Mr. Thune. Mr. Lauck and several of his friends collaborated on blogs that constantly reminded voters of contradictions between Mr. Daschle's voting record and his statements in South Dakota, as well as the Argus Leader's refusal to acknowledge them.
Thankfully, it appears that the efforts of our heroes quite paid off:
The paper's readers also began to take notice of the range of coverage available on the blogs that mysteriously didn't show up in their local paper. 'The Argus Leader often doesn't present the whole picture in its political coverage,' Wendy Otheim, a teacher from Hartford, S.D., wrote the paper in October. 'A multitude of blog sites make for interesting reading. Don't be held a captive audience to the Argus Leader.'
Excellent advice, Mrs. Otheim -- advice that it appears many South Dakotans took. As for Mr. Kuhn’s contentions about our heroes, Mr. Van Beek addresses them best at his blog:
I began my blog a year before Thune declared his candidacy. I became a consultant for Thune in July of 2004, a year and six months AFTER I began blogging. From the beginning, I have always been very clear about my political predilections. I consistently told readers of my blog that I was pro-Thune. If my blog was a 'proxy' for the Thune campaign then it can fairly be said that the Argus Leader and CBS have been proxies for Democratic campaigns since time immemorial. The difference is that I tell everyone I am not an objective observer. To this day, the Argus Leader and CBS hold themselves out as objective observers. I think blogs in general have pretty much exploded that notion. Yet the 'mainstream media' continue to splutter about 'dirty tricks' and 'ethics' and make a nauseating show of wrapping themselves in virtue.
Hear, hear. Yet this doesn’t answer the most important question stemming from this charade: Why is CBS News still fighting this battle? To be sure, CBS can’t be pleased about the outing of Dan Rather’s forged documents in “Memogate.” Moreover, it quite appears that the efforts of our heroes ended up assisting in ousting Tom Daschle from his cushy post as the left’s chief legislative obstructionist. Putting these two incidents together, along with the hostile response, one must conclude that the media chieftains have taken a look into the future, and they don’t like what they see.
Despite Al Gore’s claiming credit for inventing it, as a result of Matt Drudge’s breaking the Monica Lewinsky story, the Internet has been a scary invention as far as the Democrats are concerned. Many of them have been calling for stricter regulations over this medium ever since. Now, with bloggers outing Dan Rather and Memogate, as well as aiding in the defeat of the Democratic Senate Minority Leader who was quite an ally to the media, the MSM is also crying for legislative restrictions.
In a glorious holiday example of life imitating art, it appears that Mr. Potter is once again concerned about the Bailey Building and Loan threatening his business. Isn’t life wonderful?
About the Writer: Noel Sheppard is a business owner, economist, and writer residing in Northern California. Noel receives e-mail at
slep@danvillebc.com
Proud to be part of the 'problem' for the old media!
The pint-sized, bearded 'intellectual' was non other than David Brock, head-honcho for Media Matters, a left-wing organization in cahoot's with Franken and the rest of the PC nazi's.
Lehrer was really bonding with him too... you could see it in his eyes... he despises the conservative right the Internet and talk-radio!
CBS is providing an old and unregulated medium for politically motivated attacks.
Even to it'll get a knee-jerk "He's just a liberal" rteaction. Letterman Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Dave came across a head-scratcher earlier today. The film The Aviator has been nominated for six Golden Globe Awards even though it hasn’t even been released yet. Paul doesn’t understand it either. And there’s more who don’t get it. We watch the trailer for the film, The Aviator. “On December 17th, see Martin Scorcese’s ‘The Aviator’, nominated for six Golden Globe Awards.
Peter Travers calls ‘The Aviator’ ‘the finest movie I have not yet seen.’
Rex Reed says, ‘It looks like it may be a pretty good movie, but I really don’t know yet. I haven’t seen it.’
And Roger Ebert says, ‘I don’t know if the movie is any good, but Alex Baldwin is in it and he was good in the submarine movie, so that’s cool.’
‘The Aviator’: Coming soon to a theater near you.”
No. Their problem is that they know, but don't *care* what you think. They view their job as being to educate the unwashed masses (read: brainwashing) to the "correct" way of progressive international thinking.
For instance, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, South Dakota's only statewide newspaper, *knew* that Senator Daschle gave a pro-choice speech at an Emily's List soire. The Sioux Falls Argus Leader's editors simply spiked that story because it inconveniently exposed Senator Daschle's "pro-life" lies.
Daschle was telling Dakota citizens one thing, but telling his fellow progressives something different altogether, and that specious, evil duplicity was consciously aided and abetted by the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.
It is only through sycophantic liberal news media complicity that Democrats can say one thing to their constituents, yet vote entirely differently in Washington. Daschle claimed to be "pro-life" to his Dakota voters (because they are overwhelmingly pro-life), yet he voted *against* President Bush's ban on Partial Birth Abortion.
...And the news media *knew* that fact. Contrary to your claim above, the news media also knew that Dakota voters think of themselves as pro-life.
So the liberal news media simply omitted Daschle's voting history from the public record that they published.
So it isn't as you claim above that the news media doesn't *know* what the Heartland thinks. No, it's much more insidious than that. The news media knows what we think, they simply don't care. Moreover, they are on a conscious mission to *change* how we think whether we like it or not, and they are quite willing to lie (Dan Rather) or spike stories (content of Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee memos) or omit facts like voting records and speeches that portray their fellow progressives in a bad (read: accurate) light (e.g. Sioux Falls Argus Leader not mentioning Daschle's pro-abortion record that contradicted his pro-life campaign claims).
The liberal news media is the *opposite* of being insulated and isolated as you imply above. They have their reporters in every town in the U.S. They know full well what is going on and how we think. So their behavior is not explained by simply claiming that they don't "know."
It's much more evil than that.
Good heavens! I don't know why they persist in acting like their loss of power is something new. Ah yes, they must. My mistake, excuse me. Everything, everything that goes wrong is OUR fault, 'cause they never do anything wrong.
Years ago, Ken Auletta wrote a popular book entitled, Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way. Believe it was published in the late 80s. Haven't a clue what Auletta's politics are but I do know he predicted the coming (continuing) demise of broadcast news organizations. And, it didn't have a blasted thing to do with blogs, bloggers or bulletin boards on the Internet.
The carpet, too, is moving under you.
Thief is to Fence, as Forger is to Rather.
That's why the LA Times, Washington Post, and former President Clinton White House staff sued FR back in 1998. Heck, they probably audited Jim Robinson's taxes, too (he's just not the overly-chatty type to broadcast such attacks on his own self).
Going after FR back in 1998 when it had fewer than 20,000 members, versus today when it is approaching 200,000, should tell you that they saw from Day One that Alternative news sources posed a serious threat to their political power.
This is the thing that bothers me the most. "The same First Amendment protections as newspapers"?!
The first amendment applies to ALL people Mr. Kuhn, not just newspapers. Newspapers are not an offcial arm of the government. I can start a newspaper, does that give me some special privelege?
The problem the MSM doesn't recognize is that they are NOT special. They have no more legitimacy than bloggers or sites like FR. They just don't understand it. They don't own the first amendment.
Indeed!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1224680/posts?page=155#155
To: MeekOneGOP; Slip18; Argh; xsmommy; Gabz; VRWCmemberBALLAD OF DAN RATHER(Think "Beverly Hillbillies" theme song)
Come and listen to my story 'bout a man named Dan,
The documents were fake and he didn't give a dam*;
He put 'em on the air, an' he thought he'd done the job,
But up from the web come a howlin' mob.Blogs, that is.
Web logs.
Checkin' facts.Well, the first thing you know ol' Dan's a-runnin' fast;
Made a false report an' it bit him in the a$$;
He said 'dog-gonnit, I done thought I'd get away!'
But it turned out to be his a-reckonin' day.Busted, that is.
Red-faced.
Mud in the eye.Well, now it's time to say goodbye to Dan and all his men;
And they would like to shoot you folks for turnin' them in;
You're all invited back next week to watch the Evening News,
And see which correspondent's picked to fill Dan's empty shoes.Y'all come back, now, hear?
155 posted on 09/23/2004 4:15:51 PM CDT by TheGrimReaper
What is CBS?
AS I see it, it all stems from the "rather" quaint notion that the media should be an "agent for change."
Whose change? Their's or mine?
What ever happened to *reporting* the news and letting us decide?
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