dagblog - Comments for "Frank Rich | Inky Tears "

I should have added -- I

EmmaZahn — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 18:23:04 +0000

In reply to Maybe it is the difference in

I should have added -- I sense a business opportunity here for liberal/progressive bloggers to form their own syndicate to market some of their product to locals across the country since they are apparently being shut out of the traditional syndication streams.

Maybe it is the difference in

EmmaZahn — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 18:18:17 +0000

In reply to Interesting article. What

Maybe it is the difference in our geographies but feature and opinion writers here have always tended to stand out perhaps because so much of our local content is syndicated.

Which made me wonder: why do not the popular bloggers you mention show up in any of the syndication services I just checked? None at Creators, no Silver at NY Times, no Ezra at Wapo, Yglesias neither despite Slate being among Wapo syndication offerings.

Take a couple of minutes and scroll through the offerings at all three. See who people in flyover country get the opportunity to read. No wonder we are a center-right nation.

Uh, Frank was talking about

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 03:07:38 +0000

In reply to P.S. After posting the above

Uh, Frank was talking about print media, not corporates.

Corporates bought into MS-NBC, Fox, etc. and are doing quite hunky-dory at spinning the news.

If you check out many blogs, they spend as much time examining what TV's reported as doing any original thinking. Meaning, TV controls the message still.

Radio of course means "Rush Limbaugh" and his many bastard talk radio offspring, along with Clear Channel, who fired announcers for unpatriotic (meaing anti-war) statements and famously blacklisted the Dixie Chicks for a hardly harsh statement at a concert.

And where Frank Rich really deserves to be taken to the woodshed is this:

Had social media been in place, some of the lonely voices, journalistic and official, challenging the fictions leading up to the Iraq War (not just the bogus WMD but also the bogus links between the 9/11 terrorists and Saddam) would have been amplified on the web, rather than buried in the back pages of newsprint and news sites.

Of course social media did exist at the time, just not called "Twitter", and was used to organize 10-15 million protesters around the world. Why they weren't acknowledged is an issue to take up with his paper and the TV channels, though William Safire below might have an inkling.

Of course we know part of the NY Times'' Judith Miller was busy ditto'ing overhyped nuclear scare stories from the White House even as Frank Rich was noting the Democrats' leaders spinelessness and lack of energy in not contesting the war. Seems the Democrats decided opposing the war was too dangerous for midterms. I've blamed it on Rahm before, but Daschle here was just as dour and unmoving. Needless to say, the feckless Democrats got slaughtered anyway (or because of their fecklessness)

Interestingly, Rich had written about Bush's inviting Jack Welch, MS-NBC's boss, down to Waco, but seemed to miss this as a "CEO's club", supposedly discredited in the wake of Enron and dot-com crash. But these were the supporters for the war effort, including the never-ending media fan club for war, just as Cheney's Energy Task Force wasn't there to come up with strategic plans - it was there to fan on the imperial oil grab with visions of sugar plum fairies dancing in their heads.

I recall seeing Colin Powell's speech to the UN while in an airport, and saying to a colleague, "it's over, we're going to war", and feeling disgust with Hussein for not cooperating more. Unlike many millions, I read a bit more about it in the following days and realized that Blix was much happier with Hussein than Powell's "facts" implicated. But you can't fight that first TV image easily - one of the most trusted faces in America just said Hussein's a low-down two-bit cheater that needs to be strung up, and that's by golly what we did. Live from Jack Welch's studio indeed, as well as the ever-obliging Fox, and the ever globally corporate-focused CNN (with the rising star Lou Dobbs in the lead).

One of the NY Times' war mongers at the time was well-known William Safire, who ironically fought against the consolidation of media with Colin Powell's son heading the FCC

p281
Probably no conservative did more to legitimize the opposition than William Safire. Over the course of 2003, Safire wrote eight columns in the New York Times countering [FCC Chairman Michael] Powell. At key moments in the struggle, Safire produced column after column poking holes in Powell's arguments and demanding that he be stopped. Mixed in with numerous columns supporting the war in Iraq, Safire repeatedly explained why opposition to media consolidation was a bedrock principle for conservatives: "The concentration of power-political, corporate, media, cultural-should be anathema to conservatives. The diffusion of power through local control, thereby encouraging individual participation, is the essence of federalism and the greatest expression of democracy. " "Concentration of power in media," Safire wrote in December, "enables a political clique to concentrate its power. We have to resist this everywhere.

Interesting article. What

Michael Wolraich — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 02:56:33 +0000

In reply to Frank Rich | Inky Tears

Interesting article. What struck me most was the bit about Nate Silver, but I read a different lesson in it. Frank was suggesting that old media brands may become drags--that Silver might do better on his own than with the NY Times. I'm more struck by how writers matter more now. For the last century century, the only NY Times bylines that anyone paid attention to were the op-eds and the arts critics. All the other journalists just melted into their drab, impersonal text, which is exactly how the Gray Lady wanted it.

But lately, the writer has emerged from the publications. Nate Silver, Andrew Sullivan, Matt Taibbi, Mike Allen, Matthew Yglesias, and so on. These people have their own brands and their own loyal followings. Publications and websites are just channels for them.

Even at the NYT, I see more personality in the stories now. Journalists express opinions, make jokes (or at least wry commentary), and even occasionally use the word "I."

This spam was so amusing to

Michael Wolraich — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 02:43:37 +0000

In reply to I usually do not leave a

This spam was so amusing to me that I had to let it through (sans links)

P.S. After posting the above

artappraiser — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 01:29:59 +0000

In reply to But rapid change has become

P.S. After posting the above comment, I glanced at the story just below your post and it's title is "Amy Goodman discusses corporate-conttrolled media," and it struck me funny this way: but what Frank Rich just basically said was that those corporations have lost all control, are at wits' end because they can't control a single damn thing,....

But rapid change has become

artappraiser — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 01:20:07 +0000

In reply to Frank Rich | Inky Tears

But rapid change has become so tiresome. And could refusing to adjust to change be the next big thing?

I saw a young 20-something (or was he 19?) reading a paperback novel (yes, real paper) while standing in the aisle of the 96th street crosstown bus this afternoon. He was white, blond and relatively attractive, and put the book back in the front pocket of a heavy backpack as he exited on the upper West Side. (Not to mention the 60-something crabby looking white guy in the grey suit who was only carrying a small leather & spiral-bound fancy diary, stuffed with a thick, neat stacked bunch of legal-sized papers...the heading on them said "land lease.") And seemed to me it was mostly immigrant-looking types who were scrolling away on their screens, though there was a burly blond construction worker with stubble doing that, too.

I did see one real paper New York Post being read on the subway home after the bus. But then there was also that the 70-ish lady seated next to me fingered a cheap plastic rosary. Seems like there's always at least one of something, doesn't necessarily make a trend.....

I usually do not leave a

columbus oh roofing — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 18:29:00 +0000

In reply to Frank Rich | Inky Tears

I usually do not leave a response, but I browsed a few remarks on Reply to comment | dagblog. I actually do have a few questions for you if you do not mind. Is it only me or do a few of these responses come across like they are coming from brain dead folks? :-P And, if you are posting on other social sites, I'd like to keep up with anything new you have to post. Would you list of all of all your shared pages like your Facebook page, twitter feed, or linkedin profile?