One of the largest contributors to a diminished media is the political strategy which was employed by the right to divert any criticism against them, call it liberal bias, and proceed with shoddy governing.

Unfortunately, because of our larger societies, it's inevitable for individuals to feel as if they are not being heard or represented. It's easy for us to feel as if something is wrong and perhaps the powers that be are not quite doing the right thing by us. The clever spinners on the right, who emerged to save the party understood that and went to town. They blamed the media knowing that people would go Yeahhhhh! When they first started with the accusations, they sounded like kooks, but understanding THE MEDIA themselves, they knew that if they say it enough that people would actually believe it.

Compounded by the fact that there was Reagan looking like grandpa and sounding traditional and loving American values (whatever that is), the media was deemed as the clever smarmy eastern Ivy League liberal devil against grandpa, the flag, capitalism and The Gipper.

It was clever. What Newt, the then architect, didn't realize was that we would get dumber in the process. No one would ask the hard questions any more. They would be afraid to be labeled as being bias. The focus would later be on Monica Lewinski (how insulting to this great nation) and a decade later Lindsey Lohan. Smarter less attractive people wouldn't make the cut... I mean think about it, would someone who looks like Ted Coppell or Cronkite make the cut today?

Oh my goodness, then Fox happened. Fox happened to the people that bought the PR campaign the most. Those that tuned into Rush before they actually understood the world and political tactics. Those who thought that they had found the truth, not knowing that it was garbage that was designed specifically for the ill informed. Rush was empowering. People felt as if they were in the know. Part of a unique club of insiders. Had those people been educated about how the world, and politics really oporates they would have known from the start that Rush was vaudeville and certainly nothing to be taken seriously. They BELIEVED and they were part of the gang. They are now a real force. They don't know that they were created.

The rest of the media is still teatering trying not to offend this bunch, not asking real questions, scared of "the lable".

What also happened however is that the Republicans dummied down. The candidated that apealed to this group were also less intellectual. They believed the boogy man around every corner scenerio and focused on conspiracies and stamping out liberalism as apossed to focusing on governing and uplifting this nation to its greatest potential. Hence we end up with this debocle... Our status is drastically weakend internationally, everyone thinks we are a bunch of idiots and WE voted for a moron to lead us TWICE.

Newt admited a few months back that he didn't know that things would get this much out of control. He said if he could do it all over again, he would do it differently.

Boy talk about a lie comming back to haunt you.

In the news outlets that I ascribe to, it is admitted that the blogs are doing what the media is not doing. It is acknowledged that there is a lot of garbage off course on the web but that the blogs are atleast encouraging discourse about issues that the people are concerned about. They are introducing ideas that other bloggers would not consider because of the dummied down media.

I get ill watching the morning shows, especially the cable outless. They (the reporters) are all so smarmy and very personal about everything. The shows are actually about them and what they like or don't like.... who cares... who are they??? Are we supposed to know them?? .... are we supposed to value their opions? And why????

Bambineck: "It's particularly ironic for the journalistic community to berate blogs for poor writing."

What's ironic is that you reinforce their point by the typos, badly placed and/or missing commas, and crappy sentences you have in your "article".

BTW: "Bloggers" are simply marginalized digital graffiti artists on some back alley way off the information highway.

You doth protest too much.

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"Ninety percent of everything is crud." --Sturgen's Revelation

"Sturgeon"

typo. heh.

I heard today that even Fox cable, a big fan of berating the Elite Liberal MSM, is suffering from the general reaction against the press. Why, even O'Reillys numbers are down!

I think that the hays that has lumed over this country for the past 20yrs is finally lifting. After this last election, people are waking up. Fox certainly will not survive. People want substance. People were beaten up economically for a couple of years, experienced lay offs while CEOs were making record salaries, they are just getting on their feet and they have to energy for B.S. and partisanism.

Disallusioned by Rush (because he turned out to be a hypocrit....lets all face it), O'Reilly (a perv), Congress, the President, Religious leaders, they are just tired of the spin and the angle. They want just the facts maam!

Listen, looking at the debocle of our leadership, I think that people are just now realizing that they are just as smart as anyone else, that they will decide if there seems to be a conspiracy or if there is only ONE point of view and if there is, they will decide what it is. I mean after watching Bush just once, you cant help but conclude that this is all crap, the world system of the powerful and the masses is just crap. Its based on nothing other than who can BS their way up the best or the fastest. When Clinton was in office, people thought being politically savy was being evil, but once they saw the real monipulators in action (Rove and gang) whom they believed to be truly earnest and holy, they just thru their hands up in the air.

Folks I know that I am supposed to edit. I didn't...sorry. Try to make sense of the last post.

Shark. The article he's responding to isn't exqctly literary genius. It's overwritten, pompous and chock full of weak grammatical constructions and mqrginal errors.

Blogging and journalism are both just writing news and opinion. Some do it well and some don't and the medium they work in doesn't make that much difference.

Lumpy: "Blogging and journalism are both just writing news and opinion. Some do it well and some don't and the medium they work in doesn't make that much difference."


Lumpy, mark yer calendar; I agree with you.

Except that I would add the overall disclaimer that (as I've stated many times before -- and soon to be known as "Shark's Law"):

"ALL NEWS IS MARKETING -- AND ALL MARKETING IS NEWS."

After that, there is nothing left to say.

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PS: Bambi is still a terrible writer/thinker.

Oh, SHARK, you naughty finster.

I heard an interesting thing on "On The Media" this weekend.

It seems that the civil rights movement was fully engaged for quite some time with the beatings and attack dogs that we are all familiar with, but it wasn't until the Northern media started covering those events that the nation got outraged and a call to end the injustice swept the nation....

What is even more interesting is that the Southern media outlets decided to counter the reports of the Northern media. Whenever an event would occur that got national attention, the Southerners would report on an obscure crime in the north, saying what is the difference between one crime or another.

I suppose they played the FOX "NEWS" Network's roll.

If the media is impotent, society suffers. Politicians run amuck, businesses become reckless... We have experienced all of the above in the past few years, yet the focus has been that the media is bias against Republicans and their values and they must be stopped. Perhaps reckless leadership and rogue business practices are Republican values???