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Last updated on March 5th, 2018 at 01:40 pm
“The ‘populist’ blogosphere is cowing the mainstream media even further into submission to the powers that be,” writes unpopular Ted Rall. The Ombudsgod sets him straight:
You can’t be cowed about something unless A.) you are wrong and you know it, or B.) you’re a complete pansy.
Sounds about right. Here’s Chris Muir’s view. And here’s David Shaw in the LA Times a few days ago:
Bloggers appear to have achieved almost mythical power these days … Unfortunately, when these bloggers rise up in arms, grown men weep — and news executives cave in.
Pansies! As for “mythical power”, that’s a fairly accurate call … if you’re talking about the LA Times.
- The party’s over for the lazy, smug, journalists who infest the Australian and US media (and that of many other countries). The days when you actually had to have some knowledge of what you’re talking or writing about might very well be on their way back.Posted by murph on 2005 02 24 at 12:16 AM • permalink
- There’s almost a grain of truth in Shaw’s piece. You have to realize what absolute cowards most “decision makers” in the media are, and always have been.
Most people don’t realize that the Hollywood blacklist, for the most part, was not inflicted on Hollywood by the evil McCarthyites in the government. but on Hollywood by itself. Long after the Hollywood Ten hearings, a couple of John Birch-ish supermarket chain owners in Schenectady NY, or all places, published a newsletter circulating unresearched and largely unfounded claims about Communist involvement on the part of a wide range of showbiz figures. To be named was career death. The networks and the studios that fed them would not touch a performer or writer after that. This went far beyond anything McCarthy ever did… and it was self-inflicted.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 02 24 at 12:59 AM • permalink
- I heard a rumour that Ted Rall cartoons are actually subcontracted out to chimps in third world death camps.
It has to be a myth. Surely not chimp is that untalented?
Posted by Quentin George on 2005 02 24 at 01:29 AM • permalink
- “Mythical powers”, huh? Does that make bloggers the equivalent of Gandolph The White or Sauron? With us Hobbits stuck in the middle, of course.Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 02 24 at 01:47 AM • permalink
- You have to be prepared (as a journo) to look out for yourself in a war situation. It is dodgy enough when it is a conventional war, and you have some idea where the lines are. In a police action versus terrorism on a large scale, who knows?
In a fast-moving armoured and air-supported push through and behind enemy lines, who is keeping tabs on journalists who are not embedded?
It has become the standard line of leftist jabberfest pundits to try and shift the blame for everything, just as it is now standard operational bullshit for every suspected or actual terrorist to cry “torture made me confess”.
The exploitation of our society’s tendency towards decency and a fair go is as inexcusable in our supposedly citizen journos as it is in The Enemy. Lets hope we have no trouble telling them apart when we get a good look at them.
As for the blogs being powerful – well they say the pen is mightier than the sword. But I feel a lot more confident with some kick-ass sword wielders running more than just interference while I write. A loyal and clear sighted military is essential to our freedom.
You might discern that my jocular poetic spell of earlier today has just petered out on reading this latest stuff. But it has been a nice day.
- More to the point, to be “cowed” means to submit to force or the threat of force. Blogs asking tough questions, asking for truth, objectivity, accountability, is hardly a threat of force. What is sinking the msm is simply that they can no longer get away with slanted reporting, (barely) disguised editorialism, and outright lies. The jig is up….
- Just to add a little – one of the reasons the blogs grow in power is that we have to read Tim and others like LGF to find out about things:
BAGHDAD, Iraq Feb 23, 2005 —Iraqi state television aired a video Wednesday showing what the U.S.-funded channel said was the confession of a captured Syrian officer who said he trained Iraqi insurgents to behead people and build car bombs to attack American and Iraqi troops.
The video also showed an Iraqi who said the insurgents practiced beheading animals to train for decapitating hostages.
In the video, the man, identified as Lt. Anas Ahmed al-Essa of the Syrian intelligence service, said his group had been recruited to “cause chaos in Iraq … to bar America from reaching Syria.”
“We received all the instructions from Syrian intelligence,” al-Essa, 30, said on a video broadcast by state-run Iraqiya TV, which can be seen nationwide.
Now the accuracy of this is yet to be tested, but it is certainly not something which fits the trend of msm storylines, where we find lots of untested, or worse, false claims about casualty numbers, likelihood of civil war, likelihood of poor turnout for election, etc.
- “Mythical powers?”
What, like the ability to give oneself an orgasm while logged on to a porn site?
Sheesh. These things are called “words,” not telekinesis.
Though, really, I’d rather have telekinesis…
Posted by William Young on 2005 02 24 at 09:15 AM • permalink
- Some interesting quotes from Ted’s article:
“Death threats against liberal pundits are commonplace among, and essentially unique to, the right-wing blogs. And the GOP thinks that’s OK. Nowhere can one find a responsible mainstream Republican to speak out against this hate speech.”
Death threats are commonplace? Where? I wish he’d provide the sites he is aware of where this is true. I confess that I’ve not seen these threats he claims are commonplace.
Interesting dig at the GOP. He makes it appear as if the right wing bloggers are controlled by the GOP.
“Borg-like, the various right-wing blogs simultaneously discuss the same stories, applying identical rhetoric. They create blacklists and urge their readers and fellow bloggers to threaten and harass their targets.”
He has a real persecution complex.
Here’s his closing paragraph. LOVE the final dig he takes at bloggers (uneducated with nothing interesting to say):
“Bloggers are ordinary people, many of them uneducated and with nothing interesting to say. They’re sitting in their rec rooms, regurgitating and spinning what real journalists have dug up through hard work. They don’t have sources, they don’t report, and no one holds them accountable when they make mistakes or flat out lie. Yeah, there’s a new sheriff in town. Unfortunately he’s drunk, he’s mean, and he works for the bad guys.”
If I were a journalist, I’d be ashamed to have such an unsubstantiated, rhetoric filled screed published for everyone to see.
Posted by CJosephson on 2005 02 24 at 09:37 AM • permalink
- I do not sound like Ted Rall.
He has a lisp.
Posted by Dennis The Peasant on 2005 02 24 at 12:44 PM • permalink
- “I heard a rumour that Ted Rall cartoons are actually subcontracted out to chimps in third world death camps.”
Hey! What have you got against dying chimps?
“Death threats are commonplace? Where?”
Well, for example, the North Pole…
Posted by Jim Treacher on 2005 02 24 at 01:44 PM • permalink
- “Bloggers appear to have achieved almost mythical power these days … Unfortunately, when these bloggers rise up in arms, grown men weep — and news executives cave in.”
What a bunch of crybabies! Could they really believe that Rather and Eason were forced out for spurious reasons with no substance?
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2005 02 24 at 06:12 PM • permalink
- “We are the Blog. You will be assimilated.”
What a pile of twaddle. No individual blogger is a monolith; how much more the whole blogosphere? Just on my site you get stuff about sports, pop culture, politics, religion, and the occasional parody. (Actually a lot of that winds up in here, to be honest.)
But does any of that make me, say, Bill Simmons, or Jonah Goldberg, or Dawn Eden, or Scrappleface?
Maybe it does. (Maybe it should.) Mr. Rove, a little help here?
Sincerely,
Three of Eight
- Rall talks cows.
He just can’t draw them.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 02 24 at 09:57 PM • permalink
- Teddy Rall is a sad, bitter little man with the artistic ability of a 2nd grade student. He is angy and bitter because he is seeing his livelyhood (the MSM) fading away rapidly (…)
On the plus side, on the pictures I’ve seen of him, he seemed to be pretty good-looking. I hear Jeff Gannon’s former second job is available.
- Please. No more posts on Ted Rall. Please! This blog is entirely too good to feature any posts on him on his unartistic, heartless soul.Posted by marknicodemo on 2005 02 25 at 02:30 PM • permalink
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