Media Matters Not – Page 18

Memo: Dead Media Walking

16. May 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Media Matters Not, sarcasm

To: Various
From: Sgt Mom
Re: Newsweek/Koran Desecration

1. Newsweek writers Michael Isakoff, and John Barry: Sooooo, an unnamed source who thinks he saw something about it, but can’t really pin it down is good enough for a “professional journalist”* to run with? Say, can I get paid for relaying water-cooler gossip and speculation?

2. The unnamed source: Nice going, a**hole. You flapped your lips to a “reporter”* and more than a dozen people are dead, and even more may be in danger.

3. Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker: Ummm, in this age of cable news 24/7, the internet and satellite communications, the purpose of a general weekly dead-tree digest of news and stuff would be— other than to consume so many thousands of acres of wood-pulp, and to save your phony-baloney job— what, exactly? At worst, your take on the news is a week old by the time it hits the newsstand or mailbox. Fresh fish and fresh news go stale at about the same rate… and I don’t buy either, at a week old.
Checked your circulation figures recently?

4. The so-called “Islamic street”: Do you guys ever get tired of being played for saps? Try some exercises in critical thinking, next time someone tells you some wild story. I realize that the 21st century may be a bit of a leap, intellectually, politically, and technologically, but the 19th century would work for us… for choice, the latter half of it. Realize that your actions make it really difficult for the spokesman for CAIR and other American Islamic groups to go on insisting that “Islam is a religion of peace” with a straight face. Some of them must be very close to OD’ing on Botox, by now

5. The Afghani and Pakistani Mullahs: No, we shall not be turning any personnel over to you for desecrating the Koran. Now, you might get the detainee who ripped up a copy and tried to clog a toilet with it— does that count? In turn, we would like you to turn over to us: The murderers of Nicholas Berg and Daniel Pearl… and those Palestinian cruds who desecrated the Church of the Nativity… plus a number of others to be named at a later date. Thanks for your consideration and attention to this matter

6. DU and the Kos Kiddies: (wow, what a name for an alternative band!) No, the evil US gummint did not force Newsweek to retract their story. Tell you what, I will throw out something for the paranoids to chew on: Just suppose the unnamed source was throwing Isakoff and Barry a totally bogus, BS story, just to mess with their heads, and see if they would be so foolish as to swallow it whole… and look like complete dickheads when it was disproved. How’s that for eeeeevvviiil? Destroy the credibility of mainstream media by feeding them tales which are easily disproved a week later! (Bwahhhh-hahhh-hahhh!) Don’t bother to thank me, kiddies, I live to serve. You want a couple of rolls of paper towels to clean up the mess from all the exploding heads?

7. *As always, those are not “scare” quote marks— they are “viciously skeptical” quote marks.

Sincerely,
Sgt. Mom

Why Dennis Miller Is A Class Act

12. May 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Media Matters Not, That's Entertainment!

My ennui concerning the recent suffle at CNBC couldn’t be greater, save for the loss of Dennis Miller. This from Mickey Kaus:

Evan Smith on Dennis Miller: “He could have been Bill Maher ….” Now that’s a low blow. I thought these days Bill Maher was the one kicking himself thinking he could have been Bill Maher. … P.S.: I was on the Miller’s guest panelÂ a half dozen times, which may or may not help explain its ratings. The show had a couple of distinct virtues, from my perspective. 1) He’d staffed the place with genuinely nice and non-sleazy people–at least everyone I had contact with. (Producers: Hire them immediately!) 2) Miller himself was friendly and didn’t pretend to know everything, which may be why he was unconvincing as an O’Reilly figure. Plus–and I think this is rare for comedians, or at least comedians mentioned in this paragraph–he wanted other people on the show to be funny. Nothing seemed to make him happier than someone else getting off a good line. … 12:27 P.M.

I’ve always found Miller to be quite Carsonian, both in his stand-up style – where he was second only to Johnny himself in saving a bad joke, and his interviewing – where he gives his guests a chance to shine. This is in contrast to Maher, who simply seems to need his guests to affirm his fleeting greatness.

Italian “Journalist” on 60 Minutes Wednesday

13. April 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Media Matters Not

Ms Sgrena, the Italian “journalist” who was the freed hostage in the car fired upon in the incident at a checkpoint near the Baghdad airport will be on 60 Minutes Wednesday tonight. I have already sent an e-mail to “60w@cbs.com” hoping that she will be served up more than the usually downy-gentle softballs, but I am not holding my breath.

Guys, the first thing you do when you hit the bottom is—- stop digging!

Pullet Surprise

13. April 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, History, Media Matters Not

Yes, the title is from an old Art Linkletter collection of the unconsciously funny things that small children say, but considering some recent and startling developments in the art of news photography in the fair environs of Baghdad, it may be quite appropriate to visualize a large egg. Picture this egg, laid on the assignments desk at the AP or CBS news, and entertain the suspicion that it may be entirely rotten. Imagine the careful handling these eggs received, with no one asking too many questions about how on earth a local stringer managed to be on Haifa Street, just in time to take pictures of the public murder of two Iraqi election workers. Or under exactly what circumstances another local stringer managed to be near a bridge in Fallujah last year.

Imagine the god-awful stench of it, once the egg is cracked, and too many nosey consumers of news begin asking hard questions about the process, about the compromises made, and the sources of these riveting, and Pulitzer prize-winning photos. Do you wonder, as you are settling into your breakfast toast and coffee with the front pages of the morning paper, or settling into the arm chair in front of the CBS evening news, if men have been set up to be murdered, in order to make a splashy image for the delectation of the news-consuming audience… and if the various media enterprises covering the war in Iraq are complicit? (More analysis, speculation and theorizing here, and here).

After all, two fairly major news figures are on record, and from a decade ago, as saying that in the interests of “covering the news” they would accompany an enemy patrol, keep quiet and watch an ambush of American troops go down. A French video photographer accompanying insurgents in Iraq did indeed video an attempt to shoot down a cargo jet. A cameraman variously described as “from CBS”, and “carrying CBS documentation” was alleged to have been shot by American troops as he stood next to an insurgent attempting to incite a mob; the speed with which this particular cameraman is being distanced from direct employment by CBS News is particularly telling… as is the fact that his camera contained Johnny-on-the-spot footage of previous ambushes. Clearly, the major news media will go to any length for that riveting video or frame, and brush aside any quibbles about the morality of having done so.

I am not going to get into the prolonged discussion of who hired whom, of where they were standing, how they got the word, and what lens they were using— that’s being done elsewhere. I want to draw a couple of rough parallels, and consider if CBS, or AP would then have published the photographs.

Suppose, just suppose there had been a local stringer for an American newspaper or Life Magazine, hanging around a particular crossroad in eastern France in December, 1944. Just suppose, just suppose that in all the confusion at the Baugnez crossroads, this photographer was in the right place to take pictures of American soldiers being gunned down… that this imagined photojournalist took pictures of the surrendering Americans, a mob of them herded into a field, and gunned down by the SS. Would pictures of SS troopers walking amongst the sprawled bodies in that snowy field, kicking at them, and administering a pistol-shot coup-de-grace to those still living have been published immediately, and the photojournalist be given a Pulitzer prize? Or would that photographer be assisting in the investigation of the Malmedy massacre, and giving a very full explanation of his presence and apparent freedom of movement amongst the SS?

Another historic parallel: in 1964, at the height of the civil rights struggle in the state of Mississippi, three young men— two New Yorkers and a native of the state—who were working to register black voters, so they could participate in free and democratic elections, were arrested near Philadelphia Mississippi by local law enforcement on spurious charges. When they were released, they were turned over to the local KKK, murdered and buried under an earthen dam. Suppose, just suppose, a photographer from the local paper was tipped off by a Klan member, and just happened to take pictures of the murder of the three men… who were murdered because they were encouraging people to vote in a free and fair election. The three young men in Mississippi in 1964, and the two Iraqi election workers in Haifa Street last year were both executed for very much the same reason— to discourage potential voters— and by people who wished very much that a free and fair election not take place.

When is photo opportunity really news… and when is it just another part of a public demonstration of terror, aimed at intimidating the electorate? I have a little more confidence that these questions would have been asked in the newsrooms of 1944, and 1964, that news editors might have felt a little squeamish about embedding with the SS or the KKK. In these impartial days, the questions don’t even arise. In the final analysis, and at the most extreme, the mainstream media outlets have— with the best of intentions, and the most logical justifications for every tortuous step of the way— sleepwalked into allying themselves with evil.

Three cheers for moral equivalence and impartiality.

Nightline To Go With Koppel

09. April 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Media Matters Not

The inside word is that ABC’s Nightline will be retired, along with Ted Koppel, at the end of the season, to be replaced by a mow “entertainment oriented” program, to compete with NBC and CBS. This is sad for us news junkies. Almost since it’s inception, Nightline has been the best news show on commercial network TV.

Hanoi Jane, Again…

06. April 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Media Matters Not

Ordinarily, NPR is the news venue most useful for minimizing exposure to fading celebs with mounds of baggage, flogging their new doorstop around the usual book-flogging “tour d’lame” circuit. But Jane Fonda was interviewed this morning, on Morning Edition… and I was so sunk in ennui, indifference and disinterest that I didn’t even bother turning the radio up to listen… or down so I didn’t have to. My well of “just don’t care” is practically bottomless as far as she is concerned, as a singular person. She does interest me in a mild way, as being typical of a certain sort of activist dilettante, flitting from one trendy cause du jour to the next. There never seems to be any deep and abiding commitment to one particular cause amongst this sort of person, just a vague attachment to the currently most fashionable of them, as if to cover up a lack in themselves by making an ostentatious show of “caring”.

I suppose I could go back and review her notorious propaganda trip to North Vietnam, remind myself of why practically all the older guys— Vietnam-era veterans all— in my early service life despised her, and boycotted those few movies that she did appear in, in the late 1970ies. I could recall again how very, very few of those celebrity/activists who protested the war vociferously in 1968 were still around in 1975 to help pick up the pieces and resettle the refugee population from South Vietnam that their own good intentions helped create. (Buffy St. Marie is the only one who comes to mind, incidentally.) By then, Ms Fonda had already moved on to being a diet and exercise guru and from there to being a corporate media wife, and fashionable feminist. And I— along with most the rest of the world, have moved on. A good chunk of that world, if they think of her at all, think of her as someone on their mom’s excercise tapes.

The woman has been everything by turns over the last thirty-five years, but none of it for too long, or too deeply. It’s hard to feel anything much about someone so shallow, who seems to drift according to the orbit of whatever husband she was with at the time, or the whim of fashion. Bothering even to work up a dislike feels like beating up on marshmallow fluff; a waste of energy, because it’s mostly air over a creamy and attractive surface.

Bet you the book will be on the remainders table, marked down %50 in six months.

FEC May Be Forced To Reach The Right Answer

05. April 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Media Matters Not, Politics

Richard L. Hasen has a good article in FindLaw on the possibility that the FEC’s efforts to come up with some equitible regulation of internet campaign speech may lead them to disclosure rules as the only viable option:

Online Magazines Will Be Exempt, Just as Magazines Are, But What About Bloggers?

The FEC, in its new rulemaking, appears ready to treat Slate and similar on-line only magazines as “other periodical publications” benefiting from the media exemption. But it is having a harder time with bloggers.

The draft regulations would create some safe harbors for bloggers engaged in election-related speech, but it would not necessarily grant the media exemption to a blogger who uses corporate-owned computers (even by a corporate employee who blogs on her lunch hour) to maintain a blog.

The FEC will likely be inundated with anti-regulation comments from the blogging world, and one commissioner has already indicated that “it’s pretty clear that the result is not going to be bad for bloggers.” To reach that result, the final regulations are likely to expand the media exemption to virtually all bloggers, or to exempt blogging from regulation altogether even when accomplished with the significant help of corporate or union resources.

If Bloggers are Broadly Exempt, Related Corporations and Unions Will Be, Too

This is the decision that will be hard to cabin to the Internet. A few months before the 2004 election, the incorporated National Rifle Association began NRANews, a daily news and commentary program broadcast on satellite radio. The NRA is claiming the press exemption. And so it goes.

In short, as everyone gets to own the equivalent of a printing press, and everyone can become a journalist, the corporate and labor limit on campaign activity stands to be swallowed up by the media exemption

And what happens a few years from now when we receive both our Internet computer access and television signals through the same cable or signal? Is a political program broadcast or beamed from your favorite (incorporated) environmental group or evangelical organization going to get the benefit of the media exemption?

Thus, it is not clear how the FEC can give a broad exemption to bloggers now without exempting all electronic media later. For some anti-regulatory commissioners, this may be precisely the point.

Hat Tip: Eugene Volokh, who also has a good analysis on a confusing campaign speech law being considered in San Francisco here. While Orange County is well south of San Francisco, I sometimes comment on their politics and politicians. I wonder if they’d try to claim The Daily Brief has more than 500 readers there, and come after me? 🙂

Memo: TV Lives, Real Life

04. April 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: European Disunion, General, Media Matters Not

To: The International Set
From: Sgt Mom
Re: Just Because You Watch American TV Programs…

1. Please stop assuming therefore that you just KNOW all about how Americans really live, think, and conduct themselves. A bare handful of television programs currently gracing international airways may, on occasion, reflect the realities of the lives of all those people who live outside the 90210 area code. Most of them do not. Let me break it to you gently, sweet-cakes… it is all made-up. Fiction. Dramatized. Jazzed up, prettied up and sexed up, to attract the eyeballs and the advertising dollar. It is not real, it is faked. It is filmed on a set, for Pete’s sake. And those people are actors.

2. I will allow that international television viewers may glean some kind of superficial knowledge of how Americans talk, and move and dress, of what the scenery looks like, and what the prevailing sense of humor runs toward. But this is a very limited view, and those limits ought to be more acknowledged. Just because I watch “Blackadder” and “Are You Being Served?” does not mean that I know all about English life… or qualify me to pontificate on how those who live there ought to be conducting themselves, politically and socially.

3. Lamentably, this sense of limitations is not reciprocated. I and many of my fellow citizens— especially those of us resident in “Jesus-Land” are fed to the teeth with being portrayed as drooling, gun-toting, uncouth and uncultured racists, addicted to fast food, exhibitionistic religious cults, and violence. Ordinarily, I could not care less what you really think of us, in your heart of hearts, but spreading this kind of manure all over media outlets like this one does a disservice to your own citizens. They are very disappointed when they come around here expecting to see oil-wells, gunfights in the streets, and holy-rolling snake handling at the 10:45 morning communion service at St. Peter the Stodgy Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod). In fact, they are usually rather crushed when they encounter mostly polite and soft-spoken people, libraries and museums stuffed with all that high culture from Europe and elsewhere, and discover that fine food and drink is hugely appreciated, and that there are in fact, two classical music stations in this one city alone.

4. In addition to those generalities, I should like to point out some of the ways in which I vary, rather substantially from the stereotypical American that the European media loves to sneer at. For one thing, I have had a passport, from the age of 16 on (although it has lapsed now). I have never liked coca cola, and I last ate food from McDonalds sometime in 1990. I own my own house, and it is a small one which does not in the least look like Martha Stewarts, even though I have made or refinished much of the interior stuff myself. I do not own a gun, nor do I intend to. Several of my neighbors do, though. I do not have a problem with that. I have also never witnessed, or been the victim of a violent crime. I draw no association between these last two facts, merely point out the coincidence. I have never been to a NASCAR event, or a pro football game, and have no interest in either, but I gracefully accept that there are individuals to whom NASCAR and football are shrines. I think television evangelists are right there with Jerry Springer, and don’t watch any of them (Or much television at all, come to think on it.) True faith gets its butt off the couch and goes to services in a real church. I refuse to be exhibitionist about matters spiritual, sexual, political or financial, on the grounds that all that is my own damn business. My living room is filled with books and Japanese prints, not pictures of Jesus in the Garden or Thomas Kinkade prints of sentimental cottages at twilight. My car is 30 years old, my stereo system is 25, and my television 20; they will be replaced when they break down irreparably, and not a decade before. I have never seen the appeal of Manolo Blahnik shoes, or indeed any shoe with more than 1-inch heels, and have better things to spend my money on; leaving aside the fact that shoes should protect your feet, and you should be able wear them and escape a hungry mountain lion or a collapsing building. I vote for the person, not the party… and I have, in fact, lived and traveled in several foreign countries. I could stand to loose 20 pounds, though.

5. The first person who says , “Oh, but you’re the exception!” — be warned, I will personally hunt you down and slap you silly. We are all exceptions, in one way or the other. To take your cues on this from exported television shows is to do yourselves a disservice.

Sincerely,
Sgt. Mom

Pope John Paul II Has Died

03. April 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Media Matters Not

Oh yeah, that’s nothing new; I heard it shortly after my lunch yesterday. And I listened to a couple of retrospectives on his life, which was all review for me, as I have been following it for the past two-and-a-half decades.

But mostly, I avoided the news yesterday. Because it was “all Pope all the time” – just one episode after another of one talking head after another babbling the same pap, with the Dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, or the windows of the Papal apartment, in the background, and closing with “we are anxiously awaiting the atican’s next announcement on the Pope’s condition.

What do you want to bet that today will just be another variation on the same theme. unless another senational story pops it’s head up

C’mon, people there are always LOTS of other things happening in the world.

Join, Or Die

24. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Media Matters Not, Politics

As I know many of you are bloggers yourselves, you will be interested to learn that a coalition is forming to petition Federal Election Commission Chairman Scott E. Thomas, to make no regulation restricting the free speech rights of those of us in the internet media. I have signed. If you blog, or simply enjoy this new unrestricted media, I suggest you do too.

Blogging and Freedom of Speech

14. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Home Front, Media Matters Not

Like Sgt. Mom, I took advantage of a recent opportunity to defend blogs to our local newspaper (the Asheville Citizen-Times). The associate editor I wrote to asked me to pen a guest commentary, and today it got published. You can find it here.

But if you can only read one column today on blogs and free speech, I commend to you Scott Johnson (of Powerline fame) and his latest contribution to The Daily Standard.

Whose Truth?

14. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, GWOT, Media Matters Not

This story appeared Sunday in the San Antonio Express News. I sent an e-mail this morning to the writer, Sig Christenson, who is (to give him credit) not entirely clueless about the military, since he served as an embedded reporter. Does he know about milblogs? Time will tell, time will tell…
My response is as follows;

So, whose truth really is true, when what appears on the TV news (or in newspapers) is either the “work of Uncle Sam, not journalists…”

Frankly at this point I am not at all enamored with the recent output of those anointed by custom as “journalists” by the mainstream media outlets, seeing that that group would include Peter Arnett (of the poison gas/Special Forces fiasco), Dan Rather (of the “fake-but-accurate-memos), Eason Jordan (who soft-pedaled atrocities by Saddam Hussein in order to keep the CNN bureau in Baghdad, and has accused the US Forces of deliberately targeting journalists) and the egregious Sy Hersh, who is still going around with heart-rending tales of US forces casually committing atrocities. Main stream media is after all the ones who bought off on John Kerry being a true Vietnam War hero when all the veterans that I know (and a lot of the active-duty folks as well) despised him with a passion that made them practically incoherent with rage. Main stream media is propping up the bar at the Hotel Palestine, interviewing the maitre d and their interpreter, singing the song that Iraq is a quagmire… and get blindsided by the election turnout. Main stream media is putting video of staged car-bombings on the front page, or the nightly news, and never getting around to the dull stuff like fixing sewers and rebuilding schools, and setting up local city councils. “If it bleeds, it leads”, but it is damn lazy journalism, and in Iraq it’s a disservice amounting to malpractice. Lets just say there is a bit of a credibility problem, at present, and a bias that makes the DOD version of news (not to mention what is available on the various milblogs) look pretty good in comparison.

By the way, the DOD has had in-house journalists, via AFRTS, base newspapers, and video feature programs like Air Force Now, and combat videographers for decades. They generally have a pretty good idea about what is news, and how to put together zippy, attractive and informative features, sticking to the good old who, where, when, why and how. Dismissing all that as merely the “work of Uncle Sam, not journalists” is a little bit insulting to all of us who did news features, stories, newscasts and all— especially if it gave some of us the experience to move on to civilian media afterwards.

If stations want to use whatever materiel is spoon-fed to them to fill up the news block, at least they ought to give credit, where credit is due, and not give the impression that their own news crew was Johnny on the Spot. That is where the deceit lies, not in the DOD making what they have been doing for years available to anyone who wants it. And looking on the bright side— at least the military media will get things like service and ranks correct, which cannot always be counted on.

I worked for 20 years in AFRTS and in Combat Camera, and have spent the last three years contributing to a military oriented weblog, The Daily Brief (www.sgtstryker.com), which according to our chief engineers, racks up 32,000 to 35,000 unique viewers monthly. We feature essays, commentary and links on popular culture, the military, politics and the war. Does that make us journalists? I’ll get back to you on that.

“Sgt Mom”, USAF, Ret

Get Your Ticket… The Fix Is In.

11. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Media Matters Not, Politics

I was up at 4AM this morning, doing what I regularly do when up at that hour – watching C-SPAN’s Washington Journal. One of the topics of discussion was “will America be ready for a female Presidential candidate in 2008?” Of course, the focus was on Hillary Clinton and Condi Rice, although a few others were mentioned, most notably Liddy Dole. As usual, most of the callers had anything but a balanced, considered opinion of either. Few mentioned Condi’s youth, or inexperience and seeming discomfort with the world of elective politics. And none mentioned Hillary’s apparent paradigm shift since moving from First Lady to Senator.

But oh, there were many that claimed Condi was “just a puppet of Bush.” (Wait, I thought Cheney was the puppetmaster, or was it Rove?) And there were a few that said Hillary was “just too liberal.” to be President. But this is typical of Washington Journal callers. It is obvious to me that the reality most Americans perceive is what is presented to them by a few very limited sources.

Currently, I am just completing a marathon view of the documentary series Reality of Reality on Bravo. The episode just before this one dealt with how “reality” shows producers “shape” the reality the audience sees. And this is the typical tug-of-war between ethics vs. greed. I can’t help but tie this back to former San Jose Police Chief Joseph D. McNamara’s famous quote about police corruption: “you’ll get 10% that will absolutely toe-the-line, 10% that will certainly be corrupt, and 80% that will fall somewhere in the middle” (paraphrased). But, where is the line drawn?

Later this morning, Washington Journal featured an interview and call-in questions with ex-Newsday columnist Laurie Garrett, who’s scathing memo has been quite the talk for the past week. Her contention is that, for the past decade, the journalistic community has abandoned responsibility, in favor of profits. While I don’t totally disagree with her, it’s been going on far longer than that. Let’s remember, Network dates it 1976. And Peggy Noonan has coined the term, Chronkiteism.

But, in fact, it goes back much farther than that. Surly, all who weren’t napping in high school history class recall the Yellow Journalism period of Hearst and Pulitzer? What was that famous Hearst quote concerning the Spanish-American War? I’m sure my readers can help me out.

But now, tying this all together, Laurie Garrett repeats the old lament about “traditional media’s” failure to present a unified, filtered (edited and fact-checked) vision of the world to and audience which is “too over-worked and stressed” (again, a paraphrase) to spend 5 hours/day on the Internet sorting out the details. She applauds the recent rise to success of such as Salon.com, but includes quite curtly that these electronic media follow the traditional structure. She doesn’t blow away the blogosphere totally, but says, “who has 5hrs./day to sort through that stuff?”

She longs for the halcyon days of Ernie Kovacs and Edward R. Murrow (and thinks this continued in the print media into the 1990’s), and thinks current news producers present no truer form of reality than the producers of Big Brother. Well, dear lady, I have studied the work of both Murrow and Kovacs. And I can certainly say that, while it pales in comparison to what we get today, there was a definite pro-regime (or, at least, not-too-anti) spin on everything they did, particularly in the case of Kovacs.

But, dear Laurie, that doesn’t mean that the work-a-day stiff must rely upon the traditional hierarchy media format, who’s purveyors are just as likely to “shape” the world he/she views in the same way as the “reality TV” viewer. There are many bloggers out there, such as us here at The Daily Brief, who, to one extent or another (Much greater in my own case that of most – I must admit), do their internet homework, plus (at least in my own case) some local footwork for my own stories :), and present the truly important matters of the day to them in a coherent, responsible, and palatable manner.

And we suffer the wrath, when we misstep, as I found when I did my recent post on steroids and Reggie White, Even though I qualified my assertion at the outset, I had a dozen people on my case before I had a chance to return from the restroom. That’s the way it is with popular blogs – the instant you publish, you have 1000-or-more fact-checkers on your case.

And so it goes here; at The Daily Brief, myself, Sgt. Mom, CplBlondie, Timmer, and all others which contribute here, take great care to only present those things as fact which we truely believe to be so, or properly qualify those things we are questionable on. And, we openly qualify our analysis and opinion as that from a person which is part of the defense community. We expect our readership to take that into account. But, with that in mind, we feel we present a balanced view of the world-at-large.

Can any more be asked?

Mockery Can be Fun

10. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General Nonsense, Media Matters Not

While I agree with Kevin that it’s best to let the newly-retired anchorman fade quietly into the woodwork, I can still enjoy a wee bit of mockery. Especially when it’s cleverly presented.

Iowahawk gives us the final story in his “Detective Dan Rather” series, this one called “The Big Snooze.”

For any who loved Sam Spade, this is worth reading.

Excerpt:

It was a blustery March morning in Manhattan. I hiked up the collar on my trenchcoat and stepped out into a fresh sheet of snow that had fallen in front of the seedy West 80’s flop house I call home. Pretty stuff, that snow. But just below the surface it can conceal something icy, something treacherous. Something that can make your Florsheims lose their grip, set your arms and legs windmilling spastically, cause you to make a violent, jarring, assplant into a frigid sidewalk filth-slushee. And in my line of business it’s all part of a day’s work.

My name is Rather. And I’m a dick.

Enjoy! (I’m heading back over to read his earlier works in that series)

hattip to Slarrow

McCain and Feingold Say Blogs Are Safe

10. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Media Matters Not, Politics

This from CNET:

Senators John McCain and Russ Feingold reassured the Internet community that bloggers will not be regulated by federal campaign finance laws.

The senators, who authored the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 known as the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform law, issued a statement on Tuesday in response to comments made by a Federal Elections Commission commissioner in a CNET News.com interview last week.

“The latest misinformation from the antireform crowd is the suggestion that our bill will require regulation of blogs and other Internet communications,” they said. “This issue has nothing to with private citizens communicating on the Internet.”

In an interview published on CNET News.com on March 3, Bradley Smith, one of six commissioners on the Federal Elections Commission, said campaign finance laws could be applied to Internet bloggers and online media that link to campaign sites.

In 2002, the FEC exempted the Internet by a 4-2 vote, but U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly last fall overturned that decision. Smith claimed this decision opened the door to regulation for bloggers and online media.

I say that we must still remain vigilant in assuring that our medium remain free. I mean, I could see the hammer coming down on a blogger who accepts a blogad from a “political organization.” I intend to write my representative and senators before the weekend is out, stating my desire that our rights to free expression be specifically codified.

Rather Sez B’Bye

09. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Media Matters Not

I can’t believe how indifferent I am about this. But RatherBiased.com has Rather’s parting statements here. But, for me, as well as many others, Rather has been just a minor player on a third-rate network. Go with G_d, Dan.

Memo: On A Dangerous Road, in the Dark

07. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, GWOT, Media Matters Not

From: Sgt Mom
To: All in Group
Re: American Gunfire and Italian “journalist”*

1. If anything at all, this is a perfect demonstration of the old axiom about a lie being half-way around the world while the truth is still getting it’s boots on: About the only fact of which I can be certain of at this point is that Nicola Calipari is dead, and that this will have repercussions up to the international level, but not, I think, in the way that Ms Sgrena and her comrades are expecting. Although she has been driving the story, and the news momentum has been heading in the direction most favorable to those perpetuating the meme of “brutal, trigger-happy cowboys wantonly slaughtering brave journalists and other sensitive, peace-loving Europeans”, the hard questions have only begin to be asked, let alone answered satisfactorily. It is easy enough for Ms Sgrena to tell a story, to elaborate on it, to pile on contradictory details, to tell another version, to make accusations, suppositions— just open the mouth and let it all come out, faster and faster. It will take days, or weeks to even begin investigating, analyzing, measuring skid marks and matching bullet fragments to the weapon that fired it, to calculate the angles and origins, routes of travel, means, motivations and eyewitnesses, and by then the crowds baying for the sacrifice for a scapegoat will probably not be the least interested in hearing the considered conclusion… especially if it turns out that the vehicle carrying Ms Sgrena and Mr. Calipari was clearly warned to stop, that American troops at the check-point clearly identified themselves and followed established procedures to the letter.

2. The whole thing reeks with the reek of a boxcar-load of haddock stuck for a week at a rail siding in South Texas during a sultry August heat-wave, beginning with the somewhat odd nature of Ms. Sgrena’s detention (and that of the two Simonas, also) at the hands of suspiciously gentlemanly insurgents, the payment of a large ransom, the actions of the Italian intelligence service in facilitating that payment, compounding that by not being entirely candid with the American forces in-country, and ending with a car failing to stop at a roadblock.

3. Politically, it is a terribly hot potato for Mr. Berlusconi, and he is screwed no matter which hand he juggles it in. Opposition to Italian participation in Operation Iraqi Freedom is vociferous, and substantial; as a politician he has to deal with that. (One wonders though, if Italians, Germans and French are worthy of being liberated from brutal dictators, mass graves and secret police spies, if being a free and democratic country is their right and due…. Why do the Iraqis not merit the same privilege?) Ms. Sgrena’s captivity is a cause celebre; the easy way out is to quietly pay a ransom and whisk her efficiently out of the country, and hope that interest in her case dies down, and everyone will forget about how many suicide bomb vests and car bombs and contract killings of Iraqi judges and politicians that ransom will purchase. Keep it simple, keep it slick, zip in country, drop the money, pick up the hostage and book on a private jet, and everything’s cool, and keep it in-house. Very daring, very dashing… and how very… cowboy.

4. The blow-back from this may very well include Italy stepping down from the coalition; ironically, just when it seems that a tipping point has been reached with successful elections, when the war is over and the mopping up and rebuilding is getting well underway. Lest we forget, the ransom paid for Ms. Sgrena and the two Simonas went to fund the men who send out the head-hackers, the torturers, the terrorists who killed Iraqi journalists and broadcasters, judges, police recruits, the men who loaded a retarded boy with explosives, who butchered Margaret Hassan, the men who want to bring back the mass graves, the secret police and the chemical butchery of the Kurds. The euro-leftists do not seem to have a problem with this; presumably they have a strong stomach after all those decades performing intellectual fellatio on Uncle Joe Stalin and his spiritual heirs, and they are, after all, only behaving in the manner we have come to expect of them.

5. Mr. Berlusconi has been a much appreciated ally in the coalition, and we appreciate that it has cost him dearly, politically, and his position is perilous. In being forced by political demands to cater to a particularly noisy constituency, he has taken actions which result in additional funding for the insurgents. His value as an ally is now somewhat compromised. I realize that politicians have to consider their own constituencies first last and always, but I sincerely hope that when all the investigations are finished, all the reports filed, and all the newspaper stories written about this, that Mr. Calipari will prove to have been the only one to be sacrificed in order to mollify Mr. Berlusconi’s constituency.

6. Unfortunately, there will be some Iraqi police cadets, or soldiers, or people in a crowded market or mosque someplace, who will be sacrificed as well. When that happens…Well done, Ms. Sgrena.

With sorrow
Sgt. Mom

*As always, those are not “scare” quote marks; those are “viciously skeptical” quote marks.

A Blogger In The White House

07. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Media Matters Not

This from Editor & Publisher:

The blogger, Garrett M. Graff, who writes about the news media in Washington for mediabistro.com, had to make multiple attempts over several days last week before finally securing the promise of a day pass for today.

[…]

Graff has said that the Guckert/Gannon controversy inspired him to try for the day pass, but he was stymied until mainstream outlets like USA Today, and Ron Hutcheson, president of the White House Correspondents Association, made a few calls.

It seems that at least a few in old media are getting the message.

Check-Point

06. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Media Matters Not

I’ve been following this all day, in between sewing and gardening projects, and thought about a post on the topic— since this is… ummm… NOT good stuff from a Public Affairs POV. On the other hand, there have been doubts about the circumstances of the kidnapping, and the political leanings of the supposed victim do not lend encouragment to belief in her side of the story.
The calmest and most reasoned discussion is here.
Any informed speculation, or particular insight is welcomed.

The Country-Sized Concentration Camp

04. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Media Matters Not

Two things distinguished my year-long tour in the ROK, at AFKN HQ, Yongsan Garrison, one completely trivial, materialistic and superficial… and the other something that— every five months or so, scared the absolute piss out of everyone who hadn’t been there for a couple of years.
“You’ll get into that combat shopping mode,” One of the other Air Force women promised me about the first thing, over my first weekend on station, “And you’ll leave here with a whole new wardrobe, made to order.”

And she was right— the shopping was splendid, the prices low and the quality of the goods extremely good; practically anything one’s materialist, acquisitive heart desired was there by the bale in Itaewan, or Electronics Row, or in the markets around Tongdemun gate. The chance to revel in unrestrained retail therapy was seen as one of fortune’s paybacks for having to spend a year separated from the family, and living in comprehensively dumpy barracks buildings, and I indulged, although on a much more discriminating basis than some of my peers. (A drawer-full of silk scarves, two bespoke gabardine suits, some amethyst and garnet jewelry, a couple of pieces of celadon pottery, half a dozen knock-off Coach handbags, and a bale of assorted lengths of fine fabric from the big market near Tongdemun Stadium.) Never mind why guys liked a tour in the ROK; servicewomen, without fail, adored the many opportunities and venues for intensive, prolonged hard-core shopping.

However… and that is the one big big-as-an-elephant-in-the-living-room “however”… The second thing. It never escaped anyone’s notice for long that… umm, there was this little matter of the DMZ… and as long as the Star Channel cable ran M*A*S*H reruns every weeknight at 8PM, we were reminded that yes, there had been a pretty brutal, vicious war. A war which was not actually over, only in remission…. And the North Koreans still hunkered down behind their side of the 39th parallel, emerging at regular intervals to make warlike threats and noises, which since Seoul was in artillery range forced everyone to at least take stock of their contingency plans and their pucker factor. The South Koreans and the old hands got pretty blasé about it all, after the first couple of times. Theoretically at least, the commies still could come blasting over the border again and chase us all down to Pusan, but it had been nearly fifty years since the last time they had any luck with that plan. It had the potential to be pretty ugly, when and if it would ever happen. Sensible (or fatalistic) people like me stoutly refused to panic until such time as when Peter Arnett in a flack jacket was spotted bunkered down on the Namsan Hill.

In the meantime, we could be pretty sure that it was a very, very strange place, north of the DMZ, especially when Kim Il Sung up and died, and the newscast from KBS that night was the same fifteen minutes of stock video of North Korea… some footage of the city, crowds of people, marching Nork troops, the Great Leader… and then the city footage… patched together to make half an hour of newscast. The most unsettling video segments were of North Korean citizens, and soldiers loudly and ostentatiously wailing in grief. I was watching the newscast from the booth where the English language translators were doing the simulcast, and it seemed to me that the translator and the KBS techs working that newscast were horrified and embarrassed by having to watch their distant kin put on such an over-the-top display. I had generally found the Koreans I worked with to be on the jolly and open-hearted side of the emotional display spectrum, rather than the stoic and undemonstrative side, but this… this was worse than horrible.

At the time there were only a faction of the whispers and suppositions about conditions in the North that there are now out in public… but afterwards the other translators and I agreed that things must be pretty awful, to make people carry on in that unseemly manner. Everything I have read since then only strengthens my conviction that then North Korea finally implodes— when the barriers are down, and the gates open, and the outside world finally looks in, and recoils in horror— we will see things of such brutal depravity as will make Auschwitz-Birkenau look like child’s play. The world— especially the parts of it which enabled North Korea to continue in this fashion for 50 years— will be properly shamed and abashed that we did not act sooner… but Barbara Demick and the Los Angles Times (which used to be a reputable paper, back in the day) will have to content themselves with our contempt for having done such sterling service (and I mean that word in the nasty and vulgar sense) for a murderous dictatorship.

Jason at Iraq Now has quite a bit more to say, but be forewarned, this is a NC-17 sort of rant!

Other musings on Korea, here and here, from my archive.

On Making Appropriate Choices (Cutting)

24. February 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Media Matters Not

Who am I going to pay attention to when it comes to teenagers hurting themselves? The gal who’s consistantly got a stick buried so far up her butt that the point sticks out of her mouth when she talks, or the gal who used to have a cartoon character of a little dead girl riding to hell in a shopping cart on the banner of her blog?

I’m just sayin’…

The Big Lie

21. February 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Media Matters Not

The world has changed… I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, I smell it in the air. The power of the enemy is growing.
(From LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring)

That is the power of the Big Lie, the outrageous falsehood that is repeated, and repeated and repeated. Eventually it is everywhere, all at once, so omnipresent that it is worse than a many-headed hydra; no matter how many times you bash away at it, it regenerates, re-grows, it is always there, no matter how many times you cut it down. Once it is repeated enough, it is accepted passively as true, and it is always there, in the water, the earth, the air… in the magazines one reads, the television shows, the movies… so saturated amongst the media that one begins to think that it is in their very DNA.

The other seductive power of the “big lie”, besides constant repetition, is that a good portion of those who hear it are predicated to believe it. They very much want to believe it. It slots easily in to an existing world-view and set of values and beliefs. If you are convinced that international Jewry controls the economy, or that the UN’s black helicopters are patrolling the Western US, or that Karl Rove is a Machiavellian puppet-master, you are already prepped for belief, having been excused the hard labor of looking at uncomfortable and contradictory— or even ambiguous facts and thrashing out some sort of reconciliation in the middle ground. Black and white is ever so much more satisfying than shades of murky grey. The “big lie” is even more embraceable if it serves to deflect blame from an individual, a country, or a cause, and reaches the highest form of usefulness if it can park that blame squarely at the door of whoever it would most richly satisfy the party of the first part to blame.

One of the “big lies” of my time was that of the of the freaked-out, atrocity committing, guilt-ridden Vietnam vet. It was perpetrated by a lazy news media, seized upon eagerly by anti-war activists and grubby politicians hoping to ride a popular cause and finally exploited by the entertainment media looking for the cheap and easy cliché— took on a horrible half-life of its own, poisoning attitudes about the military for decades. Need a handy villain? The military would do! A cheap bit of bathos? Bring in the guilt-ridden veteran! An enduring cliché? Cue up the stock footage of hovering Hueys over a rice paddy with “All Along the Watchtower” on the audio track! I was ultimately and forever put off the “X-Files” when one of their nastier episodes featured a massacre of half-aliens by a unit of the US Army: the show encouraged a very sick kind of paranoia, I thought, and that the show’s writers thought that particular plot twist to be remotely credible said more about them than the Army. I realized how pervasive that big lie had become, when watching news coverage of the build-up to Gulf War I. Most of the reporters actually doing coverage of the American forces could hardly contain their air of pleased surprised at how utterly normal, well-spoken, and… and just darned nice all those military people were, in their funny hats and dusty chocolate-chip cammies. Who would have thought it? Not a murderous hopped-up psychopath among them.

Perhaps this will explain in a small way the almost universal anger of various milbloggers at CNN’s ex-functionary Eason Jordan. Those of us with long memories of how the Vietnam vet “big lie” distorted military service in the eyes of the general public cannot endure to see this happening again, without protest— not from the egregious Mr. Jordan, not from Sy Hersh, not from 60 Minutes. We have to engage the “big lie”, to whack it back to the ground again and again, to fact-check, to post our own stories, to bear witness to events we see happening before our own eyes, to demand an accounting of those who perpetrate the “big lie” for their own ends.

And if that be a blogger lynch mob… be a sweetheart and hand around the torches and pitchforks, please. We have work to do.

To the barracades, my friends!

You Can’t Own A .50 BMG, But CNN Can

20. February 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Media Matters Not

It seems CNN has violated federal law, in doing a story on the horrors of private ownership of .50 caliber rifles.

Hat Tip: InstaPundit

You Realize of Course…This Means War!

18. February 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Media Matters Not, That's Entertainment!

Warner Brothers have lost their minds.

Okay. That’th it buthter! You can’t get away with thith:

Dug The Animaniacs. Loved Pinky and the Brain.

You don’t f*ck around with the rabbit you miserable twits.

I’ll moiderlize ’em, get my big brudder, sniff, HONK, that’s what I’ll do…you’ll see.

Bastards.

Update: OMG!!! The new character’s name is Buzz Bunny. Look what happens when you Google Search (NSFW) it. That’s the third choice down folks. Bwahahahahaaaaaaaaaa.

Promoting the Political Voice of America’s Youth

17. February 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Media Matters Not

The guys from College Tree Publishing are looking for contributions for their second and third books. Their first book, What We Think: Young Voters Speak Out included essays, poems, and photos from college students all over the country expressing their views “including the war in Iraq, the morality of armed conflict, affirmative action and the draft, gender equality and the place of organized religion in the political arena.”* According to an email I received from Seth Spores, one of the three editors and co-founders of College Tree Publishing, the lads are “contacting many blogs and other forms of media not necessarily connected to Universities, in hopes of reaching a wider base of essayists.”

For, What We Think II, they’re looking for:

Essays, personal reflections, journal entries, short screen plays, poems, and brief quips on any political or social issue. These include, but are not limited to, the following: The War on Terror; The War in Iraq; Bush; The candidates for 2008; God in Government; The Electoral College; Abortion; Supreme Court Justice Appointment; Affirmative Action; The Environment; Red states vs. Blue states – what’s it all about; Young Voter Apathy (is it real); Celebrity and Politics; the Media; And any other issue political or social issue you find compelling.

For What We Think About God:

CTP is looking for essays, personal reflections, journal entries, short screen plays, poems, and brief quips on any theological issue. These include, but are not limited to, the following: Does God Exist; What is God; What gives your life meaning; What Is the Role of Religion; What Is the net Effect of Religion; Are There Absolutes – What Are They?

Criteria:

Quality of Writing – Is the writing grammatically correct? Is the writing consistent and appropriate for the theme of the subject?

Significance of Topic – Is the topic one that is significant and contemporarily relevant?

Creativity of Exploration – Does the piece offer something novel and insightful or does it do a good job of developing an idea that seems personally compelling?

Creativity of Presentation – In some way, let us know that you care what you are writing about. It does not have to be sensationalized, oftentimes truth comes through in truth and candor. Do this through whatever innovative or traditional literary medium way you find most appropriate and authentic to what you want to say.

So if you’re between the ages of 17 and 25 and would like to contribute to one of these projects, drop the lads a line or contribute through their website when it’s working.

What caught my interest? Two of the editors graduated from Gonzaga so they’re practically family.

So…go write something…make it good…send it in. The deadline is 1 June 2005 so I’ll probably prod you about it again.

*From Amazon.

BTW (Version 050217)

17. February 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Media Matters Not

Did anyone else see The Daily Show last night? A fine satirical defense of blogging and bloggers because…I guess we need it…although I just don’t take myself as seriously as I take the rest of you all. That’s a compliment…just in case. Back to The Daily Show…Ted Hitler? Please, stop, you’re killin’ me.

CBS Producer Threatens Suit To Get Memogate Retraction

15. February 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Media Matters Not

This is a hot one! From RatherBiased.com:

Josh Howard, the executive producer of “60 Minutes Wednesday” during Memogate and the only CBS employee who had the guts to suggest that the network admit to wrongdoing before Memogate became a mess is threatening CBS with a lawsuit if it does not sufficiently retract the original Bush Air Guard story and fully come clean about the role of upper management in the network’s stonewall defense.

In a blockbuster story in tomorrow’s New York Observer, TV reporter Joe Hagan reveals that Howard and two other CBS News executives, Betsy West and Mary Murphy, are refusing to go, insisting that they are being made into scapegoats by an “independent” commission designed to protect the corporate brass from damage.

Howard is threatening to sue the network for wrongful termination and is said to be willing to testify under oath and subpoena secret internal documents and emails from his former employers.

CBS disputes these assertions and claims that Howard’s assertions “have no basis in fact” and that he did not raise sufficient questions about the Sept. 8 report which was narrated by Dan Rather and produced by Mary Mapes.

The Daily Brief