Posted on 09/06/2006 4:55:13 AM PDT by abb
Just as history is replete with examples of generals trying to fight the last war, so it is with businesses trying to sell products that customers no longer want...
Great quote Walter. Thanks.
Great post c_I_c. Thanks.
That's where you'd be wrong, though. People do want the convenience of getting the news without having to sit and read it -- it's great to be able to listen and move about, or watch and move about.
The problem is that the MSM don't provide "news" anymore, in the sense of finding and disseminating the best set of facts available.
Instead, they -- and I don't care which "they" you care to choose -- they push an agenda and select stories and slants to support it. Moreover, their reporters are lightweights who generally have no depth or judgement on any story ... and thus you see them getting rolled by Green Helmet Guy.
And so many people don't watch the MSM newscasts any longer.
That about sums it up.
Flathead: The peculiar Genius of Thomas L. Friedman. . .
The usual ratio of Friedman criticism is 2:1, i.e., two human words to make sense of each single word of Friedmanese. Friedman is such a genius of literary incompetence that even his most innocent passages invite feature-length essays. I'll give you an example, drawn at random from The World Is Flat. On page 174, Friedman is describing a flight he took on Southwest Airlines from Baltimore to Hartford, Connecticut. (Friedman never forgets to name the company or the brand name; if he had written The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa would have awoken from uneasy dreams in a Sealy Posturepedic.) Here's what he says:
I stomped off, went through security, bought a Cinnabon, and glumly sat at the back of the B line, waiting to be herded on board so that I could hunt for space in the overhead bins
Forget the Cinnabon. Name me a herd animal that hunts. Name me one.
This would be a small thing were it not for the overall pattern. Thomas Friedman does not get these things right even by accident. It's not that he occasionally screws up and fails to make his metaphors and images agree. It's that he always screws it up. He has an anti-ear, and it's absolutely infallible; he is a Joyce or a Flaubert in reverse, incapable of rendering even the smallest details without genius. The difference between Friedman and an ordinary bad writer is that an ordinary bad writer will, say, call some businessman a shark and have him say some tired, uninspired piece of dialogue: Friedman will have him spout it. And that's guaranteed, every single time. He never misses.
Your comment is pertinent, since TOM Friedman interviewed Couric yesterday. Or was it the other way around? Or does it even matter who interviewed whom? LOL.
Anyway, JON Friedman is, IMO, becoming superfluous. No one reads him or pays attention to what he says. Which is the future of many so-called commentators. Maybe this stab at Katie is a last-ditch attempt at becoming relevant.
The peculiar Genius of Thomas L. Friedman makes me cringe. No actually it makes me LOL.
Journalism overemphasizes the importance of the recent and of the atypical and the negative.
Well said.
That was great.
Yet you old jilted SeeBS drama queens still intend to bring out the long knives / bare your claws for Her Royal Perkiness.
Outstanding summation of Thomas Friedman. He writes with crayons. He should have been a professional colorer.
Great quote. Sumner, or rather The Board, apparently made Freston a scapegoat to enable things to get back to normal (eg MSM media monopoly). FYI a MSM authoritarian in the second quote following derides people who use MSM as belonging to the black helicopter set.
. . .
"I'm just guessing," Vogel went on, "but had Tom Freston paid an extra $100 million to get MySpace, he would've received the wrath of Mr. Redstone for paying so much.
"The word went out: Don't pay too much. Don't overextend. So Freston couldn't get into a bidding war with News Corp. His hands were tied."
When talk radio listeners attack!
So Rush Limbaugh confirmed on his radio show today that the rumors are true: he indeed will be one of the guest commentators to appear in the new "Free Speech" segment of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.
On Sunday, The Drudge Report posted an item saying that the conservative pundit would join George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Walter Cronkite in helping to "launch" Couric's newscast. Apparently, that was enough to provoke paroxysms of outrage from the legions of "ditto heads" who questioned whether Rush had taken leave of his senses (or perhaps reverted to his old regimen of painkillers).
Limbaugh began by expressing shock at the vitriol with which his loyal listeners reacted to the notion that he might be in league with the--gag!--MSM (that's shorthand for "mainstream media" among the black helicopter set). "Many of you accus[ed] me of being a sellout, a phony, going over to the dark side, what have you," Limbaugh said. He lashed out at his fans for doubting his commitment to the cause after 18 years on the air. "I sat there, and I smiled in stunned amazement at this," he said.
That's funny. Isn't it Limbaugh who's been mining that vein of conservative rage for the past two decades, who's stoked distrust and paranoia while convincing his listeners that folks like Couric are scheming to take away their hand guns?
Limbaugh is above all a showman. He is smart to accept Couric's invitation to tape a 90-second commentary for her broadcast (under certain "promises and conditions" he assured his listeners, though he didn't elaborate on what those were). But perhaps Limbaugh should read a lesson into the sad death of Steve Irwin, the Australian naturalist/Animal Planet host who died yesterday in a freak sting-ray attack. Eventually, they turn on you.
I didn't watch the whole thing--tuned in for a moment to see her...just couldn't!
7. One more thing...the dress - that black and white subliminal message little number that's supposed to signify you're unbiased. Honey, the only thing that doesn't have a bias on you would have been that cotton dress - stiff as a board - no flexibility there (just like with you - all Dem/Jihad - all the time!).
CBS believes the product people want is lite news, reported by lite anchorette (in this case Couric).
My vote for Katie's signoff:
"Not detonating General Motors Pickups, I'm Katie Couric"
You're pretty 'excellent' yourself!
"I'm very happy to be anywhere," Katie gushed.
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