The Truth About Bias and the News, Revised Edition
[Guest post by DRJ]
Via the Instapundit, can media hypocrisy get any better than this?
“MORE FROM JOURNOLIST: Obama wins! And Journolisters rejoice. They seem to be planning for “epistemic closure.”
***
And Eric Alterman adds his own incisive analysis: “Fucking Nascar retards…”Didn’t the “best and the brightest” used to be, I dunno, better and brighter?
UPDATE: Reader Elliott Davis emails: “The best part about Eric Alterman’s participation in Journolist is his authorship of What Liberal Media?: The Truth About Bias and the News.”
Heh. Indeed. You gotta love this. Thanks again, Ezra!”
And it’s only Day 2 of the Journolist story.
— DRJ
The only New Year’s resolution I’ve faithfully kept has been to stop reading Alterman five years ago.
gp (c70d65) — 7/21/2010 @ 6:59 pmericalterman
ColonelHaiku (11870b) — 7/21/2010 @ 7:06 pmlatte drinking light loafered
driver of Prius
They sure seem to love the allusion to violence, don’t they?
Patricia (358f54) — 7/21/2010 @ 7:17 pmI am so hoping someone comes up with a full list of names. And I am so hoping some of McClatchy’s best and finest classically trained professional journalists like Les Blumenthal are prominent members.
Huey (efe02b) — 7/21/2010 @ 7:20 pmI’m beginning to think that little Ezra’s legacy may not end up being the one he planned on. Because of his clever little list, he’s starting to look like a one man wrecking crew of the liberal media. Will he even be employable after all this journolist stuff plays out?
elissa (a8eab6) — 7/21/2010 @ 7:30 pmOf course Klein will be employable. It’s a fair bet that closing down the J-List was the condition of his continued employment. So then someone elese starts Cabalist.
Karl (12dcea) — 7/21/2010 @ 7:40 pmwith Altermann’s book does that mean that Amazon will now move it to the fiction section?
Peterk (9ded71) — 7/21/2010 @ 8:01 pmOf course Klein will be employable.
By Media Matters, at least.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (fb9e90) — 7/21/2010 @ 8:33 pmjuicebox mafia
now sleepin with fishes and
the luca brasi
http://foreignerinformosa.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/04/08/luca_brasi.jpg
ColonelHaiku (11870b) — 7/21/2010 @ 8:37 pmThey sure seem to love the allusion to violence, don’t they?
Comment by Patricia
I would like to see one of these pissy little nancy boys try to push my head through a window.
I’m 72 but they would need a few splints and bandages when I was through with them. God, I hate phonies !
MIke K (0ef8c3) — 7/21/2010 @ 8:41 pmKarl, you are usually right with your analysis, but I hope you are wrong this time. I do not think the 400 journolist participants (and their employers) are particularly enjoying all the attention they are getting via a slow drip exposing their cabal. No, they are not ashamed of their words or actions, but they are damn straight sorry for the scrutiny, sorry that because they got caught they will have to be so much more subtle now, and sorry that more than a few of them will need to end up issuing apologies to people they despise.
When they screw up people always look for someone else to blame. I think Ezra will end up being that person for many in the liberal media because he is really not all that beloved. Pick a reason–he is too young to be savvy about human nature, he chose journolist participants poorly, some are jealous of him, etc, etc,. Journolist was his precious baby and it ended up looking and acting like a monster. He cannot deny that.
elissa (a8eab6) — 7/21/2010 @ 8:42 pmelissa is probably right, especially about the lesser-known JournoList members, and those who work for “objective” news outlets.
The famous ones can always count on getting bailed out by Media Matters, The American Prospect, The Nation, or the other left-wing propaganda groups. The no-name slimeballs struggling for respectability will be thrown to the wolves. I’m absolutely heartbroken.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (fb9e90) — 7/21/2010 @ 8:57 pmThere are several things that bother me about this whole JournoList thing:
First, it existed.
I’ve read Klein’s excuse for it, but that really doesn’t explain why it existed or what it became.
I can a thought: Young firebrands wanting a forum to exchange ideas, abetted by aged academics wishing to replicate the glory of the late ’60s and early ’70s as if that time represented some sort apogee to aspire to, rather than the waste it was.
But beyond that, it’s the simple hubris of its members thinking their thought is so special, so right and so important that it must be forced upon a public they deem too ignorant to understand the righteousness of its way.
Ag80 (363d6e) — 7/21/2010 @ 9:06 pmI’m sorry, I should of said: I can express a thought. But, maybe I can’t.
Ag80 (363d6e) — 7/21/2010 @ 9:08 pmDo you know how you could tell — if you knew nothing else about him — that Spencer Ackerman is a turd? You could tell immediately by his referring to Eric Alterman as “Dr. Alterman.” What a dipstick.
JVW (a52530) — 7/21/2010 @ 9:16 pmOf course, there is no shortage of new J grads to replace them, and it’s not like what they do requires any special talent. Real journalism is tough work for gifted people, but partisan hackery isn’t. And that’s what I used to think explained the partisan bias: laziness.
J-list shows it was actually contempt for the notion of intellectual diversity.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/21/2010 @ 9:22 pmYou’re right, Mike K. They’re too wimpy to have a fair fight–they would hire some union thugs to do it.
Patricia (358f54) — 7/21/2010 @ 10:09 pmThese people of journolist have no shame…
http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/22/when-mccain-picked-palin-liberal-journalists-coordinated-the-best-line-of-attack/
GeneralMalaise (11870b) — 7/22/2010 @ 5:23 amLOL — wrong choice of “there/their”. This “professional worker in English” can’t even get basic grammatical choices right, but is UTTERLY CERTAIN they have it right on a wide range of topics like social welfare, AGW, economics and finance, and so forth, and that all those who oppose his equally incompetent collective are retards?
IgotBupkis, President, United Anarchist Society (79d71d) — 7/22/2010 @ 6:36 amAnybody unclear about what a “community organizer” does when he becomes PotUS?
…Anyone?
…Anyone?
…Bueller?
IgotBupkis, President, United Anarchist Society (79d71d) — 7/22/2010 @ 6:40 amA very, very few of us in the MSM who think independently were saying years ago that this bias would come back to bite us, but the great majority of our industry did not want to hear. I spoke up, but was basically told to go pound sand. So unless we had some other way to support our families, we sucked it up and kept doing the best work we could. I am embarrassed for my colleagues, who really THINK they’re doing their jobs well. But the worst thing is that so many readers now assume I’m one of the “liberal MSM.” Trust me, there are some of us who are making a living and trying to tell the truth within the existing framework until something else comes along. Meanwhile, I’ve been taking notes from the inside…
Journo (e0fd2a) — 7/22/2010 @ 6:49 ambetter stuff today on journolist. i am a little disappointed because i was hoping for them to start hammering them the way brietbart did to acorn way back then, getting inside their decision loop, etc.
Aaron Worthing (A.W.) (e7d72e) — 7/22/2010 @ 7:00 amJourno,
As one journo to another, speak up about this under your own name, if possible. I do, however, I recognize there are a lot of unenlightened editors out there who want to just pretend if you don’t mention the elephant in the living room, people won’t smell its dung.
If your stories have comments, engage the readers there and make it clear your goal is to report, not to propagate political agendas.
Good luck!
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (fb9e90) — 7/22/2010 @ 7:02 amI nominate Bradley Fikes as the new Editor of WaPo, since he’s fair – minded about all subjects under his purview, and will change his mind if the facts warrant.
(crickets chirping)
Dmac (d61c0d) — 7/22/2010 @ 7:39 amThanks, Dmac, but I wouldn’t take such a demotion 😉
I suggest WaPo make Ezra Klein editor.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C. O.R. (a18ddc) — 7/22/2010 @ 8:59 amWhy not just make him President?
JD (3399c0) — 7/22/2010 @ 9:12 amWhy not just make him President?
It wouldn’t make much of a difference, aside from that troublesome constitutional provision about the president having to be at least 35. But when has the Constitution stopped the Obamabots before?
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C. O.R. (a18ddc) — 7/22/2010 @ 9:25 amWe know what happens when a community organizer becomes POTUS–he disregards the rule of law, ruins the economy, and tries to dismantle what’s left of the country.
rochf (ae9c58) — 7/23/2010 @ 1:44 pm