Posted on 12/31/2005 6:38:42 AM PST by Loyal Buckeye
I believe it is also fear. The media still claims they hold a patent on integrity and that their job is to seek out the truth no matter where it leads. For years we, the public, were supposed to accept this just because they said it. Until the internet they could claim that role but do anything they wanted because unless you had access to the media you couldn't challenge them effectively. The Dan Rather fake document scandal was a shot across their bow. They can no longer do anything they want without a challenge, and this has them terrified. It's kinda what wiretap technology did to the Mafia. Unfortunately, just as with every old institution, instead of cleaning their own house the MSM will simply go on the offensive and attack the competition. Their days are numbered.
There -- I fixed it.
If only that were true. Ms Parker must live in a very tight bubble.
Simple - just like with so many other things that they they profess to hold high, the left's reverence for the First Amendment is nothing but a lie. The truth is much closer to what Kathleen Parker doesn't quite dare to say right here - they think the First is really a "collective" right, just like they think the Second Amendment is a "collective right" that applies only to the individual state National Guard forces (the "militia" in their view).
In Parker's view, us rabble are simply too ignorant and uneducated to properly use the First Amendment, and that as a result it should be restricted only to the press, true (as in leftist) academics, and enlightened "artists" who give us such masterpieces as photos of crucifixes dunked in urine and eight-year-old children decked out in bondage gear with bullwhips sticking out of their asses. If nothing else, the blogosphere is revealing these "elites" as the hypocrites they really are when it comes to "free speech."
Just on the off-chance that the author will read this thread- a word about bias is in order.
I am biased. I admit it. I am a Conservative, and I tend to see things from within that paradigm. I usually agree with other Conservatives and disagree with Liberals. But, contrary to the journalism racket's conventional wisdom- I am not an imbecile that needs to be told what to think, or how I should interpret events of the world around me.
But when I see (as an example) two Congressmen- one Republican and one Democrat- who have committed some identical breach of ethics under the exact same circumstances, the Republican (R) will be splattered all over the front page above the fold, and the Dem's coverage will be buried inside. You know how we know he's a Dem (absent mining Google)? The party affiliation usually isn't mentioned at all.
What do you think that says to us about the paper? If the political polarity in the above example were reversed, it would be equally reprehensible, and would identically speak to the credibility of the paper.
Good observation. Some things I like about net forums & blogs are that factors that carry so much weight in the other media, that have no bearing on accuracy and truth, such as physical appearance, quality of voice, charisma and presence etc., are nullified.
So someone that is scrawny, bed ridden, pain wracked, stringy haired and with a tinney sounding voice but who is providing more insightful, accurate observations can compete with the tall, dark, handsome, buffed, jock with the booming voice and commanding presence. [who now is a motivational speaker cuz he doesn't know squat about anything].
more like beyond pathological allegiance to getting it left.
I think you are right. No one is 100% perfect in their job performance. Everyone makes mistakes. Most are small, even trivial, but so can be serious. When the public demands 100% perfect performace, the stress is too great for most people, especially if they are held accountable for any deviation, regardless of degree, from 100% perfection. Bloggers are doing it to journalists and the trial lawyer and patients are demanding it of doctors. The bar that is being set is idealistic and unattainable.
The panicked squeals of the media elite are SO soothing.
Never before has there been an actual "Marketplace of Ideas" so accessible, cheap, and self-regulating.
That sounds to me like an admission of exploitative business practices. Maybe the usual style of hit-and-run smear-job, out-of-context 'investigative reporting' is in order.
A "blogger", by definition, is a single person who publishes his own opinions on his own web page. As such, his powers are rather limited and his opinions are not necessarily more valid than any other person you happen to meet.
What the Old Media avoids like the plague is the mere mention of the "F-Word".
Forum.
That is exactly what FreeRepublic is and that is exactly what exposed the attempted fraud by CBS in RatherGate.
A Forum, unlike a blogger, is the collective knowledge of thousands of individuals, from all over the World, with tens of thousands of man years of real world experience in everything from computer fonts to law to medicine to business to baking to landing an F-14 on the deck of a carrier.
That is a level of expertise that no Old Media research department can ever hope to duplicate.
In regards to fact-checking, a false fact posted on our Forum on Post 36 will have several rebuttals by Post 59.
The only way that Old Media can can puff itself up in comparison to the Forum is to set up a "blogger" straw-man and then proceed to beat the stuffing out of it.
Forums do not try to replace media as they do not have to dedicated resources need to collect news at the source.
Forums, however, have stripped the Old Media of its monopoly on the global dissemination of information and have therefore stripped Old Media of its ability to falsify facts with total impunity in order to advance their very thinly veiled political bias and agenda..
Hopefully, journalists one day will see the merit of applying the same standard to voting. Then the Democratic Party is finished. :-)
Unfortunately, Parker defines the terms "snarks, sasses and twits" far more broadly than we do. She means everyone outside the journo/intellectual elite.
That's actually a pretty good article.
My comments on the article posted on this thread stand but I call them as I see them, and one at a time.
Not exactly true. You exist to gratefully consume all that the Beautiful People produce.
Parker has been around a while. She actually makes sense, sometimes. :-)
LOL. Well, after observing the lack of substance in the piece, in combination with the tone with which she delivered her opinion, I conclude that Parker is a snark.
Everbody gets to make their own value judgements, that's the beauty of it.
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