Category Archives: Media Criticism

I Can’t Think Of Any

Somehow this kind of thing only seems to go one direction.

By way of comparison, who are the conservative reporters who are torpedoing their own careers by fabricating stories about Clinton or Reid or Pelosi? I can’t really think of any. The only conservative reporter who comes to mind is an extremely minor one by the name of Jeff Gannon whose “offense” was to ask a softball question of Bush during a press conference. If liberal reporters were similarly slimed for asking questions of an opposite nature (i.e., questions designed to make Bush look bad), we would not have a White House Press corps.

Career-ending journalistic insanity — mostly attributable to the war in Iraq — appears to be almost exclusively a phenomenon of the left. If you know of some prominent counterexamples, though, please set me straight.

Of course, just statistically, there are probably a lot more liberal reporters than conservative ones, so that might be a partial explanation. But I’m sure it’s not the whole one…

[Update in mid-afternoon]

Instapundit has a roundup of Beauchamp-related links, including this one by Don Surber, who wonders why there’s such a sellers’ market for lies on the left.

I Can’t Think Of Any

Somehow this kind of thing only seems to go one direction.

By way of comparison, who are the conservative reporters who are torpedoing their own careers by fabricating stories about Clinton or Reid or Pelosi? I can’t really think of any. The only conservative reporter who comes to mind is an extremely minor one by the name of Jeff Gannon whose “offense” was to ask a softball question of Bush during a press conference. If liberal reporters were similarly slimed for asking questions of an opposite nature (i.e., questions designed to make Bush look bad), we would not have a White House Press corps.

Career-ending journalistic insanity — mostly attributable to the war in Iraq — appears to be almost exclusively a phenomenon of the left. If you know of some prominent counterexamples, though, please set me straight.

Of course, just statistically, there are probably a lot more liberal reporters than conservative ones, so that might be a partial explanation. But I’m sure it’s not the whole one…

[Update in mid-afternoon]

Instapundit has a roundup of Beauchamp-related links, including this one by Don Surber, who wonders why there’s such a sellers’ market for lies on the left.

McCarthyism On The Left

Like this is news:

Novak blamed liberal discrimination which he said forces young conservatives to remain “in the closet” if they hope to have a career in media.

“One of the big differences in 50 years is that the liberals have now filtered into the executive ranks of journalism. And so if you go into journalism now not in the closet but out in the open as a conservative, you’re going to have a hard time getting a job, believe me.”

Conservatives also don’t like journalism as a profession, Novak added, saying that when he goes to various colleges and universities, the young conservatives and libertarians he runs into rarely have any interest in journalism.

The syndicated columnist fit these trends into what he said was a general decline in the journalism business, despite the fact that it has become more professionalized:

“Journalism is a hard thing to gauge. When I set out with my first paper in the summer of 1948, for the Joliet Herald-News there were in the newsroom there about two or three people who had ever been to college. Journalism was not an educated person’s game. So we’re much better educated, we’re sophisticated, we have people with graduate degrees

“The Rule, Not The Exception”

The life of a soldier has been described as long periods of boredom punctuated by occasional moments of sheer terror. Michael Totten has a military correspondent who reports that Iraq is no different:

Even in the worst places, day-to-day activity is mundane and quiet. When attacks occur, they do so viciously. In my case, these resulted in my unit

“The Rule, Not The Exception”

The life of a soldier has been described as long periods of boredom punctuated by occasional moments of sheer terror. Michael Totten has a military correspondent who reports that Iraq is no different:

Even in the worst places, day-to-day activity is mundane and quiet. When attacks occur, they do so viciously. In my case, these resulted in my unit

“The Rule, Not The Exception”

The life of a soldier has been described as long periods of boredom punctuated by occasional moments of sheer terror. Michael Totten has a military correspondent who reports that Iraq is no different:

Even in the worst places, day-to-day activity is mundane and quiet. When attacks occur, they do so viciously. In my case, these resulted in my unit

Morons

Two points. First, the new power (for good or ill) of blogs:

The tragedy stunned space tourism supporters, many of whom were betting that Branson’s Virgin Galactic spaceline would be the first in the fledgling business to send well-heeled tourists out of the atmosphere.

“I suspect that this is a major setback for Virgin Galactic, because they may have to go back to the drawing board for propulsion, for PR reasons if nothing else,” wrote former aerospace engineer and space tourism consultant Randy Simberg on his blog Transterrestrial Musings.

I guess I have to be more careful what I post. At least I used the crucial word “may…”

The second point, of course (note the emphasis), is that whoever dug this up on the Interweb couldn’t read my name correctly, and felt compelled to add the obligatory (and yet, entirely not only not necessary, but insulting diminutive “y” to it).

[Update a minute later]

Great. It’s not just the Chron. This has become the AP story, as demonstrated by the same error at the Mercury News. Thus are urban legends born.