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BLOGGER NOT MAJOR NEWSPAPER
LA Times media writer James Rainey disses pro-military photoblogger Michael Yon:
Although the profusion of links gives an indication of Yon’s growing popularity, the blogger has yet to draw an audience as large as many traditional news outlets, which measure their traffic in millions. His blog has not hit the threshold of 360,000 distinct monthly users to be tracked by Nielsen/NetRatings.
He also doesn’t own a printing press, employ hundreds of journalists, or truck thousands of copies of the Times to newsstands every morning. He’s a blogger, for Christ’s sake. More from Rainey:
In the blogosphere, opinions fly with abandon. Unconventional characters thrive who would make the mainstream media blanch.
Take a look around your office, Rainey. You might notice some unconventional characters here and there. Try not to blanch!
What big newspaper or television network, after all, would have taken a chance on a self-taught war correspondent who once killed a man in a barroom fight ...
I’d hire him. Hell, I’d cut back security at the same time. It’s a win/win.
... and whose last venture had him pursuing an American cannibal around the globe?
Sounds like a good story. Being a media writer himself, you’d think Rainey would have more of an interest in cannibalism.
Would the mainstream media have kept him on the job after the day he grabbed a soldier’s rifle (during an alley fight in Mosul) and fired off several rounds at the enemy?
Well, probably not. But what can you expect from, ahem, conventional types?
(Via J.F. Beck)
Would the mainstream media have kept him on the job after the day he grabbed a soldier’s rifle (during an alley fight in Mosul) and fired off several rounds at the enemy?
Of course not. They’d prefer their reporter—and the soldier he’s with—be killed by the jihadis. Can’t imagine what that would do for sales!
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 02 09 at 11:44 AM • permalinkHe typed that while wearing a monocle and white gloves, didn’t he? “Oh I say, these bloggers are so… crude.” (Delicate shudder.)
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 02 09 at 11:52 AM • permalinkYeah, well today’s L.A. Times wouldn’t have kept Ernie Pyle or Dick Tragaskis on, either… which is a big reason why people aren’t keeping the L.A. Times on anymore…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 02 09 at 11:56 AM • permalinka self-taught war correspondent who once killed a man in a barroom fight
Shut up, you transparent piece of crap. ( Difficult imagery, I know; sorry. )
Would the mainstream media have kept him on the job after [he quite possibly saved the lives of some of our soldiers] ?
Of course not. For that, most liberals will never forgive him, I’m sure.
Posted by zeppenwolf on 2006 02 09 at 11:57 AM • permalinkOT, speaking of a perfect storm of idiocy (or idiots, in this case): Kanye West writes Mission Impossible III theme after being personally asked by Tom Cruise
Wouldn’t it be funny if Kanye West became a Scientologist?
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 02 09 at 12:26 PM • permalinkWould the mainstream media have kept him on the job after the day he grabbed a soldier’s rifle (during an alley fight in Mosul) and fired off several rounds at the enemy?
Of course not, because then the other side would question the LA Slimes precious “objectivity”.
In WWII, they’d have given the man a medal.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 02 09 at 12:35 PM • permalinkpro-military photoblogger Michael Yon:
One would guess that Michael Yon qualifies for the title, or description that fits for what is termed, a war correspondent.
That being a given then there are a few thoughout history…let’s see…
Herodotus’s account of the Persian Wars.
Thucydides, who some years later wrote a history of the Peloponnesian Wars was an observer to the events he described.
Matthew Brady, U.S. Civil War Photo-Journalist.
Winston Churchill, one of the greatest of humans to ever live.
Ernest Hemingway, wonder if Ernest ever amounted to anything?
Ernie Pyle, awarded the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished correspondence in 1944, killed the next by Japanese machine gun fire on Ie Shima.
Michael Yon, with these few, I’d say you are in damn good company. Tell girlie man James Rainey, to shit in his hat OR in lieu of having no hat, meet you at your favorite bar...:).
BTW,
Something tells me being in the same room with Yon would cause this snotty Rainey character to piss his designer pants.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 02 09 at 12:38 PM • permalink...blogger has yet to draw an audience as large as many traditional news outlets…
The LA Times does not reach as many readers as many Red Chinese publications; therefore the LA Times propaganda is inferior to run-of-the-mill Chinese Communist propaganda.
Posted by perfectsense on 2006 02 09 at 01:03 PM • permalinkRegardless of how many copies of the LA Times are sold everyday, let’s see a show of hands out there as to how many buy the thing primarily to read the cogitations of “media-writer” James Rainey. One . . . two . . . ok, thank you Mr. and Mrs. Rainey, you can put your hands down now. What about you, ma’am, do you have your hand up? Wha . . . geez, somebody help Wronwright with the zipper on that dress, please.
#12: BTW, El Cid, very good point, IMHO. Hearkens back to a saner age when a reporter didn’t forfeit his credibility just by being on his own country’s side.
What big newspaper or television network, after all, would have taken a chance on a self-taught war correspondent
I would say that handily beats the untaught war correspondents that most of the mainstream media grace their pages and television screens with. What’s better? A man who bothers to learn the subject he’s reporting on or someone covering a war who can’t tell the difference between a tank and an armored personnel carrier, or a missile and an artillery shell. Would you rather have someone in the field who understands military units and tactics, or someone at a hotel reading third hand reports who doesn’t have a clue as to their significance.
You’d think the choice would be an easy one but…
Poh sweetie,liddle Jamieboy, nerves upset by the bad promilitary photographer. Oh,not to worry, we’d nevah have one of those at the LA-LA Times, and ours would shoot at the bad soldier boy,(if they could get their little fingers on the gun), not the loving enemy driven by Georgie Bush to distraction. Turn over on your stomach honey, and I’ll give you a massage.
Sounds like a clear case of pencil envy.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 02 09 at 01:28 PM • permalinkABC’s Bob Woodruff is a self-taught war correspondent. He was a corporate lawyer who happened to be teaching law in Beijing when the Tiananmen Square protests began. CBS News hired him as a translator, launching his career in TV journalism.
Posted by Joanne Jacobs on 2006 02 09 at 01:39 PM • permalinkSo people who do go to Iraq can’t offer their opinions now, eh, James? So much for the chickenhawk theme. Your fellow leftards are going to be very upset with you.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 02 09 at 01:48 PM • permalinkBut what are the chances that a real reporter wouldn’t do one of the following (in that fight in Mosul), shoot himself in the foot or somewhere else, shoot an American in the foot or somewhere else, or finally, throw down the gun and surrender while waving his press ID?
Posted by Pat Patterson on 2006 02 09 at 02:14 PM • permalinkI’ve been reading Michael Yons posts for a long time now. They taught me how information gets, well, trashed I’d say, as it winds its way from the the originator to the hotels in Baghdad. I’ve seen numerous reports on TV about things that happened in Mosul that bear hardly any resemblence to the earlier story Yon would have posted. It made me question the media process completely. Yon explains this himself. He also explains military tactics - I was quite astonished to see how the US army would lure insurgents into traps…this is something that then got reported by the mainstream as ‘another attack’ by insurgents. Bizarre.
I think the guy from the LA Times needs a reality check sadly. I’ll never trust mainstream media again.Posted by headshaker on 2006 02 09 at 02:59 PM • permalinkSo people who do go to Iraq can’t offer their opinions now, eh, James? So much for the chickenhawk theme. Your fellow leftards are going to be very upset with you.
Naturally. If you’re pro-war and you don’t go fight, your opinions don’t count. But If you’re pro-war and you DO go fight, ...your opinions don’t count.
What do you have to do for your opinions to count? Be anti-war, obviously.
Posted by Brian Tiemann on 2006 02 09 at 03:03 PM • permalinkRainey asks: Would the mainstream media have kept him on the job after the day he grabbed a soldier’s rifle (during an alley fight in Mosul) and fired off several rounds at the enemy?
Yes, James, it would. The LA Times and any similar outlet would certainly keep a reporter there if for no other reason than to publish innumerable articles about how the heroic reporter had to pull the under-equipped, misled, disadvantaged (insert additional patronizing terms here) soldiers’ asses out of the fire.
Actually, based on Yon’s own reporting of the incident, he ran the risk that the military itself would have kicked him off the job.
When I came back into the TOC, Major Michael Lawrence ... looked me square and professionally, in the direct way of a military leader and asked, “Mike, did you pick up a weapon today?”
“I did.”
“Did you fire that weapon?”
“I did.”
“If you pick up another weapon, you are out of here the next day. Understood?”
“Understand.”
“We still have to discuss what happened today.”Rainey’s a moron.
Posted by Polish Frizzle on 2006 02 09 at 03:40 PM • permalinkthe blogger has yet to draw an audience as large as many traditional news outlets…
Not a valid comparison…I read the LATimes for the news about the Grammys…for war news, I go elsewhere…
The REAL comparison would be the number of hits to Yon’s site compared with the number of hits to a LATimes reporter story on the war in Iraq…
I think part of the problem is that I can’t imagine any LAT reporters getting into a bar fight.
Posted by Ernst Blofeld on 2006 02 09 at 08:28 PM • permalinkWould the mainstream media have kept him on the job after the day he grabbed a soldier’s rifle (during an alley fight in Mosul) and fired off several rounds at the enemy?
Well, probably not. But what can you expect from, ahem, conventional types?
Tim - I bet your late boss would have, he might even in his younger years have been standing next to Michael Yon also shooting back
Posted by the nailgun on 2006 02 09 at 08:52 PM • permalinkI’ve read the post where Michael Yon describes the firefight in which he picked up a rifle and fired off a few rounds. Two other soldiers were in imminent danger of death right in front of him when he did it. I speculate that if Mr. Rainey had been there, he would have been on his knees with his head dug into the dirt, squealing like a chimpanzee.
While reading all these comments I just wondered how many big news editors put themselves on the line to be shot down like bloggers do? Our little home grown newspaper in Greensboro, North Carolina, USA has a pretty gutsy bunch who print a newspaper and blog too. They get their stuffings knocked out regularly but just keep blogging their opinions and musing for us to take pot shots at.
Posted by BrendaFayBowers on 2006 02 09 at 10:31 PM • permalink#36—Yeah, but probably not in the kind of bar most folks frequent.
Here’s the bio from Knight-Ridder on their reporter Joe Galloway:
“Joseph L. Galloway, the co-author of the best-selling book, “We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young,” is our Military Affairs consultant. Joe started his career at the Victoria (Texas) Daily Advocate, then worked for UPI in Kansas City and Topeka (where he was statehouse bureau chief at 19) before he went overseas as bureau chief or regional manager in Tokyo (twice), Vietnam (three times), Jakarta, New Delhi, Singapore, Moscow and Los Angeles. Joe served three tours in Vietnam for UPI, beginning in early 1965, and he’s the only civilian to have been awarded the Bronze Star by the U.S. Army during that war. He was decorated for rescuing wounded American soldiers under heavy enemy fire during the battle at Landing Zone X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley on Nov. 15, 1965. At U.S. News, his cover story on the battle at LZ X-Ray, published in late 1990, was awarded the National Magazine Award.”
Measure yourself against him, Rainey, you chickenhawk journo.
Two points,
“Michael Yon may not be a household name, but he emerged last year as the reporter of choice for many conservatives and supporters of the war.” That statement categorizes him beyond anything else he could say.
Two, RebeccaH, Mr. Rainey would have been transcribing the minutia of their demise.
...opinions fly with abandon.
And this is bad… why?
And this is different from the real world… how?
Posted by nofixedabode on 2006 02 09 at 10:58 PM • permalinkBrian Tiemann said in #29 above
Naturally. If you’re pro-war and you don’t go fight, your opinions don’t count. But If you’re pro-war and you DO go fight, ...your opinions don’t count.
What do you have to do for your opinions to count? Be anti-war, obviously.
I don’t have anything to add to that, I just wanted to highlight it.
Posted by Chris Chittleborough on 2006 02 10 at 02:11 AM • permalinkIf you support the war but don’t go to Iraq, you’re a chickenhawk. If you support the war and go to Iraq, you’re a bloodthirsty killer.
If you’re a professional journalist and you never leave the Baghdad Hotel, your reports should be taken seriously. If you’re not a professional journalist and you go out in the field in Iraq, your reports should be dismissed.
When Bill Clinton said Saddam had WMD, it was because he got faulty intelligence. When George Bush said Saddam had WMD, it was because he’s a liar.
No big point here. Just sayin’.
There do seem to be some MSM people who understand blogs—here’s one at the BBC, of all places.
Posted by Evil Pundit on 2006 02 10 at 06:23 AM • permalink
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Sounds like somebody is unhappy that she can’t sit at the cheerleaders table.