Posted on 07/31/2010 2:21:38 PM PDT by curth
It's no secret that POLITICO is a biased news organization. The online polictical blog is as progressive as they come. Very agenda driven. In our reporting we have already addressed the fact that Journolist members are solidly entrenched inside POLITICO's upper levels. Something Roger Simon, who calls the website home, tried to downplay.
John Nolte over at Big Journalism isn't buying it, and has a simply marvelous retort:
You say MSM, I say Politico. You say corrupt, I say Politico.
Today, Politico’s Roger Simon was kind enough to almost scold JournoList for its lasting effect on his precious little profession of journalism. At one point, he and the scrupulously non-partisan Chuck “Fire Glenn Beck” Todd hold hands and commiserate over how this unfortunate JounoList thing is tarring “those of us who don’t practice activist journalism.” If Roger Simon wants to rebuild his precious little profession’s reputation, a good start might be asking his very own publisher some tough questions.
Politico might be an online publication, a part of the New Media, but when it comes to corrupted, left-wing arrogance they make the Washington Post look somewhat honest … somewhat. Part of the reason I reserve a special place in my heart to store up a unique resentment for all things Politico is due to the very fact that they practice their dark arts online. Like a toxic virus they spread over to the Internet where the right (by design) and the left (by accident) are trying to forever kill off the very thing Politico is — wolfish left-wing propagandists hidden in the sheeps’ clothing of “journalism.”
And yet these are the same bastards “journalists” who launched a smear attack on a private citizen for asking Their One a perfectly reasonable question, obsessed over Sarah Palin’s wardrobe (and yet ranked Obama being asked about his relationships with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers as a 2008 top-ten ”media blunder“), and though they occasionally find Levi Johnston worthy of note, Department of Justice whistleblower, J. Christian Adams, remained a ghost up until and including Ben Smith’s factually challenged Nothing-To-See-Here gift to his embattled president.
Oh, and did you know that some of Politico’s “journalists” were members of Ezra Klein’s now infamous JournoList, including Mike Allen, Lisa Lerer, and Mr. Ben “I-Got-Yer-Back-Barack” Smith?
And this little juicy nugget of fact raises a troubling question…
What Politico needs to disclose is exactly when their three employees joined JournoList, because now that we know what really was going on there, this Politico article reeks of a cover up.
Written by Michael Calderon in March of 2009 and titled “JournoList: Inside the echo chamber,” even at the time it was written, the thousand-plus worder ranked as another classic example of what Politico does best: write stories about why stories they don’t want covered aren’t worth covering. In other words, like Ben Smith’s Black Panther piece, this is how Politico spikes that which might damage the Leftist narrative.
While reading Calderon’s JournoList expose,’ you can practically hear the staged, self conscious yawn of a man trying to put across the false front that once again those crazy, paranoid right-wing conspiracy mongers have taken him away from oh-so important work to address this nothing-ness.
Calderon’s idea of “journalism” was to interview JournoList members such as Jeffrey Toobin, Eric Alterman,and Joe Klein, who each assure us in their own wrist-flicking way, Tell those silly right-wingers that no one’s pushing an agenda. In 2009 the piece was hilariously obvious in its biased and preordained objective to smoke-and-mirror away concerns about what Ezra’s little coven of left-wingers was up to. But reading it again in hindsight, it stinks to high heaven.
Deep, deep, deep in the article – long after the dull dutifulness of it all is supposed to kill your interest in clicking over to page two, Calderon finally gets around to admitting Politico’s Smith, Allen, and Lerer are members.
And herein lies Politico’s problem.
Now that it’s become crystal clear that at times JournoList was in fact a hotbed for left-wing ideologues to collude over how to kill stories that might hurt Obama, smear innocent conservatives as racist, coordinate lines of attack against Palin, and work directly with the Obama campaign, the question becomes:
What did Politico know and when did it know it?
Three Politico employees were members of JournoList, and yet in March of 2009, Politico published an article where JournoList members claimed nothing improper was going on there — which we now know wasn’t even close to the truth.
There’s only two explanations: Either Smith, Allen and Lerer weren’t JournoList members when this corrupt activity was taking place, or they were, and not only did they not disclose the improper activity but they allowed their employer to print a misleading story.
What did Politico know and when did it know it?
In a truly just world, all 400 plus members of Journolist would join the ranks of the chronically unemployed, but I digress.
Sadly, this is just more proof that it's almost impossible to trust any supposed news source in this country. I know a lot of folks, myself included, tend to frequent blogs and newsers that mostly agreee with our point of view, but we also need fair and balanced news sources that play it straight. Just the facts, no matter who it helps, or hurts. No agenda, just facts. Until this happens, America is in big trouble.
When consuming news these days, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan: Trust, but verify. And go easy on the trust part, and heavy on the verify part.
We are all “the choir”, and we all know who we’re reading when we read. There really are few surprises left, and few left to surprise with such news. The polls show a divided country nearly down the middle and opinion is fairly entrenched. In November the conservatives will vote and may possibly win one house in one branch of the government. In December, conservatives will go back to wondering why half our population votes for marxists as they trundle their kids off to marxist school, elementary through university, to marxist curriculums, developed and taught by marxists.
Ho hum.
Can anyone say for sure that the video that was about the Sherrod woman was not edited when presented by Breitbart? Where would I find that definitive statement? The website for government subsidies stated that Breitbart was far right wing and his video was heavily edited.
Politica.
Zing! That one’s gonna leave a mark!
I still wonder why Hugh Hewitt uses Mike Allen as a source.
Don’t know anything about this politico blog of which you speak (seems like everyone has one these days), but who is this “Sarah” of whom you speak? Sarah Brightman? Sarah McLachlan? Sarah Silverman? (She’s hot as hell but needs a bar of soap in her mouth).
I read Politico daily.
I want to see what the liberal side are up to without going to the likes of daily kos where I come away wanting to take a shower.
She makes cakes.
Nobody doesn't like Sarah Lee.
Entenmann's makes a pretty awesome crumb cake though.
Just sayin'...
I don’t read “Politico” anymore. When Politico was birthed, it had the opportunity to become the Fox News of the blogs. It has failed miserably and...is really just another liberal, left-wing rag!!! The only thing I do with or on Politico is vote in their on-line daily poll question. Once in a great while I will post something. But, I should have known better to expect more from Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei. They are both liberal Democrat hacks to their very core!!! Always have been!!!
Because Hugh DOESN”T WATCH HIM ON MSNBC!!! He pracyically creams his jeans over Obama or a Republican “scandal”!!! On Hugh’s show he sounds NORMAL....on Morning Joe it’s another story. He’s like Timmy Russert PLAYED to whatever audience he was in front of.
I scour politico daily. They have tidbits that are very good for a conservative argument and I like using their own brand against them.
You can’t source Fox or the like because they just say that it is biased.
Use your oppositions tools and words against them what you can!
Politico was unmasked as a democrat shill organization on the Dennis Miller radio show. I think it was before the election. Dennis has a guy from Politico on. They were talking and the Politico said “we” when “democrat” should have been used. Dennis poked at the guy from Politico about why he said “we.” The guy from Politico went into major defense mode and the interview basically ended.
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