74 Comments

1. Increase Mather:

The coverage of the Washington march this weekend was AMAZING!

NYTIMES, CNN continue to put the crowd in the “thousands”…foreign press has it at well over a million.

We are on to their lies…and as it says above, they don’t care. The MSM will simply continue to downplay anti-Obama news, or just ignore it.

The suicide is well advanced.

Sep 13, 2009 - 4:30 am 2. David Thomson:

“Doing their jobs honorably would mean a setback for the Leftist cause, and so they chose B.”

That’s only half of it. These journalists are also poorly educated. They have never done any serious intellectual work. I have long argued that most of them would have to
take a leave of absence for roughly two years to engage in some serious reading. They are that far behind the curve.

Sep 13, 2009 - 4:31 am 3. Gary Ogletree:

Good points, especially noting that the MSM is forcing news hungry liberals to turn on Fox and read conservative blogs to find out what’s going on. Last year I referred my liberal ex to CQ to get a story, she said there was a lot presented she didn’t hear about at Democracy Now, as in deliberate omissions. Recently I referred her to a gold bug site, gold/silver.com, to see a Jim Rogers interview from Singapore. Turns out many liberals are not convinced by the happy talk they get at MSM when they suspect the economy is headed for collapse and our children are headed for debt bondage.

Sep 13, 2009 - 6:33 am 4. Brownie:

It’s also the reason PBS and NPR have to be subsidized by the public. Their programming is so in your face propagandized and BORING that few, other than a few self-important, true-believer, lefties, can bring themselves to watch the stuff. It’s like watching an alternate universe. They go looking for anything that they can possibly turn into a scary story while the guy with the machete is standing right in front of them.

Sep 13, 2009 - 7:33 am 5. Gaffe Prices:

“Ironically enough, scrutiny and accountability is the cause of much of the media’s increasingly disgraceful behavior.”

or the complete lack of scrutiny and accountability.

Sep 13, 2009 - 9:15 am 6. BlogDog:

And the Washington Post bithely goes on its way trying to make a 20 year-old thesis *the* issue of a gubernatorial run. I suppose it was emboldened by the one or two point win bought for Jim Webb on the base of George Allen saying the word “Macaca.”
I read the Post growing up. I know better now.

Sep 13, 2009 - 9:31 am 7. democratsarefascists:

Actually, the counts done by people who aren’t just pulling numbers out of their pants is still just over two million. The expectations game backfired on the Democrats this time.

Sep 13, 2009 - 3:12 pm 8. Mike:

Yeah, that’s the number that keeps showing up. Backfired on them, didn’t it?

Meanwhile, Newsweek is also on life support. They’ve closed their offices outside New York and my sister-in-law now has to decide whether she wants to commute there from New Jersey, or try to find other work.

Sep 13, 2009 - 3:14 pm 9. Dbeard:

Your are correct, that is why I did not renew my New Yorker subscription…..ennui. Each issue was padded with several anti-Bush screeds from one vantage or another…..in a world with limited time and resources it committed the unpardonable sin of being boring….and I have never been back.

Sep 13, 2009 - 6:35 pm 10. Gazzer:

The first, and only mention of the Van Jones, in the Arizona republic was today. And it was Krauthammer’s syndicated column. For someone for whom the Repugnant is their only source of news, it must have come as quite a shock.

Sep 13, 2009 - 6:44 pm 11. stevenh:

The other big problem is only about 20% of the population is ‘liberal’… If they can’t keep moderates or conservatives… well, they’ve already limited their market (to liberals) and self selected to enter a saturated one (news with a lefty slant).

Sep 13, 2009 - 6:48 pm 12. Rick:

” the counts done by people who aren’t just pulling numbers out of their pants is still just over two million..”
“.. foreign press has it at well over a million. ”

Got any sources for that, because that number seem rather ridiculous to me…

Sep 13, 2009 - 6:58 pm 13. Steevo:

Very good post. I have been frustrated for decades knowing it wasn’t mere bias but increasingly willful deceit and manipulation. They’re not only preaching to the quire but using any angle possible if they feel they can dupe the unwise.

Sep 13, 2009 - 7:00 pm 14. betsybounds:

Increase Mather:

With respect to your mention of the foreign press’s estimates of crowd size this week-end, to wit: “NYTIMES, CNN continue to put the crowd in the “thousands”…foreign press has it at well over a million”

I don’t know what the actual size was, but I was interested to note that Fox News’ Chris Wallace, on this morning’s Fox News Sunday, put the estimate at “tens of thousands.” It seems that everyone, including the notoriously “conservative” Fox, has some kind of interest in minimizing the turn-out numbers. I think, having watched the thing yesterday on C-SPAN, that a count of tens of thousands is a deliberate low-ball (and low-life) estimate–it was WAY more than that.

I have a good friend at work whose husband went to the Washington Tea Party this week-end. She told me that he was getting ready to head out to DC last week, and went to a local Dollar General to buy some American Flags. He ran into a couple of elderly ladies who wondered why he was buying those flags, and he told them where he was getting ready to head out to. One of the ladies was using a walker, and she began to cry, and the other one went to the back of the store where the flags were shelved, took all the remaining ones off the shelf, and went to the check-out line to buy them all and give them to him. The cashier also, upon hearing what my friend’s husband was doing, pitched in, and so those 3 people together bought out the store’s entire stock of American flags and gave them to my friend’s husband. He left, with the back of his pick-up filled up with American flags to take to Washington, purchased with the good will and strong sentiment of three utterly random American citizens. I am confident that every person at the event can be held to have represented at least 3 additional Americans, who could not be there.

This is a true story. I’m confident that it’s not unique among the stories of this Tea Party. It’s a story that Mr. Obama and his minions, and the Democrats in Congress, would do well to heed. I think the American people are not going to sit still for what they see coming. I wasn’t so sure about this a couple of months ago, but I’m seeing something surprising: The American people are not going to submit. God grant us all that they (we) never will.

Sep 13, 2009 - 7:06 pm 15. John Fembup:

Perhaps its a good thing that the MSM is getting a financial comeuppance in return for the incompetence of their work.

But it’s still unsettling to witness the deterioration of one of our most important guardians of liberty. Important enough to be protected by the Bill of Rights.

Fortunately we do have the internet as a sort of back-channel resistance movement in which information can be shared and vetted. That helps. But the huge loss of MSM credibility – even though it’s their own damn fault – is still a potential tragedy in the making.

There is a justifiable firestorm when the government threatens to deny citizens their Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. But no comparable firestorm as MSM credibility diminishes daily. That should be an equal concern for everyone – left and right, Republican and Democrat, urban and rural, male and female, even Red Sox and Yankee fans.

Sep 13, 2009 - 7:08 pm 16. davidt:

The crowd size WAS tens of thousands.

Many, many, many tens of thousands.

Sep 13, 2009 - 7:12 pm 17. Jeff Medcalf:

Rick,

While I was there, the counts I heard were 1.2 million and 1.5 million, both counts were the volunteers relaying Park Police numbers. I was there early, and left before 1pm, and I understand from others who were there that the peak of the crowd was about 2:30. There were certainly at least a million there, judging by past rally counts and the amount of area covered by the protest. Two million seems high to me, but like I said I left early. I would certainly accept anything between a million and two million as reasonable from what I saw.

That said, who cares? The exactly number is not the point. The point is that a huge number of middle class people with jobs and kids and lives showed up to protest, which essentially none of them had ever done before this year, that the government (both parties) is running amok and needs to stop. That’s what’s important, not the headcount.

The government is losing the confidence of a large part of America’s productive population, and both parties ignore this at their peril.

Sep 13, 2009 - 7:13 pm 18. Steve:

“it’s still unsettling to witness the deterioration of one of our most important guardians of liberty.”

The establishment media, as it came to exist between the end of WWII and today, was not and is not a guardian of liberty. The Founders never envisaged a centralized media establishment become a sort of fourth branch of government.

Sep 13, 2009 - 7:15 pm 19. Atomic:

The media can do things one of two ways:

1. Illuminate, elucidate, and illustrate
2. Titillate, prevaricate, and remonstrate

One has paid better than the other until lately. Time for a change.

Sep 13, 2009 - 7:16 pm 20. Lexington Green:

Let’s not gloat. What this means is NOT that the dinosaurs will die. What it means is that they will try to use the power of the state to shut down the opposition and to obtain protection and subsidy for themselves. The MSM is a key factor in the power of the Left. The rest of the coalition will not let it die without a fight, and without trying to silence the opposition. Stand by for some very abusive behavior. I hope the Good Guys win. But that is not inevitable. It never is.

Sep 13, 2009 - 7:17 pm 21. silvermine:

John — I think it’s wrong to think we’ve lost something… I’m not sure we ever had it.

If you’re into history, you can see that for as long as this country has existed, people have disliked the newspapers. (And for that matter, Europe has *never* liked us. )

For a while people did believe the news here — but how likely is it that they were doing a good job? Or did we just not have to ability to verify and find out they were either lying or just lying by omission? IMHO they are now only finally being *caught* at it.

Seriously — it’s even stupid things. Have you ever been to an event that was covered by the media? Has the article about that event ever really matched your impression of events? I’ve never had that happen. And even on really non-important things like a reptile festival or a state fair. They can’t seem to stop making things up in order to have a better story or a story they like better.

Sep 13, 2009 - 7:20 pm 22. zmdavid:

Will the MSM be allowed to go out of business, or will it get a bailout? I don’t see Obama letting his willing subjects in the media go under while he has access to the treasury.

Sep 13, 2009 - 7:22 pm 23. ct:

It’s worth repeating: liberal journalists *are* as ignorant of history, politics, and economy as the average left-wing airhead Hollywood actor/actress. Never underestimate the rank ignorance of the left and the dupes and useful idiots of the left.

Sep 13, 2009 - 7:30 pm 24. Joe:

It’s not just the liberal rags. I live in a place with a very conservative paper. It used to have a fantastic business section. Now it stinks. The entertainment section is actually still pretty good. But, the hard news section is terrible. They select light weight stories that aren’t particularly well written.

I believe this latter point is important; a whole lot of news writing is simply awful.

One big irony; I can often get better hard news from the web sites of the local television news stations–even better than their dull broadcasts!

Sep 13, 2009 - 7:30 pm 25. KG2V:

I saw an interesting analysis of not only this weekend’s march, but a bunch of the other famous marches. It put this weekend at somewhere between 500k and 600k – but then gain, pointed out that it was probably the 2nd or 3rd largest march EVER – and that all the others were way inflated. It was all based on simple overhead images, and the number of prople you can fit per sq foot – max being about 1.5sq ft/person, normal around 2-2.5.

BTW This makes it larger than the King Speach, the Inauguration, etc. The only things bigger was some to the Pro-Life marches, and the biggest of the anti-war marches

Sep 13, 2009 - 7:34 pm 26. cfbleachers:

I feel the point is deeper than this, though. The national disgrace that masquerades as our information stream should produce outrage, not boredom.

To think that we have become so jaundiced to the intentional cheapening of our “news” such that it not only is not to be trusted, or to be not just automatically suspect before the ink is dry…but to be known to be suspect prior to the type even being set.

Our information stream is poisoned. And the entrenched media is the toxic waste that we think can be filtered well enough to drink.

Sep 13, 2009 - 7:42 pm 27. Celebrim:

“No matter your politics, people want stimulation and information, not affirmation.”

Well, I think people want both – first affirmation and then information. But if you are on the Left, you get affirmation all the time – from movies, TV shows, magazines, pretty much anywhere in media – and you aren’t starved for affirmation the way conservatives where in the 80’s or early 90’s.

I think the big problem is that the liberal rags are terribly written. My wife refuses to even read them any more. She simply has stopped paying any attention to the news.

But should we be the least bit surprised that newspapers are terribly written considering the sort of person who goes into journalism these days? I mean, we all went through High School and college and we all have gotten to observe the journalism students and the people who put together the student newspapers. We all know that the journalism students are pretty far from the brightest bulbs on the marquee.

Sep 13, 2009 - 7:44 pm 28. CurlyDave:

I am convinced that Obama and his minions have a very good estimate of crowd size.

Somehow I don’t think they are going to share it because they don’t like it.

Sep 13, 2009 - 7:46 pm 29. wGraves:

Well, looks like we finally had a ‘million man march.’ Too bad it wasn’t the one the administration hoped for?

Sep 13, 2009 - 7:48 pm 30. gk:

Will the MSM be allowed to go out of business, or will it get a bailout? I don’t see Obama letting his willing subjects in the media go under while he has access to the treasury.

If a newspaper is printed and no one is there to read it, is it still a liberal rag?

Sep 13, 2009 - 7:50 pm 31. William:

Betsybounds, Post 14:

Just read your post. I’m a grown man, and sat here crying like a baby. Not only is it touching unto itself, but it gives me great hope and faith in the American people, which admittedly was very weak from Jan 20th til around July 4th.

To the long, slow slide of the MSM, I think they began to lose their audience before the rise of the Internet. Their smug, smarmy, left and far left attitude was somewhat apparent; talk radio helped raise the issue. The Internet has now exposed them for what they are. The web now shines the light they themselves are supposed to shine, basically replacing them, and accelerating their descent into irrelevance.

Bety, thanks again for the unforgettable vignette.

Bill

Thanks for the great story.

Sep 13, 2009 - 8:07 pm 32. weSwinger:

I graduated UC Berkeley in 1974 in English Literature. At that time your English major had to have a reading knowledge of at least one foreign language, and know a lot of British, European and American history and literature. The Cal Journalism school was highly regarded and they had breadth requirements that put them in the lower division Shakespeare lecture class and English composition, and they also showed up in creative writing classes. In my senior year I was an editor of the campus literary magazine and I got to read submissions from students and professors across the campus. There was no mistaking that the stupidest students at UC Berkeley were the Journalism majors. They truly did not know anything, not having studied any subject in depth except the craft of writing. And even there, since they didn’t know anything, they didn’t have anything of value to write on any subject (save their own lovely selves). This experience has spared me a lot of wasted time in the 35 years since then, knowing in advance as I do, that most of our modern college educated journalists don’t know s**t.

Sep 13, 2009 - 8:14 pm 33. betsybounds:

William,

Thanks to you as well, for your fine response. The thing we must remember is that this is a story of all of us, Americans every one. One and all. We do not prefer to fight, but if we must, well then so be it. We will do so.

God bless and preserve this country.

Sep 13, 2009 - 8:26 pm 34. Rewrite!:

Forwarded to the LIBERAL mgmt of the Comical Appeal

Sep 13, 2009 - 8:27 pm 35. Sue:

Everything that has been posted here:

Ditto

Sep 13, 2009 - 8:28 pm 36. Carol Herman:

Didn’t the ‘beer summit’ prove that the collection of journalists could be wee-wee’d on and they wouldn’t complain? Exactly how do you “collect the news” if all you do is accept that you’re at the receiving end of PR handouts from the likes of Beltway Bob Gibbs?

Oh, the irony. We laughed at Baghdad Bob. Even the sounds of our laughter wasn’t a wake up call for these vaudevillians.

Sep 13, 2009 - 8:29 pm 37. Sue:

what is it with the two (look gay)dudes holding the babies?
just wondering out loud…..

Sep 13, 2009 - 8:29 pm 38. Carol Herman:

They’re killing themselves with aspirin.

How can a business lose $1.10 per copy? This isn’t even a price war. More like poker.

Sep 13, 2009 - 8:32 pm 39. fustian:

The idea that news organizations should be objective is a fairly recent phenomenon and is linked to the formation of television. The new medium was so obviously powerful, everyone knew that if the new networks didn’t walk a careful line, government would step in with a heavy hand.

You show me a time before the dawn of TV, and I’ll show you a time of partisanship and polemics. The whole “ideal” of objective news is a a creature of tv.

And it’s no longer necessary.

And it’s not natural.

I don’t so much care that the liberal media goes away. I just want the average person to know that the NY Times and the Washington Post and the alphabet networks are all leftist mouthpieces.

Sep 13, 2009 - 8:49 pm 40. Concerned Citizen:

#34 Carol…”How can a business lose $1.10 per copy?”

Simple, it’s not a business, it’s someone’s hobby horse that burns up an inherited family fortune or the public market’s money to support the politicians THEY like. As opposed to running a real business that just delivers the news.

Sep 13, 2009 - 9:20 pm 41. reliapundit:

DEM CONGRESSMEN SEEM LIKE THEIR ABOUT TO DO LIKE THE 4TH ESTATE :

They could either: A) Clean up their act and do their jobs honorably … or B) Surrender their fig leafs of objectivity and run amok as the ideologues they really are.

Doing their jobs honorably would mean a setback for the Leftist cause, and so they chose B.

The good news is that this appears to be a suicide run.

IOW: THEY MAY VEY WELL PASS OBAMACARE AND IMMIGRATION REFORM BUT THEY WILL GET PUMMELED AT THE MIDTERM.

I THINK THAT THEY’RE COUNTING ON THEIR OL’ PAL RAHM TO BAIL THEM OUT WITH SOME OF THAT “STIMULUS” MONEY THEY’VE BEEN HOARDING FOIR JUST THIS REASON.

Sep 13, 2009 - 9:21 pm 42. Ed Driscoll:

Fustian,

Actually, I believe it was the radio networks of the 1920s and ’30s that created the first mass media, and hence the desire for an appearance of “objectivity”, but you’re absolutely right that it was a relatively short-lived phenomenon. I discussed the birth — and death — of the era of mass media in my “Atlas Mugged” article a couple of years ago.

Sep 13, 2009 - 9:25 pm 43. Diggs:

I think you are wrong to state that liberals want news. The Daily Kos, Huffington Post, FireDogLake and other liberal blogs that are widely read are devoid of anything approximating news. These blogs are read by tens of thousands of liberals daily, and have been nothing but an echo chamber. Google “kos bush lied” and you get 390,000 hits. Google “huffington bush lied” and you get 1,720,00 hits. Google “new york times bush lied, and you get 6,870,000 hits.
Is that news? No. Is that even a fact? No. Is that what lefties want to read? Apparently so. You are giving the Left far too much credit. Remember, the term “useful idiots” has two equally relevant words.

Sep 13, 2009 - 9:33 pm 44. steveg:

We need to stop calling them the mainstream media. Practically every degenerate behavior in America has been mainstreamed thanks to the so called MSM.

You will have noticed over time liberals like Ted Kennedy, and today David Axelrod like to use the term mainstream to qualify a person or group. David Axelrod today called the town hall protesters and DC marchers out of the mainstream of America, whereas I would assume he would consider ACORN and SEIU thugs being bused in as mainstream.

We are living in strange times.

Sep 13, 2009 - 9:39 pm 45. Rick:

So… we have nboth the “liberal” media and the “conservative” media putting the figure as some “tens of thousands”… certainly not a million..

yet, some still see a conspiracy to reduce numbers…

Hey, news flash… maybe it just really wasn’t a million people… Im just saying..

By the way, history shows that EVERY group tries to inflate numbers on these things…

Rick

Sep 13, 2009 - 9:40 pm 46. Doc Merlin:

Um, we are still losing to john stewart, among the younger crowd.

Sep 13, 2009 - 9:45 pm 47. Steve:

Brilliant insight. The ‘watchmen’ on the internet are not going disappear, so presumably the economic fortunes of the MSM will continue to decline. It will be interesting to see whether there is a related shift in the political fortunes of the left.

Sep 13, 2009 - 9:53 pm 48. steveg:

#24 Joe…You are probably right. If you think about it, everything coming from the media or entertainment field is of poorer quality than it was say a quarter century ago. The movies today are stupid, and generally bad as a whole, and the music today is worst than it has ever been. Total garbage.

And if you watch educational programming you will quickly see that it has a left-wing slant, rather it be HGTV, the History channel, or Discovery. I got so tired of global warming alarmism from these channels I eventually just tuned them out

Finally,and most important, parents more than ever are going to have to keep a close watch at what is going on in the classrooms. I do not trust these snakes one minute.

Sep 13, 2009 - 10:04 pm 49. JB:

Very true. I now have 100 more times respect for a blogger I know nothing about than I do for the NYT.

Sep 13, 2009 - 10:08 pm 50. Demosophist:

With a friend in the ’80s I helped build a polar mounted satellite dish and sat with him in a tent in the back yard cranking it every 10 minutes so that we could track the Molnya satellite broadcast Russian TV to Siberia. It was far more fascinating for us to watch the stultifying propaganda than it was for the Russians. For us it had the saving grace of the exotic. For them, it was a straight jacket.

Sep 13, 2009 - 10:47 pm 51. Former Belgian:

#43: Yes, many people want to read opinion that affirms their views — and this holds for all sides of the political landscape.

What almost none want to do is PAY for something that they can get for FREE elsewhere.

Sep 13, 2009 - 11:03 pm 52. Wallace:

They could either: A) Clean up their act and do their jobs honorably … or B) Surrender their fig leafs of objectivity and run amok as the ideologues they really are.

That’s a false choice. Obama can nationalize the media.

Sep 13, 2009 - 11:33 pm 53. George True:

Rick: The estimates of between 1 million and gtwo million are from the National Park Service and the US Park Police. The US Park Police said it was the largest event ever held in Washington, DC. Presumably they have no reason to inflate the numbers.

Sep 14, 2009 - 3:27 am 54. SteveOfTheNorth:

The MSM has become like road sideshow on the I-hiway,
its the creepy little place where you see the sort of
hairy girl who might have a beard and, the ugly boy
that looks almost dog-like with, a rock which could have
fallen from the sky. Welcome to dead tree media.

Sep 14, 2009 - 3:59 am 55. Plumpplumberbalding:

The MSM has actually been a fifth column against our interests for quite a while now. So, we have a choice-support Marxism or starve the beast. Sounds harsh, doesn’t it? Why haven’t we heard about ACORN? Just this one thing…..It’s a sickening thing when you realize that the MSM is part of the effort to destroy our way of life…..But they are in the process of being “Becked”. If ACORN is recieving our money, we want an audit of their books with forensic auditors. It’s not racism if they are a pack of African criminals. This ain’t Mexico or Africa, so why let these people act this way?

Sep 14, 2009 - 4:43 am 56. melanzan:

WaPo may lose $1.10 per copy sold, but they make up for it in volume…

Sep 14, 2009 - 4:46 am 57. JohnRDC:

“They can’t seem to stop making things up in order to have a better story or a story they like better.”

That’s in the DNA: make stuff up. This inherent tendency flourished when papers fought tooth and nail for readers. In Philadelphia in the 1930s, newspaper deliverymen would literally fight to get their papers displayed first at kiosks. On a slow news day in Philly, and there were many, the editors of the Evening Ledger would take names out of the phone book and write up a headline-grabbing fire story. The next day when the people phoned in to say it wasn’t their home that burned, the paper would say they got it wrong (not in print, over the phone). Take it from someone who was there—i.e., my father.

Now all the fiction that passes for news/analysis is powered by liberal ideology, not from circulation wars. And by the way, of course journalists are ignorant. Othersie, they wouldn’t be in journalism. You think Katie Couric is bright?

Sep 14, 2009 - 5:05 am 58. JohnRDC:

“They can’t seem to stop making things up in order to have a better story or a story they like better.”

That’s in the DNA: making stuff up. This inherent tendency flourished when papers fought tooth and nail for readers. In Philadelphia in the 1930s, newspaper deliverymen would literally fight to get their papers displayed first at kiosks. On a slow news day in Philly, and there were many, the editors of the Evening Ledger would take names out of the phone book and write up a headline-grabbing fire story. The next day when the people phoned in to say it wasn’t their home that burned, the paper would say they got it wrong (not in print, over the phone). Take it from someone who was there—i.e., my father.

Now all the fiction that passes for news/analysis is powered by liberal ideology, not from circulation wars. And by the way, of course journalists are ignorant. Othersie, they wouldn’t be in journalism. You think Katie Couric is bright?

Sep 14, 2009 - 5:07 am 59. The Strata-Sphere » Old Media Rotting Out On Hubris To Extinction:

[...] brings me to this great post by Ed Driscoll on what caused the demise of the old news [...]

Sep 14, 2009 - 5:13 am 60. Moe Lane » *Third* time on the ACORN Hooker Advisory Train.:

[...] point from Big Hollywood (via Ed Driscoll and Instapundit) is pretty important: The Dinosaur Media is losing money, viewers and readers hand [...]

Sep 14, 2009 - 5:35 am 61. *Third* time on the ACORN Hooker Advisory Train. - Moe_Lane’s blog - RedState:

[...] point from Big Hollywood (via Ed Driscoll and Instapundit) is pretty important: The Dinosaur Media is losing money, viewers and readers hand [...]

Sep 14, 2009 - 5:38 am 62. Owen Glendower:

A young lady in my family has a j-school degree, but has never practiced. However, she learned one very valuable thing in the process of getting her degree:

Most of her classmates had a political agenda to advance, and journalism was how they were going to advance it.

They made no bones about it, to the point where one of her classmates stated openly in a classroom discussion that Christians should not be allowed to hold public office.

Sep 14, 2009 - 6:47 am 63. Oremus:

As much as I would like to believe that the MSM is hurting
because of their liberal bias and other sins, I think that two
other things are far more responsible for their demise, namely
1) many people can get their news, for free, from the internet;
and 2) newspapers depended heavily on classified advertising
for revenue and Craigslist and other online sites have essentially
killed the newspapers’ classifieds. In its heyday, the Wash Post
royally screwed classified advertisers with ridiculously high rates
which I had to pay when I had a business in the D.C. area. I used
to pray that, someday, the Post itself would get screwed. It looks
like that day has come.

Sep 14, 2009 - 7:10 am 64. Crafty Hunter:

There’s no way around it. The “classic” media will be slowly but inevitably replaced with individual news reporters or small groups of such individuals, who gain their semi-national to full world credibility through reasonable reputation networks. Aggressive print leftism as a profession, that is, “journalism”, has been on its way out for years. I think all that is propping up “classic” media (newspapers, the big three television public broadcast companies) is simply the lack of apparent highly relevant alternatives. Blogs are too fragmented, and they typically only comment on news reported from other places, rarely reporting news gathered by the blogger himself.

Obviously, payment is another issue, but I won’t comment on that now.

Sep 14, 2009 - 7:29 am 65. MarkButter in SoCal:

melanzan – make up for it volume . .lol

I think this has been a much steeper and faster decline than dead tree & MSM envisioned. 20-30 years ago, alot of newspapers were afternoon rags, tossed to neighbors doorsteps by kids like me. This allowed for better (or even attempted) fact checking because of time of delivery and when dad/mom got home and watched the evening news they had something that either supported or contradicted what they had just read. . so there was at least some, albeit little, objectivity or ability to compare “facts” since at that time old hands like David Brinkley, earlier Cronkite and the like had established their teeth. I mean, can any of us see Cronkite running with the Bush/Rathergate story?

In the 70’s and early 80’s, which were proceeded by the very liberal late 60’s early 70’s, anybody in J-school reported and taught mostly liberal points of view because it was in “vogue,” the D’s had commanding majorities and many thought the young of that era, coming of age in the late 60’s/early 70’s would naturally have and raise very liberal kids and continue the trend.

Therefore, take college campus ratios of liberal vs. conservatives and these kids, now adults, have never been questioned or pressed to prove their viewpoints. Having not done so, as the article implies, they now are in a corner and do not know how respond because what they have always done has always been approved of, whether it be college profs, employers or their friends. Even the president, when he speaks of overhead equals profit, really has no sense of how the world operates.

For many of us in the business world, we took the “C” in creative writing and tried for the “A” in business class. With today’s reporters, it was the opposite and since they were told of how the world operates or should operate from the liberal point of view, they really have no concept of actually how the world operates.

It is so apparent when you talke to them with the example of, yes, if I could switch my employees to an insurance plan that costs me 8% of my payroll compared to what I pay now for their employer provided insurance, they have absolutely no grasp and are aghast on why you would do that. That is because they have been taught that everyone should operate to the benevolence (sp) of everyone, no matter what it costs you. And if not possible, the gov’t should do that, no matter what it costs because for them there are no costs, only outcomes that need to be achieved.

Sep 14, 2009 - 8:09 am 66. Fresh Bilge » Tea Party Numbers…:

[...] Saturdays at Kyle Field. That ABC News would report this tells you something about why the MSM is dying [...]

Sep 14, 2009 - 11:30 am 67. RSP:

John Fembup:
Though I generally agree with your post, I think the wisdom of Red Sox fans remains questionable.

Sep 14, 2009 - 12:07 pm 68. HARRY:

How is POLITICO re-directing our attention? Criticism of Obama is racist!:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27120.html

Their source? Memebers of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Sep 14, 2009 - 2:01 pm 69. HARRY:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27120.html

Meanwhile POLITICO’s big story? Obama critics are probably racist! Source? The Congressional Black Caucus.

Sep 14, 2009 - 2:18 pm 70. Tulsa Jack:

Graduated college in the ’60s, joined the Air Force, spent a couple of years in ‘Nam. Now I’m old and broke, and will never contribute to Harvard again after the Somers disgrace, confirmed just now by that rancid “Black Studies” so-called professor. Bet his college papers are Top Secret, just like Obama’s. Never watch TV “news” and don’t buy “newspapers,” but consider myself well informed with the Net.

Couldn’t go to DC this weekend, but hope the American people will recognize the Democrats as the enemies of our country that they are, and throw ‘em out. Obama is a narcissistic, psychopathic liar, an arrogant, dangerous egomaniac unqualified for dog catcher, though he did catch one (styrofoam Greek temples, anyone?).

Dems have worked for 40-years to create our health insurance cost crisis. We could fix it very easily: 1) tort reform; 2) tax credits; 3) interstate competition; 4) Reduce burdensome regulation. Fat chance, because of course their goal is to control our lives. They want us broke and dependent! We’re on Hayek’s “road to serfdom.”

I see a major economic collapse coming, entirely Democrat created, with malice aforethought. Maybe this will get people’s attention. Don’t believe the younger generation’ll permit Red Charlie Rangle, Meatball Pelosi, and Harry the Grifter to ruin their lives with 70% taxes. We’re about to find out.

Sep 14, 2009 - 6:31 pm 71. Al Reasin:

My quick and dirty estimate:

PA avenue was covered from Freedom Plaza to the Capital; that is about 1 mile (WH to Capitol 1.2 miles) of people on a street 6 lanes wide or 80 ft from Googe data. A mile is 5280 ft x 80 ft at 2.5 sq feet per person (Obama’s inauguration number for the mall) gives us over 168,960 people just there at any one time. This human traffic lasted for 3 hours from the media. With the average human walking speed of 3 miles per hour, that is 168,960 people passing a point every 33 minutes or over 3 hours being 9 x 168,960 = 1,520,640. Although, like me not all people started at Freedom Plaza. Many went directly to the Capitol for good “seats” and not all came down PA Ave. The police also asked the protesters to leave the plaza two hours early. Nor does it count the time after 12:30 when people were still arriving or the people on the sidewalks along PA Ave. So the number of 1.5 million may be low.

Now what happen if congress ignores us. Many I talked to are worried that congress will ignore us. That may be helped by the minimal coverage by the media, even FOX concentrated on the Yale student’s disappearance said my wife, who could not attend, and by the low media estimates of participants; 10s of thousands stated FOX, not 100’s of thousand or millions as was more likely the case; 1.5 million from different police officers questioned.

So what if congress ignores us? Well, we would not want to emulate Shay’s Rebellion if at all possible. While it awakened the politicians of the time to the limitations of the Articles of Confederation, it cost 4 Patriots lives and many more wounded. I can imagine if the same sort of armed insurrection started how this Administration would react; an excuse for martial law and sedition acts as was done during President Wilson’s Administration for just criticizing government. A reported 100,000 people were arrested, including the Socialists Party’s presidential candidate, for their freedom of speech exercise.

I worry that if our “march” on DC Saturday will not stop ObamaCare or even if the government option is dropped, the economic freedom issues (i.e. mandatory health care requirement under government mandates) and civil liberties (i.e. IRS held financial and doctors/hospital held medical records released to the government) will remain in some form. I don’t trust the conference committee’s outcome even if the Senate bill is milder in appearance.

What is a better example is the Income Tax Revolt in Tennessee in 1999. Oh, you didn’t hear about that revolt; neither had I since the MSM seems to have neglected to report much on this and it was before blogs were well known, so go to Intapundit’s report at http://glennreynolds.com/?p=8 for some details. We should be prepared to follow that example set in Tennessee after the governor and legislature proposed to vote in a state income tax in 1999. The governor and legislature backed down and to this day TN is income tax free. As with MLK tactics, perseverance does win when you are right.

With the reported 26,000 TEA Party organizations in our great country, we could make life difficult for those cloistered in DC.

Sep 14, 2009 - 9:02 pm 72. Robert Cottrell | 14 September 2009 « Regurgitation:

[...] 4 Washington Post loses $1.10 per copy [...]

Sep 15, 2009 - 9:51 am 73. heyyoukidsgetoffmylawn:

A note to the curious regarding the Churchill paraphrase:

“We will have no truce or parley with you, or the grisly gang who work your wicked will. You do your worst-and we will do our best”

Sep 15, 2009 - 3:36 pm 74. The Death Of The Mainstream Media « Tai-Chi Policy:

[...] 2009 Posted by taoist in Politics. Tags: Accountability, Bias, The Media, Transparency trackback Is happening at their own hands. Given the choice between cleaning up their act or becoming partisan ideologues, they’ve [...]

Sep 16, 2009 - 11:18 am

Sorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.