All The News That’s Fit To Blog
June 23, 2007 at 4:39 pm
Defenders of print media against the onslaught of blogs frequently make this point: There would be no political or opinion-based blogs were it not for newspapers. Blogs would have nothing to write about if they couldn’t get news or targets from newspapers.
Today’s Washington Post shows that the opposite might actually be true.
Check out these stories in Saturday’s Post:
- Editorial headline: “You’re Outta Here! The NCAA expels a blogger from a baseball game”
- Sports headline: “Getting Blogged Down in the Details”
- Style story on Angelina Jolie in the new Daniel Pearl movie: “In the blogosphere, photos and video clips of Jolie as Pearl serve as a sort of racial Rorschach test”
Little doubt left where reporters are getting stories ideas and story content.
Vivian J. Paige said,
June 23, 2007 @ 7:51 pm
I’m glad I’m not the only one noticing that the MSM is getting their stuff from us. Amazing, isn’t it?
richarda said,
June 24, 2007 @ 6:00 pm
(Just back from the second gun show of the weekend; no more locally ’til mid-July, now.)
Journalistic sloth strikes again! Shades of reporters passing off press releases as their own work.
‘Course, that’s why they’re written in the third person in the first place!
David Brock said,
June 25, 2007 @ 1:01 pm
Dear Friend:
I’m sure you’ve already heard that PBS will be hosting the next Democratic presidential forum on Thursday, June 28, at Howard University in Washington, D.C. What you may not know is that PBS has invited Frank Luntz, a longtime Republican pollster and strategist, to provide “immediate public feedback on the performances of the candidates” during post-forum coverage on the Tavis Smiley program.
Of course, when Luntz’s appearance was announced, the press release made no mention of his Republican ties or long history of being criticized for his work.
If you don’t know much about Frank Luntz, here are some important facts about this discredited Republican pollster:
* In 1997, the American Association for Public Opinion Research formally reprimanded Luntz for refusing to release documentation in support of comments he made to the media regarding his polling work on the Republican Party’s 1994 “Contract with America” campaign platform, according to a Salon.com article.
* Washington Post polling director Richard Morin reported that the National Council on Public Polls censured Luntz “for allegedly mischaracterizing on MSNBC the results of focus groups he conducted during the [2000] Republican Convention.”
* At least a dozen squirrels are killed each year just to make his hairpiece.
* In September 2004, MSNBC dropped Luntz from its planned coverage of that year’s presidential debate coverage, following a letter from Media Matters that outlined Luntz’s GOP ties and questionable polling methodology.
According to a January 29, 2007, article on The New Republic’s website, Luntz “not only helped write Republican House member Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America; he was also responsible for its presentation to the public.” He also “advised Republicans trying to impeach Bill Clinton.”
Luntz’s 2002 memo “The Environment: A Cleaner, Safer, Healthier America” coached Republicans on new ways to talk about global warming and warned the party that the environment “is probably the single issue on which Republicans in general — and President Bush in particular — are most vulnerable.”
A June 2004 memo by Luntz, “Communicating The Principles Of Prevention & Protection In The War On Terror,” urged Republicans to use concepts such as “It is better to fight the War on Terror on the streets of Baghdad than on the streets of New York or Washington” and “9/11 changed everything,” which have been staples of Republican rhetoric ever since.
With his well-documented Republican ties and history of being criticized and reprimanded by his peers, it’s clear that Frank Luntz cannot be trusted to provide objective analysis of Thursday’s forum.
richarda said,
June 25, 2007 @ 2:39 pm
And neither can the other usual suspects/talking heads regularly called on by the Evil Media to provide so-called “objective analysis”.
Techno Crat said,
June 26, 2007 @ 10:03 am
Politics and Business
Want a smart (or silly or annoying, depending on your point of view) take on politics and/or business? Then you were born to read blogs.
PolicyBeta: The Center for Democracy and Technology has been monitoring public policy on tech issues for quite some time, which alone makes its blog a worthwhile read.
Instapundit.com: Instapundit is one of the most thoughtful conservative blogs, with short items that always seem to capture the day’s zeitgeist.
Bloggingheads.tv: Often surprisingly funny, this videoblog lets a rotating group of political commentators (including founder Robert Wright and Kausfiles’ Mickey Kaus) face off on issues of the day.
Danger Room: Don’t read this one before bed: It’s a look at war, weapons, and tactics that has the potential to scare you silly.
Political Punch: ABC News reporter Jake Tapper provides a behind-the-scenes look at the day’s Washington news, illustrated with witty pen-and-ink drawings by some guy named Jake.
Iraq the Model: Four words: Iraq reporting by Iraqis.
Wonkette: Original Wonkette Ana Marie Cox decamped forTimemagazine last year, so most of the current contributors to this blog are wonks (males) rather than wonkettes, but they’ve continued the tradition of nasty, funny Washington watching.
AtlanticBlog: Consistently astute political commentary by William Sjostrum, a self-described American economist living and working in Ireland.
Kausfiles: Whether Mickey Kaus was the first blogger, as he’s been called, is up for debate; that he’s still one of the most entertainingly contrarian observers of the political scene is beyond question.
Seth Godin:All Marketers Are Liarsauthor Godin’s thinking on marketing and business in general is often counterintuitive–and sometimes inspiring.
Lessig Blog: Anyone concerned about creative freedom in the Internet age should be reading Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig’s blog.
James Fallows: It’s great to see supersavvy journalist Fallows embrace blogging from his current home in China.
Daily Kos: Lots of left-wing blogs exist on the Net, but none has quite the influence of the Daily Kos.
The Huffington Post: Arianna Huffington, former Republican and former wife of California Senate candidate Michael Huffington, has created the New York Yankees of blogs, with a stable of hundreds of occasional contributors, from actor Ben Affleck toRolling Stonefounder Jann Wenner.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/25/AR2007062500253_pf.html