We Want Media

Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs brings us this gem today. Not terribly outrageous or controversial until one reads the caption.

Next Wednesday PBS is planning to air a special on the media’s performance during the run up to the 2003 U.S. Invasion of Iraq, and if this Editor & Publisher article is any indication, the portrayal will be far from positive.

I’ve blogged before about the internet and specifically blogs being a way to break down the barriers between news consumers and the opinion leaders and experts upon which we rely for information.

While most news organizations took a favorable angle on Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove’s improvised rap skit at the annual White House correspondents’ dinner last month, Time Magazine’s political blogger Ana Marie Cox would have none of it.

On ABC's "The View" Thursday morning, Rosie O'Donnell coughed up this noxious five minutes of television. In it, she denies the self-evident facts of 9/11, claiming that building 7 of the World Trade Center was destroyed via controlled demolition.

Charles Johnson is the writer, editor, publisher, technical director, and all around Renaissance man behind Little Green Footballs, a blog that focuses on the spread of radical Islam and media manipulation.

More and more, reporters are setting aside simple fact based reporting in favor of so-called “advocacy” pieces, according to this report for USA Today.

I was watching CNN Headline News in the airport yesterday, around 6:40 p.m., and something incredible happened. The anchor -- one of those put together model-types CNN is so fond of hiring -- sourced the National Enquirer and the Sun. I kid you not.

Well, it’s spring break at NYU and I am down in sunny Tampa, Fla., with my family. While here, I took the time to talk with Andy Staples of the Tampa Tribune.

Politico reports a sudden development out of Nevada, as Democratic Party organizers there have chosen to cancel a debate they had scheduled in partnership with Fox News Channel.

Among the myriad things the internet has accomplished, surely one of the best is the peeling away of the layers between influential thinkers and their audience.

Much of what has been said about the internet since its inception has been overwhelmingly positive. It provides unparalleled opportunities for constructive collaboration and has remedied some of the chief concern over corporate media ownership.

We’ve all been told about the perils of posting scandalous photos of ourselves and our friends on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. Happy memories from a night on the town, we’re told, can quickly lead to jobs not offered and livelihoods not made.

In a career that is as prestige-based as Law, perception matters, and more and more what drives that perception is what students say on internet message boards.

So we've all been hearing a lot lately about the internet and its effects on our media culture. It's supposed to be a great agent for democratic expression, knocking down the barriers to entry and transforming Joe Everyman into a reporter, a filmmaker, an expert.

Regardless of what you think about the event, the NYU College Republicans' "Find the Illegal" game sure got the coverage they were hoping it would. Matt Drudge picked it up yesterday. So did Fox News and MSNBC.

The Edwards campaign has just announced that liberal blogger Amanda Marcotte has resigned her position with the organization, and it is a great day for American politics.

Ahem, this is some news (HT:drudge):

It's been a pretty good week for Charles over at Little Green Footballs, a site devoted to covering the spread of Islam in the West and media complacency through a somewhat conservative lens.

Maybe if the Business editors of the New York Times were paying a little bit more attention to, say, business, New York Times wouldn't have posted $648 million dollars in losses last quarter.