29 Comments

1. Elroy Jetson:

I’m thinking Time or CNN. They are interchangable.

Sep 29, 2008 - 9:31 pm 2. Webrider:

I’m betting NBC with their lil brothers at MSNBC

Sep 29, 2008 - 9:48 pm 3. Webrider:

Want to see what caused the crisis? Go Here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU6fuFrdCJY

Sep 29, 2008 - 9:49 pm 4. Mr. Bomb:

I’m guessing Pravda.

Sep 29, 2008 - 9:58 pm 5. Linda Frank:

Washington Post, alas. (The Los Angeles Times can’t afford the staff anymore.)

Sep 29, 2008 - 10:21 pm 6. Lightnin' Hopkins:

Almost Soviet, indeed. The iconic campaign posters make even more sense now, don’t they?

The press doesn’t even try to hide it anymore. They are absolute sheep. Their en masse, blind devotion doesn’t just irk me from a political standpoint, it also plain creeps me out. They want their Camelot fantasy in the weirdest way and don’t care what it takes to make it happen.

The dumpster-diving is apropos – rodents love to play in the garbage.

Sep 29, 2008 - 10:51 pm 7. David Thomson:

I have directly dealt with the MSM in the past. Those individuals were usually eager to be fair and balanced. Many even apologized if they got something wrong. Yes, the majority of them were liberal—but they still nonetheless felt an compelling need to be professional and honest. Those employed today often could care less about truthfulness. They are instead leftist ideologues who possess a postmodernist attitude toward facts and objectivity. It is entirely fair to describe them as minimally comparable to the propagandists who served the ideological demands of a Joseph Goebbels or Pravda.

Sep 29, 2008 - 11:08 pm 8. chuck:

I guess Washington Post or LA Times. Callimachus took down his blog Done With Mirrors in August because he was afraid for his job during the election season.

Sep 29, 2008 - 11:17 pm 9. Terrye:

It could be any of the major news outlets.

People like this need to come forward. There is something strange about the furtive quality of these anonymous whistle blowers. He can always write a book, everyone else does.

Sep 30, 2008 - 3:57 am 10. James Pearce:

This is rich. On another thread, you called me a “drive-by coward posting anonymous* comments on a blog” then deleted my follow-up comments!

And now you’re willing to take some drive-by coward sending anonymous e-mails to a blog as gospel? Why, because it reinforces your biases?

(*surely you can appreciate the difference between anonymous and pseudonymous)

Sep 30, 2008 - 4:13 am 11. Wellspring:

I’ve dealt occasionally with the MSM over the years. I’ve yet to see even one who understood the issues they were reporting or could get their facts straight. Usually, that’s accompanied by a heavy dose of what the wikipedians call POV-pushing.

But, let’s be honest. If the guy who emailed Glenn came forward, what would happen? He’d be fired, of course, but the people who would believe him already know what’s happening. The last few people who still don’t believe that there’s media bias won’t change their minds over this guy. And who would report it, anyway?

Sep 30, 2008 - 4:40 am 12. David Thomson:

“He can always write a book, everyone else does.”

Writing a book rarely earns one serious money. Numerous authors especially consider their non-fiction works as loss leader activities. Any individual who “betrays” the MSM would likely find themselves unemployable.

Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush knew how to get their message out in spite of a hostile media out to destroy them. John McCain, however, is inhibited by political correctness. He could have severely damaged the Obama campaign by rightfully taking the Anointed One to task for his long term relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. McCain not only failed to accomplish that task—he also tried to prevent other Republicans from doing so! In the recent debate, the GOP standard bearer once again refused to take advantage of a golden opportunity. He didn’t spend even one second rebuking the Democratic Party for coercing lending institutions into providing mortgages to minorities possessing poor credit histories. Race guilt is not so subtly destroying Western Civilization. We may no longer have a realistic chance of saving ourselves.

Sep 30, 2008 - 4:42 am 13. jedrury:

The identity of the emailer is irrelevant; the truth of the content of the email is relevant.

Sep 30, 2008 - 4:57 am 14. Eric R.:

OK, the media is a leftist propaganda organ. And water is wet?

So what can conservatives do about it, especially in light of the failure of the NY Sun?

How about BUY media outlets and change the reporting and editorial slant? Oh sure, the liberals on the staff will stomp and scream and throw a tantrum, but at the right price, it would be sold.

And for those who say that this is a losing money proposition, due to declining revenues, viewers, and circulation, I say so what? Doesn’t the leftist media (MSM & Hollywood) forego all of those in order to stay true to its leftist religion? Do you think Hollywood cares that 10 anti-Iraq war films bombed? No, because the faith is all important, and money is subordinate to that.

We need conservatives willing to see things the same way. Their view should be “I’ll lose money, but I’ll still be rich — and I might be getting the truth out there — a truth that will probably save the economy, the culture, and possibly even the Western World.

And yes Mr. Limbaugh, with your new $500 million deal and net worth in 10 figures — you are one of the people I have in mind.

Sep 30, 2008 - 5:59 am 15. Eric R.:

Another thing some conservative should do, as part of media buying, would be to rebuild UPI as a conservative alternative to AP, which I believe is now a group of 8 people.

It does not have to be as huge. Just get 30-40 competent conservative reporters in major news areas (NYC, LA, DC, MidEast, London, etc) and find stringers.

Then buy newspapers that will carry it.

Sorry Roger, I like PJM, but it’s really set up for columnists more than news reporters — but hopefully UPI can start with the Fahdil brothers.

Sep 30, 2008 - 6:05 am 16. Mike Y.:

Newsweek is my guess.

Sep 30, 2008 - 6:24 am 17. david levavi:

It doesn’t matter which megamedia outlet employs the anonymous letter writer. What signifies is that all of MSM is capable of doing it. On the left, in the tank for Obama and uninhibited by ethical considerations.

Brings this American to reconsidering long-held assumptions about Joe McCarthy and blacklists. I’m beginning to suspect the left got exactly what they deserved.

When those who are supposed to be the public’s eyes and ears are deliberately blinding and misleading the public what’s to be done? When a mediocre, dishonest and superwealthy rag like the NYT dominates news, freedom of information is in jeopardy. And along with it all other freedoms.

We are living in perilous times. Between grotesque Leftist excess and inevitable Rightist reaction the nation can be torn apart in the next several years. Economic woe will only fuel the bitterness. And the Islamists are waiting to pick up the marbles.

Sep 30, 2008 - 7:23 am 18. Insatty:

The unholy alliance between the MSM and Academia is effectuating a silent coup, as more and more young people are brainwashed into believing that high-tax, big-government solutions will benefit them in the long term. Classical economic study on campus is almost nil, while ethnic-grievance studies grow like a cancer. The MSM’s constant assault on Palin and her values means no conservatives will appear on the National scene.

Free markets and the freedom it affords the individual are doomed. There is no Ronald Reagan out there to save us this time. Prepare for Armegedon: Obama, Pelosi and Reid run the country and appoint the judges.

Sep 30, 2008 - 7:52 am 19. Paul from Florida:

In the words of CBS New Anchor, Dan Rather, “fake, but accurate”.

There. That should be good enough.

Sep 30, 2008 - 8:00 am 20. David Thomson:

This should brighten Roger L. Simon’s day: Rush Limbaugh is mentioning the letter sent to Glenn Reynolds. However, he thought the Instapundit is Little Green Footballs.

Sep 30, 2008 - 9:11 am 21. Captain Hate:

The founding fathers anticipated this, which is why they gave the press no particular rights that the rest of us don’t share. Those phonies are continually holding themselves as the cornerstones of democracy, while being unelected, unaccountable partisan shills subject to no checks and balances and possessing the cognitive ability of a building cornerstone. Their coverage of this campaign illustrates the depths to which they’ve descended and is why a federal shield law is an extremely bad idea.

Sep 30, 2008 - 9:24 am 22. Victor Erimita:

Some, including Glenn Reynolds, are saying the MSM is going all out for Obama because they realize their influence is tanking and this is their “last chance” to influence an election to this degree. I think that is wishful thinking. Obama is so clearly purely a media creation, and his ascension so clearly media-fueled, that it looks to me as if the media, in a media-oriented culture, are gaining power, not losing it.

Sure, their business models are crap and they are all losing money, but as others have said, the Disneys and NBCs and Viacoms (let alone the New York Times and WaPo, etc.) are all ignoring business in order to elevate their front man to the top. Have the media ever exercised this much power in an election before? They may be losing money, but their influence is still decisive.

I have said since February that the most interestin gthing about this election is to see whether the media will select our presidents from now on. They made what would have been a landslide a close election in 2004. But this time, after laying the groundwork narrative for 8 years, they are on the brink of having their candidate elected and their worldview accepted by a majority. Waning power? I don’t see it.

Sep 30, 2008 - 12:53 pm 23. Dr.T:

Here’s the scary part about the analogy with Pravda.
Russians/Soviets KNEW that they were being lied to (”There is no truth (pravda) in Pravda, and no news (izvestia) in Izvestia”, was the saying). And yet they still accepted what was written at some level, because they had no alternative sources of information.
Despite peoples’ expressed skepticism of the MSM, I believe that most still accept what is written as true at some level. They couldn’t be that far off, could they? Yes, they could.

Sep 30, 2008 - 2:42 pm 24. Hap Hazard:

I would guess the LA Times, if only because they have a history of trying to influence elections [e.g., anti-Schwarzenegger polling and "reporting" during the CA recall], so their editors’ observing of this phenomenon occurring today among their brethren in the MSM world has to make them happy. It could, of course, be any of a number of papers, including some in the McClatchy family…

Sep 30, 2008 - 3:01 pm 25. maninthemiddle:

Well – though it be a time of tight credit (I have heard), it would make PJM most interesting if they could delve into a sister organization that revitalized UPI.

I understand that AP and UPI might be going the way of the whale bone corset, but interjecting it with the new media might be an evolutionary move.

That being said – until we somehow regain a level of neutrality in the universities, we will see nothing but wave upon wave of newly indoctrinated sojourners of the left

- and the professorial class becomes ever more aggressive in their mission..

Sep 30, 2008 - 3:05 pm 26. John:

When the LA Times sends it’s favorite marxist columnist, Steve Lopez, to join the “Get Sarah” taskforce, I think we can guess just how desperate the MSM really is. I mean, aren’t there enough local politicians to slime, Steve?

Sep 30, 2008 - 10:42 pm 27. jackie:

It was obviously Tom Brokaw.

Sep 30, 2008 - 11:18 pm 28. ralph:

I worked at a bunch of the Big Media sheds over the years, including Time and BusinessWeek. Believe me, the bias — and the favors — are palpable.

At Time, favored sorts were allowed to vet, polish and rewrite their quotes. I know this because, having once called Kissinger for comment, the bureau chief went ballistic when I filed.

“I’ll have to call Henry back and apologise,” she seethed. evidently she did just that because the quotes, when they appeared, were sharper, more insightful and generally reflected better on the speaker than those I initially took down.

Being on a first-name basis with celebs, political or otherwise, is very important to these people. It makes them feel important, gives them an impressive name or two to drop at dinner parties, and it also cements the celebs’ monopoly on being the standard sources of the go-to quote.

Ever wondered why Jesse Jackson, a man of no discernible achievements, reigned for decades as the primary black spokesman? The above attitude should explain it.

At BusinessWeek, which was in the early stages of the decline that continues to accelerate, things were simply bizarre.

Here was a magazine purportedly for the investor class, but staffed by upper-middle-class lefties. At the weekly meetings, where we would sit about and toss up story ideas, the actual business never began until the obligatory half-hour of Bush bashing had concluded.

I heard every left fable you can imagine at those sessions — the coke-snorting, fascist chimpoid etc. If you bothered to mention that Bush has a better degree than Gore, the howls could be heard all the way up to Terry McGraw’s penthouse office. When Dan Rather’s draft-dodging smear exploded, it was accepted as an article of faith. Long after the superscript clue proved those documents to be forgeries, BW editors were still insisting that, you know, superscript typewriters were available back then. The sources were generally Kos etc.

No wonder I’m hearing from those still at BW that the mag is likely on the block next year. Given that it hasn’t put together two profitable quarters in a row for six years, it’ll be that or curtains.

This election is the MSM’s last roll of the dice. If they can’t push Chicago Slim over the top, they know that demographics, technology and reader disenchantment spell their doom.

Just you watch: If Big Ears makes it to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., the push will be on to give the US an “unbiased” national media/broadcaster, a la the BBC. Lots of jobs for the worshippers in that little gig.

Oh, and expect the return of the fairness doctrine, but on steroids. Blogs like this one can expect DOJ attention.

Maybe it’s my imagination that is on steroids. Sure hope it is — but after watching the Obamabots swarm over anything remotely critical, I shudder to think what they will do when the cudgels of government are firmly in their righteous little fists.

Oct 1, 2008 - 3:10 am 29. rbrandt:

Probably Washington Post/Newsweek or possibly LA Times

Oct 1, 2008 - 3:41 pm

Write a Comment

Name:	(required, displayed)
Email:	(required, not publicized)
URL:	(optional, displayed)
Comments: