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Saturday, Jul 4, 2009
AncientAssyrian
Published Letters: 769 Editor's Choice: 54
I'm not surprised that Salon thinks the New Yorker cartoon is oh so clever.
Because the cover is "concern trolling" and page whoring, New Yorker magazine style -- which means, dress it up as a "satirical cartoon" that will either amuse or inflame the pseudo-intellectual crowd, AND makes for a great media story in the dog days of July because it provides more "Obama isn't Muslim...as far as we know " fodder for the bottom feeding morons of America.
Does anyone actually believe that the New Yorker ran this cover to make a wry, ironic, counterculture point to the "in-the-know" urbane and witty crowd? HAH!
They knew exactly what they were doing.
Seriously. How often is the New Yorker magazine front page news -- in every blog, on every newscast?
And what do you want to bet this one flies off the newsstands, AND gets the attention of corporate advertisers (in a tough advertising market no less)?
Journalistic assignment: Why don't one of you intrepid Salon writers/bloggers/reporters find out if the New Yorker did a larger than usual print run of the magazine ahead of publication...as in, they knew exactly what they were doing. (They will of course go back to print to meet the excess demand from those who are not subscribers).
I'm not kidding.
Of course I think there were some folks at the New Yorker who obviously thought it was clever and witty.
But I don't believe that the New Yorker published this and were totally oblivious to the fact that it would generate quite a buzz.
I think they chose it as a cover, KNOWING it would generate a buzz, because they were trolling for sales and publicity. (And there, it is successful.)
And, to add insult to injury, it generates media, sales and controversy or the New Yorker, with the unfortunate side effect being that, the lerpa said, it also provides a "race-baiting, religion-baiting, culture-baiting drawing...all under the liberal-sanctified imprimatur of The New Yorker!"
I think Alternet had it right yesterday in their article "Why Are the New Yorker, Salon and Other Liberal Media Doing the Right's Dirty Work?"
Everyone who has been so insistent that the New Yorker only reaches a minute subset of snobby New York intellectuals, and therefore, the cover's ersatz satire/parody was right on target to reach its ultra-limited highbrow audience can NOT now turn around and insist that, with only 40 press seats available, the reporter from this same select, elitist magazine has rights to a seat on the press plane.
Did he have a seat, and they took it away? No. So what is the big deal.
You think McCain is offering seats to Kos, Arianna and Keith Olbermann?
Anyway, New Yorker's circulation puts it near the BOTTOM of the top 100 magazines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magazine_circulation
and with newspapers, major networks, cable networks, some wire folks, and news magazines dedicated to news/politics, frankly, New Yorker would be far down on the list of any person with half a brain who is trying to intelligently assign 40 seats.
And let's face reality.
Some of the press who get a seat on the plane are a given. The New York Times reporter assigned to the Obama campaign is going, as is the AP person, and so on.
But if with only 40 seats to work with, and you're the Obama person in charge of seats on the press plane, and you actually have some wiggle room on a few seats, are you going to pick someone from, for example, Vanity Fair magazine, or the Huffington Post website, both of whom have been favorable to Obama, or are you going to pick Salon's Joan Walsh or Ryan Lizza from the New Yorker, who have not?
Give 'em some credit for not being idiots.
Excuse me, but in all the effort to gin up drama, and create fakey frictions and intrigues, how about someone in War Room using some basic common sense.
If you weren't sitting around like a bunch of sheep, being fed a total non-story that the media are very deliberately turning into a fakey, made-up "story" so that they can have something to talk about, how would you answer this question:
If George Bush has space on his plane accompanying him on his latest trip to Iscrewedupistan, and the plane has 40 seats for press, and 200 members of the press apply for seats, and only 40 people get to sit in those 40 seats, and Alexander Coburn, Kos, and Arianna Huffington don't get any of those 40 seats, but the NY Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, NBC, ABC, AP UPI, The LA Times, US News, Reuters, etc. DO get the seats.
Is that Bushist/Totalitarian/Third Reich, or is it common sense?
Now, suppose they fill 35 of the 40 seats with all the regulars, and have 5 to "play with." Will they put in Coburn, Kos, and Arianna? Or are they going to throw in a few more folks from Fox?
It's common sense.
Now, when Bush kicks off the New York Times out of a standard spot because he doesn't like what they're saying, that's "Bushist."
But this is NOT that situation.
The New Yorker, by nature of its focus (arts, literature, world events, business, politics, etc.) does not warrant a guaranteed spot of 40 media seats for political coverage.
But please, go ahead. Be sheep led around by the nose by these reporters, pundits and bloggers, who have nothing actually useful to say, but want to generate page views, so they are going to gin up controversy to get you to click.
The Wasilla soap opera just gets weirder as Palin complains critics are "picking apart a good point guard"
The media outlet's use of Bush euphemisms sparks a much-needed debate on journalistic standards.
And so are his Fox News pals, who lambasted Sen. Al Franken's "stolen election"
An inflexible right wing is allowing the Golden State to drown in debt. But it's not alone
Thanks for sharing, Governor. Now please take a cue from Norm Coleman, and go away
Salon headlines in your mailbox
