…with much to be modest about. As one commenter says, what is this, 2004?
[Update a few minutes later]
Jeez. Here’s another one:
Is journalism 100 unpaid bloggers all talking and yattering at once, or a city filled with amateur citizen journalists uncoordinated in all their efforts? Those bloggers and citizen reporters are as close to real reporters as karaoke is to Frank Sinatra live and in person.
Never mind that most of those “real reporters” are clueless about most of the subjects on which they report, and most of whom have “educations” that have imparted little of real-world value.
Yes, “real reporters” craft left-of-center “narratives.”
Frank Sinatra witnessed “in person” is a good metaphor for the MSM in America today, given that he reached room temperature years ago.
“Those bloggers and citizen reporters are as close to real reporters as karaoke is to Frank Sinatra live and in person. . . ”
And the worst part? They just won’t take orders the way the “real” journalists of the MSM Rat Pack do.
Why isn’t Risen in jail? Yes, I’m PROUD I damaged our national security for my personal gain.
^^^ damaging America is a post-modern value.
As a person who switched my enior year from zoology (a science) to journalism, I was constantly aghast at the quality of courses taken by my fellow communications majors. Some would brag about taking scores of electives such as movie criticism (watching), and then would boast of having fulfilled course requirements by taking the absolutely most dumbed down courses – the ones the education majors and football and basketball players would take. Without exception, they took the simplist statistics courses, and their science requirements were fulfilled by taking geology (called rocks for jocks), and astronomy. No business courses, no biology or chemistry, engineering, computer, or even more than rudimentary government courses. And these are the people who assert their superiority to bloggers, many of whom are quite accomplished in their chosen fields.
The first post you link to quotes James Risen as saying, “The thing that amazes me is that the blogosphere thinks they can deconstruct other people’s stories … Do you even know anything about me? Maybe you were still in school when I broke the NSA story, I don’t know. It was back when you were in kindergarten, I think.”
Clearly, this clown doesn’t understand the meaning of “to deconstruct.” As a movement, “deconstruction” intended to undermine authority and claims to knowledge in all their forms. And part of the theory is that one can deconstruct a work without any knowledge or understanding of the writer’s history or intent. Hence, his attempts at an ad-hominem attack and his appeals to authority are not just illogical, they are completely irrelevant in the eyes of the theory (deconstruction) which he references.
Those on the political left–and their enablers in journalism and elsewhere–were happy to champion deconstruction when it was applied to their political opponents, but they always scream and whine whenever it is applied to their work. That’s one of the reason the left hates Jeff Goldstein’s website Protein Wisdom so much–he is very adept at turning their pet theories on their heads or using them against the leftists who champion them.
They see themselves as Frank Sinatra? More like Courtney Love, if you ask me…
Wrong member of the family Casey. They are more like Kurt Cobain. Whiners, bent on self-destruction, and suicide.