Media Criticism

I Wish It Were True

6 Comments

Ed Driscoll thinks that the seppuku of the MSM is complete. I doubt it. For one thing, to perform seppuku requires that one have some semblance of a sense of honor. I agree, though, that the CNN reporter’s behavior was shameful:

Roesgen didn’t bother angrily confronting that protester who compared the President to Hitler when Bush was in office. No, she used them as a prop to illustrate her story. Double standard much?

But that’s all right because, as we all know, Bush really was just like Hitler, if not much worse.

[Afternoon update]

Here’s a video of the righteous reaction of some of the protesters to Roesgen’s hackery.

[Another update]

The Boston Globe is amazing:

When the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz reported that the Boston Globe-Democrat hadn’t run a single story on the national “Boston Tea Party” movement (key word: Boston), I’ll admit I was surprised. Their blatant political bias is obvious, and every rational reader knows their “news” coverage is driven by their politics. But not one story? From a journalistic standpoint, it’s utterly indefensible.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when I picked up the BG-D this morning–the day after thousands of BOSTON-are citizens gathered at BOSTON Harbor for a BOSTON Tea Party to protest (in part) the taxpayer abuse by our BOSTON-based state government…and found a single local story in the BOSTON paper. Buried on page A16 there was a small AP story with the dateline “Frankfort, KY.”

I guess the Boston Globe-Democrat staff just couldn’t resist a “KY” reference…

To add ignorance to incompetence, the AP story spreads the canard that our Tea Party was part of some national Republican effort. They link it to FreedomWorks and the GOP–neither of whom had anything to do whatsoever with our event…though I’d be happy to send them the invoice for our expenses.

Here’s the Boston Globe-Democrat’s model for journalistic success:

1. Ignore a national story inspired by local Boston history for as long as possible;
2. Refuse to cover the story when it becomes local;
3. Misreport the story with a wire report from Kentucky;
4. Then wonder why you’re losing $1 million a week.

Or blame it all on Craigslist.

6 thoughts on “I Wish It Were True”

  1. It is disgusting that this wasn’t covered by the Boston Globe.

    And the CNN idiot was reprehensible, it should go without saying. (Though, unfortunately, Beck and I seem to be among the very few who zeroed in on the truly shit-tastic part of her performance: her cutting off the gentleman’s point about “liberty” to ask “what does that have to do with taxes?” Everybody else is caught up in blah-blah like, “OMG, that hypocrite, she didn’t criticize that Bush-Hitler comparison that one time.”)

    That said…

    Could you please explain how, exactly, bias in the Globe’s political stories is responsible for its steep financial decline?

    I keep seeing this sort of declaration from folks on the right. But nobody ever offers any evidence or even mere informed speculation about this supposed phenomenon.

    As far as I can tell, newspapers’ financial troubles ARE about Craigslist (if “Craigslist” is shorthand for “advertising and the Internet”). Conservative papers aren’t doing any better than liberal ones. So maybe you could explain what you’re talking about, and I’ll see the light…

  2. Conservative papers aren’t doing any better than liberal ones.

    Three words: Wall Street Journal. I don’t know how big the effect is, but for a long time before I finally cancelled my subscription completely, the only reason I read the LA Times was for the ads. Had it had better, unbiased content, I wouldn’t have cancelled. And I refuse to buy the New York Times (e.g., at the airport) for the same reason.

  3. The Wall Street Journal has a conservative editorial board. (Like the Rocky Mountain News … which just folded.) The WSJ’s actual news coverage, including its political coverage, is little different from most big mainstream dailies.

    More to the point, the WSJ is doing well because it is the country’s most extensive daily financial paper. It’s a national product with a specific, even exclusive field of focus. That’s why it’s one of the few content providers of ANY kind to successfully operate a large subscription website. And that’s why it’s doing better than most newspapers.

    Print is a dying medium. Not “biased print.” People get information online now. You’re an oldtime Internet guy. I’m not telling you anything novel here. Newspapers’ website traffic is substantial. Their audiences are still huge. They just can’t convert that audience into dollars — because of, ya know, Craigslist.

    Newspapers don’t have a readership problem. They have an advertising problem. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t welcome more balanced political coverage, but it’s really a moot point, because the whole thing is unsustainable regardless. That might seem like a good thing in the immediate sense — “ooh, goodie, the Boston Globe gets its comeuppance!” — but it sucks in the long run.

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