Letters to the Editor
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Please lay off m.b.f.
When he owned up to being a satirist at Glenn's old place he offered to stop if it annoyed people, and many told him to keep on keepin' on. Including me.
If the consensus has changed, at least be nice about it. He said it helped him vent his frustration, and he's so good at it it seems to me he should be allowed to continue without being kicked in the rhetorical ass.But again, if others now think not, then it could be said politely.
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Another component
tiptap,
Following on your post, there is, I think, another component, and that is the "news" (and I use that term loosely) consuming public. I tend to believe there is a financial accountability aspect tied to corporate direction in some media outlets, as you suggest.
I just wish that the populace at large would vote with their dollars more (and many are, to be sure, as print media sales decline). If there were less money in sensationalist celebrity gossip (for example), and more money in the cold, hard truth, there might be more "honest" journalism as publishers called for exactly that which fuels the bottom line to be disseminated.
Someone back on the old site mentioned there was a time in which competing newspapers were more "honest" (relatively) because there were more options, more competition, and so papers had to demonstrate a certain credibility in order to "win" an audience and thus make money.
It may be that modern publishing/media conglomerates have helped subdue the call for more honest reporting. I don't know enough about these matters to comment with any depth, but I do think that there is a buyer's component in all this.
It's like lousy movies, like a lot of remakes lately, or movies based on video games (and I say this as someone who likes video games). They hit the theaters, and then people say, "Wow, that movie was terrible. Why do they make these movies?"
They make the movies because people keep showing up and paying to see them. If the box-office didn't bank quite as much, those movies wouldn't appear so much (there will always be lousy movies, for example, and questionable journalism; I don't expect financial "voting" to eliminate that sort of thing, but I wouldn't be surprised if it helped curb it somewhat, or at least force another change in the landscape).
I'd be interested to hear other thoughts on the topic.
No kings,
Robert
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Actually, I think mbf brings us back to the original point
of calling out certain journalists for patting themselves on the back for being glorified stenographers. I think all mbf is doing is aping the ideas of neocons and clueless authoritarians to the point that they are completely indistinguishable. I think "good" satire requires being a bit more creative than word for word recreations of neocon talking points. Even Glenn made the point just the other day that current neocon pundits have made the job of current day satirists nearly impossible. If mbf gets off on doing what he calls "satire," fine, but I really don't see the point. There are plenty of other ways to get off by yourself if all you need to do is vent.
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NewsWEAK
Some fun facts about Newsweak for you: According to Pew Research Center, Newsweak's credibility is dropping further and faster than that of its direct competitors. In 1985, about one-quarter of those surveyed said that can believe "all or most" of what Newsweak reports. By 2004, only 14% believed all or most of what Newsweak peddled!
I don't know if the research has been done, but I bet the supermarket tabloids (Enquirer, etc.) have higher credibility scores than the "news" weeklies. I certainly would buy stories about space aliens long before I'd believe stories from unnamed administration officials.
You'd think someone would get a clue.
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on m.b.f.
So that's what it stands for!
At first I found m.b.f.'s penchant for sometimes posting as an ubertroll and others as an informed and informative commenter to be distracting, but I've come to appreciate his/her posts more and more over time. The signature has an impact on how I take the comment, and I find I often stop and think about m.b.f's posts more because they come from someone who is clearly deeply immersed in what all to often substitutes for thought over at Redstate etc.
While some of the posts are almost irresistable bait to casual readers of the blog, I find what m.b.f. posts to be informative whether they involve straightforward and sincere commentary or they are so sarcastic as to be more roleplaying than parody. I find m.b.f.'s troll posts are not really satire, as much as they are exposition. They're disquieting and I think that's because they hit on something true and very disturbing.
My two cents.
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Let's not forget...
Richard Wolffe's fawning "coverage" of Shrub is nauseating, but let's not forget he's not the only one on this beat doing a "fantastic job." Over at The New York Times, the ever-reliable Sheryl Gay Stolberg, woozy from the Kool Aid and with her editor snoring the afternoon away, manages to pound out a 1,400 word Fan Club Article about Shrub's friends from Texas who form his inner "loyal" circle (so much for Shrub not liking "yes" men). Hiliariously, none of them can seem to understand why large numbers of Americans refer to him as a "liar," and whine appropriately. Stolberg, sticking to her script, provides tea and sympathy with lines such as this:
"To hear these people talk about the president is to meet a man many Americans have either forgotten or no longer recognize."
Later, she gives put-upon Asst. Secretary of Commerce Isreal Hernandez a chance to clear his good name:
“I hate that,” Mr. Hernandez said. “He doesn’t call me Altoids Boy. He calls me Izzy.”
The overall thrust of the "story" (which, unsurprisingly, was given a teaser on Page 1) is the concensus that the "real" George Bush is actually a swell guy; a wide-eyed, well-meaning innocent who's always getting picked on by those awful bloggers and that damned lib'rul media. In short, Washington "journalism" at its finest.