Pajamas Media

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1. Mainstream Media Picking on Bloggers… Again « Tizona’s Weblog:

[...] Pajamas Media [...]

Jun 10, 2008 - 4:48 am 2. Jude:

The ego of the elite or should I say, power. How dare someone other than the MSM get credit for something that should be accomplished by one who has the credentials to do so.

Jun 10, 2008 - 5:21 am 3. ~Paules:

Citizen journalists have broken the MSM monopoly on news, information, and opinion. Do the “elites” in the media believe they’re the only ones entitled to a viewpoint? Matt Drudge saw this tsunami coming a long time ago. Dan Rather was the first to be swept away after his “fake but accurate” exegesis. Citizen journalism is here to stay; it’s time the MSM got used to it.

Jun 10, 2008 - 5:56 am 4. AJ:

They’re scared, lazy and jealous. Watching Blitzer, Matthews and Couric and you realize why blogs and Fox News dominate the news world for real people.

More here:

http://www.therant.us/guest/a_kaufman/2008/06032008.htm

Jun 10, 2008 - 6:20 am 5. Concerned Citizen:

The truth prevails, whoever wants to bring it to our attention. MSM journalists has gotten fat, happy and sloppy and they have turned news and the reporting of facts into opinion. Who gets their news from MSM anymore anyway? MSM outlets may get the facts correct, but when “inconvenient truths” that don’t agree with their point of view are routinely omitted or only favorable stories are run on their pet topics/people, news becomes opinion and hence worthless as news. Bloggers keeps these slugs (more) honest.

Jun 10, 2008 - 7:07 am 6. Increase Mather:

The old gatekeeps have found that some have climbed the fence and don’t need to be allowed through a gate.

They don’t much like it. They are losing power, and with the loss of that power, money.

And you know what? It can’t happen soon enough. Within twenty years most of these old paper outlets will just be another voice on the internet. And they will find they will have to compete…they don’t like that.

Jun 10, 2008 - 7:16 am 7. JMagi:

Viva le the People!!!The MSM had it coming when Rush Limbaugh was no longer useful, I mean who watches the news to hear what they’re saying.You watch or listen to the news to hear what their not saying.

David Icke was right..thats creepy

Jun 10, 2008 - 2:45 pm 8. Assistant Village Idiot:

To review: what a public figure tells a citizen in public cannot be reported on her internet site, because that is not an approved venue. But forged documents, fauxtography, fictitious sources, and op-eds masquerading as reporting can be made clean by their appearance in approved venues.

Jun 10, 2008 - 4:11 pm 9. Media Mythbusters Blog » Blog Archive » Media Bias Roundup - 06/10/08:

[...] Pajamas Media – Mainstream Media Picking on Bloggers… Again [...]

Jun 10, 2008 - 4:27 pm 10. Vodkapundit » A Vice Versa Vice:

[...] by Stephen Green on 10 Jun 2008 at 05:35 pm In a PJM article, Youssef M. Ibrahim notices a little something wrong with the MSM [...]

Jun 10, 2008 - 4:35 pm 11. RAH:

Ms. Fowler has scored on two big stories in this primary season and I thank her for her efforts. She is an Obama supporter but she released the audio of his statement about guns and God. She seems to nore honest than the MSM reporters.

Also is she paying the travel bills herself? Since she is not an employee of NYT or WaPo she might not have an expense account.

Jun 10, 2008 - 4:41 pm 12. Pixelkiller:

“If you don’t have trust, you don’t get good stories. If someone comes along and uses deception to shatter that trust, she has hurt the very cause of a free flow of public information.”
Er, maybe I mis-remember, but wasn’t that what CNN was doing with Sadam up till 2003? Also, cranking up my “way-back” machine, wasn’t there a NY Times reporter back in the 30’s repeatedly telling us how wonderful Stalin and his Socialism was?
I guess this is: “Play nice and you get access”. What-the-hell.

Jun 10, 2008 - 4:45 pm 13. Dogwood:

I don’t even bother reading or watching the MSM any more. If I want to know what is going on in the Middle East, I turn to Michael Totten, Michael Yon and Bill Roggio. Not only do they report what they see, but they also put the events in context, present and historical.

MSM reporters are simply inept and/or corrupt. Too much emphasis on politics, not enough emphasis on simply informing the public honestly and objectively.

Disclaimer: I’m was a reporter for small and medium size daily newspapers in a prior life. My former profession is doomed.

Jun 10, 2008 - 4:56 pm 14. Dogwood:

That should be “I was a reporter….”

Geez, where is a copy editor when you need one?

Jun 10, 2008 - 4:58 pm 15. Mike Boyce:

The mainstream, left wing, liberal media gets it (the message and the trend) all too clearly. They have had it their own way for four decades (since they lost the Vietnam War for our troops) and it is really upsetting them that now we don’t have only their claptrap to listen to. This is actually very funny. The “champeens” of free speech are being bit in the butt by, ohmygosh, free speech. Yikes a’mighty how can this happen? Once again, good ole Yankee ingenuity has overcome and circled around the bad guys and they’re surrounded. Mainstream elitists not only don’t like bloggers but they also don’t like political talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and associates. Gee…why is it that when the ballgame might, just might, turn against them, they suddenly want to take their baseball and go home, pouting, kicking at the dirt and whining. Pardon me but they’ve obviously mistaken us for folks who give a whit about how they feel. Semper Fi, mainstream media, we got your six covered.

Jun 10, 2008 - 5:13 pm 16. nodak boy:

I think everyone is misunderstanding the basic concern: it’s a basic ethic of journalism that a reporter doesn’t pretend to be a non-reporter, doesn’t pretend to be a joe citizen, in order to clandestinely get info from a source. It’s sort of basic etiquette to indentify oneself right away, before asking questions.
Of course, like all rules, there are exceptions to this one, too. But they should be slim and rarely used, and only for big things.
I figure what happened here is that Clinton thought he was talking to a woman in the crowd, a member of the public, so he was more candid than he would be if he thought he was “on the record.”
Doesn’t mean he was more truthful, of course: he might be just as prone to lie to a member of the public as to a reporter, MSM or blogger.
Now, with big public figures like Clinton, I have less concern about a reporter identifying himself: Bill’s a big boy and has to figure anything he says in public could be used against him later.
And I congratulate this blogger for getting good stuff. . .(although getting Bill to uncork about a Vanity Fair reporter, using nasty words, isn’t much of a “get”, journalistically.) The SF Obama stuff was more substantive.
But the journalistic rule, aside from MSM snits about bloggers, is a good one: journalists should be open and honest about who they are, not sneaking around secretly taping people’s conversations.
Or letting public figures think the reporter is just a member of the crowd asking an “innocent” question.
It’s just not cricket.

Jun 10, 2008 - 5:18 pm 17. Richard Blaine:

“…journalists should be open and honest about who they are, not sneaking around secretly taping people’s conversations.”

ROTFLMFAO!!!

Are you even slightly aware of the nature of “journalism” in the past two decades?

Jun 10, 2008 - 5:47 pm 18. christopher rivers:

Maybe i missed it, but i don’t recall bubba complaining about this.
I’m not sure how a person should introduce themselves anymore. For example, should a person say, I’m not a reporter, but I might put this on my blog. Or I might post it on somebody else’s blog and I might appear on CNN an hour later talking about it.

Jun 10, 2008 - 6:00 pm 19. nodak boy:

Blaine boy:
Funny you should ask.
Yes. (Not that you deserve an answer.)
Are you even slightly aware of the jerk nature of your less-than-intelligent question?
What’s your point? Because (I must assume here, since U seem to be an ASS, which leaves ME to explain) some journalists act unethically, therefore the ethic should be discarded?
Are you disagreeing with me, that journalists should follow this simple ethic of identifying themselves as reporters before grilling a source?
Exceptions PROVE the rule, is how the adage goes.
If you had something more than a slight awareness of journalism the past two decades (I’m guessing that “slight” is kind of a theme with you) you would know that not identifying oneself as a reporter – especially if you attempt to mislead a source about your identity – is a dismissable offense at about every MSM outlet.
I’m not dissing bloggers at all; they are great. (And of course, bad; kind of like MSMers.) And yes, the rules may be changing.
I’m just pointing out the nature of the long-held (50 to 70 years, I’d guess) ethic of reporters appearing as themselves and not as someone else. And this ethic seems to be a good one that applies, generally and relatively, to bloggers, as well.
Just imagine, blaine boy, if someone followed you around and secretly video and audio taped what you said and did. I’m betting you would feel – no strike that – look and sound like a fool.

Jun 10, 2008 - 6:29 pm 20. Ken Hahn:

Mr Alter, like most journalists, is terrified that the public will find out how lazy, biased and incompetent they are. The media is undergoing as great a transformation as happened when newspapers and pamphlets challenged the pulpit and back fence as trusted sources. No renaissance priest or preacher was as frightened of the people questioning their direct line to the truth. Talk radio, cable television and the internet are killing the carefully built image of an objective and dedicated press and returning reporters, like the clerics before, to human status.

nodak: the only use for that “rule” is that Democratic politicians know that they can spout off to a journalist, they will be protected. Sorry, that’s a big part of the reason no one respects journalists any more.

Jun 10, 2008 - 6:48 pm 21. ChknLtL:

Would someone explain to me exactly what it is that makes the MSM think they’re entitled to make rules for bloggers? I don’t remember any reputable blogger asking to join their club.

Jun 10, 2008 - 7:32 pm 22. G.:

Congratulations to Mr. Blaine for succulently demonstrating how incredibly pompous these MSM types are. “nodak boy” name calling temper tantrum proves the point

“nodak boy”: “Journalists” are neither Superheros nor Saints. The admiration you hold for them is found only amoung their own.

Jun 10, 2008 - 8:49 pm 23. nodak boy:

G-boy:
Hey, I’m thin-skinned. What can I say? I thought Blaine boy brought it on himself. Maybe I was wrong about that.
But could you just answer the question? Do you think journalists, reporters and/or bloggers, should NOT identify themselves when interviewing sources?
Is that so hard?
Is there something wrong with that?
I’m betting that any of you screeding on here, if you were interviewed by a reporter, journalist and/or blogger or all of the above, would freak out if said interviewer did NOT tell you who they were, before they elicited comments (which, let’s be honest, would probably be embarrassing to you the morning after, knowing you as I do now) from you.
That’s all I’m saying.
I’m a big fan of blogging, believe me.
Just rather amazed at the sort of mindless, knee-jerk hostility to MSMers…which isn’t the point of my little primer. Try to be more considered and intelligent with your hostility.
I’m not “making up rules” for anyone: i’m pointing out what this rule happens to be, and, as an aside, arguing that this particular rule seems like a good one for bloggers, too.
Be honest: you wouldn’t want to be ambushed by anyone, journalist, reporter, blogger, whatever: so why do you think it’s OK for people you dislike to be ambushed?
That’s the ethic of “Lord of the Flies.”

Jun 10, 2008 - 9:05 pm 24. Diane:

You rarely need to be a ‘real journalist’ at this point, because ‘real journalists’ are in name only. They happen to be on the payroll of a news organization, that’s all that makes them different from you and me. Too many reporters don’t actually do reporting and haven’t for quite some time.

Vast amounts of ‘news’ is based on books, studies, surveys, reports, polls, conference presentations, speeches, testimony and, of course, press releases — all written by someone else, based on research (a sphere of activity that once included real reporting) done by someone else at a university, bank, think tank, government agency, non-profit, advocacy group, and so on.

These documents are semi-digested and spit out as news (”Survey discovers ….” “new book says…” “researchers conclude …”) and so on. These are dressed up as “stories” through the expedient of getting a few quotes from a generally short list of experts (who of course produce their own reports, studies etc. and will need press time to promote them in the future, therefore cooperate with this whole artificial process).

If the reporter is lucky, the item may be controversial enough to get various groups of experts sniping at one another, thus providing material for a second day or more of “news” requiring little additional effort to “report” (e.g. the McClellan book — doesn’t that seem like so last month?) and on it goes.

A lot of reporters only get out of the office to pick up a copy of one of these items at an event where they will meet numerous clones of themselves and, if lucky, score enough quotes to write up the item quickly without having to do any additional phone calls or e-mails. It’s extremely easy to get through the day (news cycle), week, month, year … in this manner. Sure, they are going out of the newsroom, and meeting people, and getting quotes … but is this really ‘reporting’ in the sense that it requires some vast professional training and experience to do? I don’t think so!

Also, folks, notice if you will how often a story that requires quotes or anecdotes about ‘real people’ (lifestyle articles, career advice) features freelance writers, book editors, marketing managers, novelists, public relations consultants and the like. In other words, all people from the reporter’s larger sphere of media acquaintances. I think these types appear all out of proportion to their real incidence in the population.

Sure, you can’t quote your colleague at the next desk (that’s ‘unethical’) but you can quote a guy you met at a party given by that colleague at the next desk, so long as he works at some other place, who will very likely be another media type.

Add these two categories, plus the obligatory stuff (the plane crash, the four-alarm fire, last night’s game, the daily stock report) and there isn’t a whole lot left in the newspaper.

Don’t blame the recent years of cost-cutting; it’s a popular villain in the newsroom, but all this stuff has been going on way longer than that. Most journalists became over-paid, over-rated and lazy about 20 years ago, and it is their abdication of actual journalism that got them to where they are.

And no, I don’t mean they weren’t critical enough of authority; many journalists are so critical, so bitter, so relentlessly negative and angry so much of the time, a career of it warps the mind. I mean what I said: lazy and (given what they brought to the job) over-paid.

They, not publishers, outsourced the thinking part of the job to others — the consultants, the professors, the think-tankers, etc. as it made the job easier. That’s a reality. Most of them have only a superficial understanding of what they allegedly cover; you can see that by examining their substance-less work closely.

A few factoids interspersed with quotes in some story-like order … if you have ever done it yourself, and dear readers, I have, you discover at some point early in on your career that even if you don’t understand the issues or material, you can still produce a plausible ’story’ by just picking out some numbers, facts etc. from the source material, interspersed with a handful of quotes at what look like appropriate points. Every journalist I have ever known, has admitted this mutual discovery to me.

There’s no there, there, but it qualifies as a ’story’ for the purpose at hand. And if it’s ‘polished’ enough then possibly (you hope) readers will get through it without realizing how little meat there is to it. And until recently, it worked just fine for most journalists. Even if the readers were vaguely dissatisifed, where else could they go?

If you as the reader know anything about the subject at hand, you can often see that they haven’t a clue but have just produced a piece of ‘journalism’ full of formulaic phrases (”for now …” is my favorite) according to what they learned in class. Certainly, nobody expects a reporter to know exactly as much about finance, medicine, etc. as the people they interview (otherwise, they would likely be doing those jobs themselves) but the depth of ignorance is in many cases appalling.

The reporting on energy is a particularly sad case — it hasn’t changed much since the 70s. I believe Mr. Ibrahim would agree. A senator from an oil-producing state (bad); a quote from an environmentalist group (good), well, there’s your story. Or, the lights go out because utilities don’t invest enough (bad); when the utilities do want to invest, which would be in power lines or power plants to produce and distribute more electricity (that’s what they invest in!), both are bad (brain cancer! coal!) Clean natural gas is ok, as long as you don’t drill for it (bad), move it through a pipeline (bad) or deliver it via LNG tanker (really bad, it might blow up in a fireball).

Have a look at this formulaic doozy from the SF Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/10/MNI6116RIU.DTL&hw=energy&sn=002&sc=881

No wonder people in the Bay area can’t think straight about energy issues.

How many of those who cover energy as part of or all of their job for the mainstream media (I don’t mean Platts or the like) have read EPACT 2005 or the accompanying documents such as CRS studies, FERC and NRC reports etc.?

EPACT is free online and flawed though it is (five years in the making), the nearest thing we have to an official national energy policy, and its basic goal is to raise the supply of all kinds of energy in the US (fossil fuels and nuclear now, because that’s what we have the most of immediately at hand) while also supporting solar, wind, fuel cells, efficiency and the like as PART of the effort. Reading it and all those other documents would, however, mean slogging through thousands of pages of dense technical, legal and tax issues. Too hard! Call your friendly local environmental group!

Medicine is the same:
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/05/28/how-do-american-journalists-cover-medicine-not-well/?mod=googlenews_wsj

The bottom line is that most reporters are clever rather than truly smart; quick with catch-words and “nutshell” concepts rather than outstanding writers or thinkers. Far too many of them also relied on bluster, bravado, the ignorance of the public, the near-monopoly on channels of information, the comfortable assurance of groupthink, the absence of any oversight except for ‘professional discipline’ (uh-huh), and the power to batter and destroy people who didn’t cooperate with them. Far too many of them were mean-spirited, small-minded and resentful of people who were accomplishing things in the world, while they merely wrote about it.

Their problem is that, media sneering aside, Americans have more education and access to more information than before. So, the people they cover know more about the subject in most cases than they do, and many of the consumers of news know much more than they used to. To some extent, the journalist is superfluous and even gets in the way — confusing the issues with their ignorance rather than illuminating.

Nonetheless, they were good enough for the traditional media, since until recently, there were few other ways to disseminate knowledge quickly and widely. Their shortcomings had to be endured by the public as the price of getting any information, in any timely way, at all.

But, and of course I am not the first to say it, say I want to know about Congress. I can read the text of proposed legislation online, plus staff analyses of its impact and cost, free; read Congressional testimony and watch many of the hearings on live webcasts by the Congress or regulatory agencies themselves or on C-Span (both of which are often archived for some time if I’m busy at the moment); see the Federal Register and the Congressional Record online every day. I can get all of the facts and comments, not just those a reporter chooses to give me.

So why do I need the LA Times to have 47 staff (!) in its DC bureau. Of course, I don’t.

Jun 10, 2008 - 11:46 pm 25. Joanne Jacobs:

I worked for mainstream media for most of my adult life. I think some journalists don’t understand that technology has erased the line between professionals and amateurs. Or they get it but they don’t know what to do about it.

When a public figure speaks in a public place, he has to assume that what he says is public. It may appear in a newspaper; it may appear on a blog.

Jun 11, 2008 - 10:06 am 26. Ken Hahn:

Nodak,
I’m not running for anything. If I was, I’d say the same thing to journalists and anyone else ( except perhaps my close friends ). Why would it matter whether you were talking to a journalist unless you felt you didn’t have to lie because you were protecte? But then again I’m not a Democrat so no protection would be offered any way.

Jun 11, 2008 - 10:43 pm 27. nodak boy:

Hahn: You have it bass ackwards: there are two actors here: the journalist and/or blogger, and the public figure/source.
Each has his own responsibilities and obligations and worries.
I am talking about the journalist/blogger’s: you should identify yourself before interviewing people. It’s 1.) simply courtesy 2.)it’s a professional ethic; so the source knows what is being said is subject to publication. Believe it or not, this ethic is taken seriously at newspapers, to the point that it’s considered unethical to call around to gas stations to find out the prices if the caller doesn’t first identify himself as a reporter for such and such newspaper. It’s not a way of “warning off Democrats” from saying something stupid…” That’s a weird idea… there’s all kinds of bias in the MSM and most of it (nearly all of it) leftish… but it don’t work like that.
I can’t see what everyone can’t see about this (does that make sense?);
Now, big ol’ billy clinton has to take care of himself, and realize anything he says in public or even private might end up published, on tv, or in a blog,; sure.
but that plain fact of life doesn’t speak to the ethical obligation of a reporter/blogger to simply identify themselves before starting an interview….
The perspective of many on this thread is so weirdly perverse, it’s like someone saying: lots of men commit adultery, so the divine command not to do it is stoooopid and out of date…..
Gads, grow up.
There’s facts on the ground and there’s ethics.
You can’t always choose your facts, but you can choose your ethic.
Now tell me, Hahn boy, do you think it’s better for bloggers and/or reporters to NOT identify themselves before they start interviewing someone?
Are you going to sit there (in your pajamas. Please, Lord, tell me you are wearing pajamas,cuz the alternative is sort of scary) and tell me you would NOT be infuriated with a newspaper reporter who dressed in shorts, tshirt, sandals and sunglasses, bumped into you outside some, say, political event, and asked you about stuff, pretending to be just a passerby, all the while secretly taping it, and then posted it, video, audio, online and published it in a newspaper? Even if you said nothing salacious or slanderous or stupid, I’m betting you would be ticked off like heck.
Why?
Well, that’s what I’m sayin’….
I’m not saying bloggers have to do this or that.
I am suggesting that it seems to me that this ethic is a good one for bloggers, too.
In general.

Yes, the world has changed.
I love blogging. I love bloggers. in general and in theory.
Doesn’t mean that the courtesy and ethic of being upfront about who you are and what you are doing isn’t a good one for bloggers to adhere to.
Where do you stand on the adultery thing, anyway?
(this is on the record.)

Jun 12, 2008 - 3:52 pm 28. Bod:

Nodak, I’m not sure you get this.

If I walk down the street and I see a crime being committed, and I state exactly what I saw in a blog, do you have a problem with that?

If I accurately record an exchange at a public meeting between a politician and a citizen, uttered in a public forum, and quote that accurately in a blog, in what way is that different?

Arguably, if I pose as a private individual at a public venue and ask a politician a ‘loaded’ question, why should I NOT record and quote the response I get back in a blog?

And, while we’re at it, what gives Helen Thomas the right to behave the way SHE does at White House press briefings? 200 years as a ‘professional journalist’?

Jun 24, 2008 - 6:39 pm 29. thepen:

nodak, you’ve managed to reach a new level of absurdity …

imagine for a moment -

“journalist”, “responsibilities”, “obligations”,”courtesy”, “professional ethic”, “ethic is taken seriously at newspapers” … all in the preamble of your last post – brings new meaning to the word oxymoron!

Jul 21, 2008 - 4:51 pm

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