We can't trust mainstream media to be a watchdog of the government for the people, so we have to do that for ourselves.
Dana Loesch, Mamalogues and host of The Dana Show

When I lived in the USSR, there was a government paper called Pravda, which meant Truth. It was the truth as the old Politburo guys saw it, and that’s what you got. The government’s involvement in media is never a good thing.

I hope this talk of bailing out any media doesn’t pan out. The media wrecked itself, and the people have turned to other sources of news. That’s called the free market, and if the masses aren’t interested in your product, why should taxpayers fund a losing venture? Government funding of media is the start of something bad. Government meddles in our lives enough as it is. Do the people *really* want the government getting its hands on any media?

Imagine newspapers having to turn in quarterly reports to the government. (When you get any kind of funding, you have to do a lot of reports to justify the funding, and add to the paper trail so the government can pretend to show the program works. The economic bailout not included..that sounds like they just get big boxes of money with no strings attached.)

If a newspaper or any other media cannot make it financially, there’s a reason. Readership, viewership, listenership. The numbers are down, there aren’t enough people interested in the product. If the government gives them some money, it’s not going to change the bottom line: the people have lost interest or lost faith. Is the government going to put a newspaper on everyone’s front porch and tell them they have to read it?

Even the Soviets didn’t do that.

Someone sent me an article yesterday, a study from a (the?) Canadian medical journal. I was quoted, which isn’t a big deal. Except they did what seems to be a trend lately: they (researchers and journlists) just lift something off my website and quote me.

The way it’s quoted always sounds like they spoke to me personally and got the quote. I don’t mind anyone pulling something I’ve said/typed off any of my websites, although not so good when it’s out of context. Fortunately, to my knowledge only one bad incident has happened. But then again, how do I know? I don’t subscribe to a clipping service.

It’s not the end of the world, but it’s a trend. It’s very lazy. How hard would it be to email me and then chat with me on the phone for ten minutes? Are they on deadline and in their procrastination didn’t have time to contact me for a quote? Or it’s just easier to pull something off a site? Probably some of both.

But it makes me wonder, how much quoted material in the media these days is legitimately sourced? I consider a legit quote to be a one-on-one conversation, or quoting someone giving a speech. Each instance where this has happened with my words, the author has made it sound as if I said it to them directly. Pulling one over on the editor?

I said one bad incident, but actually there are two.

There’s a dolt from some paper in Bumf**k, USA (one of these days I need to correctly write this up and correctly optimize the page for that “journalist’s” name…then let people arrive there when they google). He pulled a lazy and quoted me. Except that he didn’t quote me. He quoted a journal article that is on ect.org.

It was clearly “Some Journal Article” by Dr. So and So on such a date. Very obvious. Yet this guy was either so careless, or stupid, that he attributed this psychiatrist’s words to me. I would have never known, but thanks to this really freaky stalker guy, I found out.

I contacted both the newspaper editor and the author, and got a “gee whiz” from the paper, and no response from Dolt Boy. I really need to find that and publicize his name. I should mention that The Scarlet Letter is one of my favorite books.

The other bad incident wasn’t a quote from me. It was a statement of fact, in a textbook no less, that I’m a Scientologist. In fact, ect.org clearly states I’m not, on the very first page. How the authors missed that, I don’t know. And like these other lazy people, they never emailed me to ask. They just ASS u ME d.

What’s bad about this is that the authors are PROFESSORS. One is a history prof, used to teach at Greenville College in Greenville, Illinois. Now he’s somewhere else, but that’s a huge heehaw for me, because Greenville is close to where I grew up, and it really IS a bumf**k. OMG, who even knew there was a college there?

I get my laughs where I can.

The other author is a sociology professor in WOMEN’S STUDIES at KU, one of my alma maters.

That’s even worse, although what could be worse than a history professor who can’t get a basic fact right? Duh. Does he know the story of Abe Lincoln, or he just makes it up?

Anyway, I ranted about that book on Amazon and they left it up. I was surprised by that, because I was PISSED when I wrote it.

In fact, I need to scan and upload all the legal documentation over that book. I came very close to spending a buttload of money to sue those twits for libel. But libel is a hard one in the USA, and I let it go. I regret that. I should have ponied up and made a stink. They just ignored my lawyers’ letters. Blah.

GUILTY, yes they are. They libeled my ass. (And please, no sad letters from Scientologists asking why it’s a bad thing. I mean no offense. Your letters make me feel terrible and I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, except the feelings of those bad authors.)

There have been some other research studies that quote me, but those were good. One study actually quoted PRIVATE messages from my message board, things NOT written by me, but members. I wrote them a kind letter, because I approved of their work. But that squicks me and is not cool.

So media and medical researchers…how about you all get off your lazy butts and do some damn work? What’s wrong with you???

I web-hopped to see the headlines on Tom Daschle being named HHS Secretary, and what do I find? Another example of why Associated Press ought to be about done. Are their eds smoking crack? (Hint in case it doesn’t jump out at you like it did me: they repeated the same paragraph, which I bolded.)

WASHINGTON – Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has accepted President-elect Barack Obama’s offer to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Democratic officials said Wednesday.

The appointment has not been announced, but these officials said the job is Daschle’s barring an unforeseen problem as Obama’s team reviews the background of the South Dakota Democrat. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorize to discuss the matter publicly.

Daschle is a close adviser to Obama throughout the Illinois senator’s White House campaign. He recently wrote a book on his proposals to improve health care, and he is working with former Senate leaders on recommendations to improve the system.

He recently wrote a book on his proposals to improve health care, and he is working with former Senate leaders on recommendations to improve the system.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the selection has not been officially announced.

I’m glad to see Sarah Palin finally responding to the anonymous critics, allegedly from the McCain campaign, who have been criticizing her. They’ve (or she…former staffer Nicole Wallace is suspected of being the cowardly, anonymous source) said things, from Gov. Palin wearing a bathrobe after a shower (the horror!), to not knowing about Africa.

The mainstream media is so far gone, I don’t think reporters will even try to rehabilitate the profession. Even the most left-wing observer now admits it, even if the benefits of such bias are grand. Everyone knows the media is biased, and now it’s just a fact; it’s no longer the conspiracy over coffee cake.

Nearly every major newspaper and network has announced layoffs in the newsroom over the last year or two. New York Times stock has been reduced to junk status. Katie Couric has run CBS News completely into the ground.

And I’ve turned Dan Rather into a verb: “The journalist Dan Rathered the facts,” meaning the journalist went with dubious sources s/he knew were not legit, just to have the story that didn’t exist.

So ding dong, the media is almost dead, and it has only itself to blame.

But the latest Palin nonsense once again illustrates the ongoing double standard.

Gov. Palin responded to the gossip by saying she couldn’t defend herself against an anonymous source without knowing the whole story. All she could say is the nutty allegations weren’t true. Then she returned to trying to run the state of Alaska.

When John Edwards’ affair and probable love child began to shape into a real story, the mainstream media ignored it. They couldn’t use an anonymous source. In fact they buried that story until they were forced to mention it because the entire country was talking about it and they looked like complete idiots. PIctures of Edwards with the baby, with the mistress, and a police report detailing his freakout when he was caught redhanded in a hotel and barricaded himself in the bathroom were all over the place, and the MSM still claimed it couldn’t use a story that originated from….horrors, the National Enquirer.

Reminder that the Enquirer was a fine source when they reported that OJ Simpson had lied about owning a pair of shoes that implicated him in the murders, and they even posted the pictures - taken by Enquirer photographers, perhaps the same ones who took the Edwards photos - on the evening network news. And on front pages across America.

Another example of the media’s blatant double standard: making Sarah Palin’s alleged (which she denies) confusion about Africa the continent and South Africa the country into the front page story for days.

When Barack Obama made his lack of basic geography known by commenting about the states that border his home state of llinois, the media completely ignored it. A person had to go to blogs and YouTube to learn about it. And this wasn’t an anonymous source: it was Obama himself saying Arkansas borders Illinois and not knowing Kentucky does.

That’s his home state! But the MSM protected him and it’s likely most of the country doesn’t know he’s made a number of gaffes like that, even though they’re all over YouTube.

The Christian Science Monitor has closed down its presses and moved its operation to the web. In a few years, the New York Times, LA Times and other papers that are already sinking fast will shut their doors and blame outside forces. The Paul Krugmans of the media will be bitterly complaining as they stand in line to file for unemployment benefits. They’ll blame the Internet, a right-wing conspiracy, and probably George W. Bush (because he has his hands in everything according to them).

But they’ll never have the courage to look in the mirror and accept that they’ve done this to themselves. The ship started to sink, and instead of trying to clean up their acts and plug the credibility holes, they blamed everyone else for their failings.

Yes, the Internet played a large role in the downfall of the mainstream media. The American masses were no longer dependent on knowing what the media wanted them to know. They could go to the Internet and learn that there was a lot more news out there that should have been covered, but wasn’t, because the media didn’t want anyone knowing certain things.

The media wasn’t working for the government as Pravda and Izvestia did for the Soviet government, but it had an agenda all its own. If news didn’t fit in with that agenda, they found stories that did. And if the story didn’t go their way, they learned to Dan Rather the facts so it did.

Thanks to the Internet, the American masses began to learn exactly what the media has been up to all these years, and they began finding other sources of news.

Poor Katie Couric tried desperately to come up with new tricks: a weekly commentary from people like Al Gore and Rush Limbaugh; allowing viewers to vote for which feel-good story they would see the following Friday; an obvious booming Walter Cronkite announcing her name at the start of each night’s broadcast.

Even Walter Cronkite couldn’t bring the credibility Katie needed. She tried new hairdos, new suits, even wearing glasses in a last-ditch effort to look smart.

if she would have taken the time to read the Internet or talk to Americans, she might have learned the wardrobe changes didn’t matter. What mattered is that CBS and the other outlets have lost their credibility and they are has beens in American society.

It’s too late to save the American media. The only thing left to do is watch with pity as Katie and friends resort to nonsense to try and stay afloat. Or if you have a cruel streak, simply pass the popcorn and enjoy the show.

The media destroyed the little credibility it had left during this campaign cycle. Major newspapers continue to announce layoffs, and the Christian Science Monitor, once one of the finest papers in America, is going web only.

They certainly helped elect “The One” because he was their chosen lord. In the end, they didn’t even try to hide it. Katie Couric couldn’t contain her glee on election night, and I’m surprised she didn’t squeal.

I don’t think there’s a rescue for the mainstream media. They’ve shot their wad, and now they’re basically done. What’s left is a shell that will remain and plod along, but to find real news, people are going to have to find sources online, and then sort it all out on their own.

Most people won’t bother and will continue to be Dan Rathered with the news.

This is the real loser of the election, the state of journalism in America. More than that, the people lose.

It’s up to you to be your own news gatherer. News is now a personal American obligation, should you care, and not something you can count on.

The mainstream media is done. Goodbye and good luck.

There comes a time in life where you just burn out. I’m sure there are some who don’t, or they’re able to push through it. Journalist Michael S. Malone is hanging up his typewriter. He’s burned out.

That’s what I call it, and I’ve burned out many times. To me, it’s a point I reach where I feel I’m paddling upstream and going nowhere, that the work I do is futile, or worse, a waste of time.

Malone writes eloquently of his reasons for leaving the biz, and the bottom line is that he’s become disenchanted with journalism.

So, when I say I’m deeply ashamed right now to be called a “journalist,” you can imagine just how deep that cuts into my soul.

Now, of course, there’s always been bias in the media. Human beings are biased, so the work they do, including reporting, is inevitably colored. Hell, I can show you 10 different ways to color variations of the word “said” — muttered, shouted, announced, reluctantly replied, responded, etc. — to influence the way a reader will apprehend exactly the same quote. We all learn that in Reporting 101, or at least in the first few weeks working in a newsroom.

But what we are also supposed to learn during that same apprenticeship is to recognize the dangerous power of that technique, and many others, and develop built-in alarms against them.

But even more important, we are also supposed to be taught that even though there is no such thing as pure, Platonic objectivity in reporting, we are to spend our careers struggling to approach that ideal as closely as possible.

That means constantly challenging our own prejudices, systematically presenting opposing views and never, ever burying stories that contradict our own world views or challenge people or institutions we admire. If we can’t achieve Olympian detachment, than at least we can recognize human frailty — especially in ourselves.

I can genuinely feel the broken heart in Malone’s piece. I’ve felt it myself, and when you spend four years in college passionately learning the ropes, surrounded in an idealism that you’re going to change the world in a good way, it hurts to one day have it all smack you in the face. You realize a lot of it is pure bullshit.

I’ve always known the media is heavily biased to the left. But instead of a great conspiracy, I know it’s a result of one thing: the type of people who go into journalism. In my years at J School, I knew one token conservative, and we treated him like our pet. God bless him, he was gracious and put up with our taunts and continued to crank out good work. I was his editor at our campus daily paper.

How many super libs go into economics or business? I don’t know the answer, but I would guess righties outnumber lefties by a great margin. It’s the same thing in journalism; idealistic liberals who dream of the glory of Woodward and Bernstein see journalism as a noble occupation. Truth be told, it was also a lot of fun chasing that high of a good story. I often miss that high, and I don’t think all the cocaine in the world would come close.

It’s one thing when a (former) good journalist such as Dan Rather is sent to journalistic Siberia in a flame of shame. But it’s a sad day when a good journalist bids goodbye because journalism sucks and he’s grown weary of crap-covered fan letters.

What a loss.

This kind of bad journalism really ought to be prosecuted. It’s one thing to get facts wrong, or even to Dan Rather the facts. But allowing a deliberate hoax to get through - without verification - that interferes with financials? That’s so many kinds of wrong.

Of course maybe it’s not really any worse than how NBC and Tom Brokaw ruined poor Richard Jewel’s life. The money the media paid to Jewel doesn’t make up for what he went through. And he’s dead now, so it’s not like he can spend it.

So what happened at CNN? One of their “citizen journalists” posted that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had a heart attack, and Apple stock fell as much as 5.4 percent. (Warning: when I clicked to get to Bloomberg, it hijacked my page, sent me to a site saying I had spyware and needed to download its fix, plus resized my browser into fubar mode. Thanks, Bloomberg. You’re a tool, too.)

Sometimes it’s hard to write logically about the media because it’s become such a huge joke.

And if you want my opinion, the downfall revved up when CNN was born. Let’s thank Ted Turner.

I’ve heard that he’s a lousy tipper, too.

Lately I’ve heard a number of political pundits quote FactCheck.org, as if it were the authoritative answer. I’ve been troubled by that, because I learned years ago that everyone has a bias, and everyone has an agenda.

Everyone. Including me.

I heard Phil Hendrie quote the site the other night, and he seemed to believe if it appeared on FactCheck.org, it was absolute. He should know better than that, because he knows what a pile Wikipedia is. He’s talked about it often.

Now Michelle Malkin has seen it with her own eyes: FactCheck.org is just another media source that portrays itself as the end-all unbiased place to get the truth. Patterico has the entire detailed analysis here. I’m sorry their bubbles had to burst in such an unpleasant way, but it just emphasizes that there’s a person (or persons) behind every article, every blog report, every unbiased news story. And every person has an agenda and some sort of bias.

I suspect that a large segment of the population believes if something is in a scientific journal (ooooh, especially one that is peer reviewed - the holy grail), it’s absolute black and white truth.

Wrong.

Even something that is touted as absolute, science, is subject to interpretation, how data is manipulated and analyzed, even how a study is set up and organized. There are people behind the scenes, and once again, if there’s a person, there is bias.

I deal with electroshock research which is incredibly biased. But for those not into medical research issues, look at global warming science. It’s not black and white at all, and scientists on all sides of the issue can make their case. The individual just chooses which scientists to believe, based on his/her own biases.

Apply that to medical research, and it’s the same.

A friend who is a researcher and publishes in those medical journals has laughed with me a number of times over what bullshit it sometimes can be. (There *is* good quality research out there, but there is also bad, and it’s difficult for the average person or even a medical journalist to grasp the difference.)

All it takes is to get a sentence in print in one of the medical journals, and it becomes black and white, the absolute truth. It’s in a journal. The media can quote it, I can quote it, anyone can quote it, and it’s hard to question it. After all, it was in a medical journal.

So whether it’s FactCheck.org, Wikipedia, The New England Journal of Medicine, MediaMatters or any other purported “authoritative unbiased source,” you should always keep an eyebrow cocked, and keep your speedometer pointed to skeptical.

It’s a hard lesson to learn, and unfortunately it’s not taught in journalism school. The only thing that IS black and white is that everyone has a point of view. Usually, the more they screech they’re unbiased, the more likely they do.

I call that Juli’s Law of Bias: the louder they squawk there is none, the more bias there is behind the curtain.

Or in internet-speak, grammer.

Since I got online, back in the 90s, I’ve become aware of glaring problems regarding the state of American grammar. I had no idea, and I think it’s atrocious.

In an Associated Press story, the reporter confused it’s and its. There is no excuse for that, not from a person who makes a living as a writer.

All three were to address the convention on Monday, it’s opening day.

It’s is a contraction for it is. Possessive its has no apostrophe. I can handle this kind of thing in emails and instant messages, but not from an Associated Press reporter. Unacceptable. In my world (in which I no longer work), you would have been fired on the spot for that.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jQD-Ub1QQZgszKZ4ddpQBmVCevOQD92TCU700

That’s the URL, but I’ve taken screenshots in case it disappears. I’ve seen things like this before, but from small weekly papers often run by a family. They usually don’t have the budget to hire someone who graduated from journalism school, so I can live with it.

But the Associated Press? This is the state of American journalism today. It’s in the crapper, and that is the correct use of an apostrophe.

CBS News - and my personal rock star Dan Rather - lost all credibility with Rathergate. They’ve tried to rehabilitate by sending Rather to media Siberia and hiring Katie Couric. She’s cute, but she’s no Cronkite. CBS is a joke.

New York Times - they’re on deathwatch, along with the LA Times.

And the list goes on.

Associated Press has done some ridiculous things lately, involving staged photos in Palestinian territory. As far as I know, they’ve never owned up to it. In fact, no media outlet has owned up to its disasters since Janet Cooke lost her Pulitzer after writing a fake story for the Washington Post. Back in those days, the media cared. Editors were mortified.

Now it’s just business as usual and you simply cannot believe what you read in the paper or see on the news. Take it all with a grain of salt and know by the end of the day, the story may have completely changed. And you probably won’t see a correction. Apparently pretending nothing happened is modus operandi.

I’m bothered by the number of Americans who can’t grasp the basics of its/it’s, their/they’re/there, your/you’re and so on. But in journalism? I still admit to a former career in journalism, but I am chagrined to do so.

What happened to the field since I left it? Yes, it has always had a distinctly liberal bias because those that enter journalism are predominantly liberals. But journalists cared when there were scandals. There is no pride anymore. Of course there are no jobs, either, but that’s the media’s own fault.

The state of American journalism is an embarrassment.

Obama’s plane had to make an emergency landing in St. Louis today due to some kind of mechanical problem. I’m imagining a complete media frenzy in St. Louis, and I’m sure it’s about out of control.

It reminded me of a funny story from my past, something that always kind of summed up reporting for me.

I was covering Illinois state politics and I was based out of Southern Illinois (meaning I had to travel to Springfield a lot). Then-Governor Jim Thompson was at the small airport between Carbondale and Marion, the biggest airport in the immediate area. The bottom end of the state was courting a Finnish company that planned to manufacture planes made from a type of composite that had several advantages, and the governor was there to hold a press conference regarding the latest developments. Read more…