Media Criticism

Insanity

The New Editor talks about it on the part of both the democrats, and a media that refuses to report on it.

[Update at 8:20 PM EDT]

And Hugh Hewitt continues to express his dismay and amazement (shared by me) at the Star-Trib’s treatment of James Lileks:

Of course James is my friend, but a lot of my friends suffer at the hands of bad management, and I don’t say a word about it on my blog or my show.

I am exercised about Lileks because it is an astoundingly stupid decision affecting an industry with which I am connected and in which merit used to matter. The collapse of the media business and the rise of mediocrity is what’s bugging me.

I offer you Dave Barry as an expert on the field of newspaper columns. Case closed. Ten thousand second stringers can line up and berate Lileks, but we know better, and Barry’s assessment just ends that discussion.

And a comment from Dave Barry’s post:

Yeah, one thing that Lileks’ blog revealed was how much life and quirk was being squeezed out of his writing to make it fit in the Star-Tribune. (For which the editors blame him, not themselves.) Anyway, I don’t think we should be bashing the people here who don’t find Lileks funny. Humor is individual, they’re entitled to their opinion…

…and isn’t it interesting that at least they HAVE an opinion of Lileks. How many other writers at the Star-Tribune can anyone here say that of?

And a similar comment from Ken Layne, who would know such things:

This is completely retarded. Lileks is the best-known writer on that whole paper — if there’s any nationally-known writer other than Lileks on that paper, I’ve never heard of ’em. I wouldn’t be surprised if his personal site gets more traffic than the whole Strib site.

Here’s a quiz to see if you’ve “got what it takes” to be a newspaper editor:

You’re in a fading industry that’s making a slow & dumb transition to the online world. You’ve moved so slowly & clumsily that most of the things you used to control — comics, sports news, classifieds — have already been reinvented and seized by people who aren’t involved with newspapers at all. But on your staff, you’ve got a local columnist who has a big & loyal online readership you would spend millions trying to get on your own. Do you:

a) Give him a substantial raise and have him write exclusively for your online paper?
b) Demote him to local coverage.

If you answered B, then you’re ready for a high-flying newspaper management career … for a few years, anyway, when the last local print newspaper shuts down for good. Jesus …

War Commentary

A Story I Haven’t Covered Enough

The military’s attempt to clamp down on milbloggers.

This is dumb, not just because of the free speech implications, but because they are shutting down the voices that could be the most important ones in support of the war. But even if not, it’s a violation of the values for which these soldiers (and other military personnel) are fighting. Of course no operational information should be blogged, but there’s no evidence that this has occurred. It sounds more like stupid bureaucracy to me (which is the story of the Bush administration, and of every administration). Of course, that’s the story of big government itself. Unfortunately, it’s not something that we can get around when it comes to making war.

War Commentary

A Story I Haven’t Covered Enough

The military’s attempt to clamp down on milbloggers.

This is dumb, not just because of the free speech implications, but because they are shutting down the voices that could be the most important ones in support of the war. But even if not, it’s a violation of the values for which these soldiers (and other military personnel) are fighting. Of course no operational information should be blogged, but there’s no evidence that this has occurred. It sounds more like stupid bureaucracy to me (which is the story of the Bush administration, and of every administration). Of course, that’s the story of big government itself. Unfortunately, it’s not something that we can get around when it comes to making war.

War Commentary

A Story I Haven’t Covered Enough

The military’s attempt to clamp down on milbloggers.

This is dumb, not just because of the free speech implications, but because they are shutting down the voices that could be the most important ones in support of the war. But even if not, it’s a violation of the values for which these soldiers (and other military personnel) are fighting. Of course no operational information should be blogged, but there’s no evidence that this has occurred. It sounds more like stupid bureaucracy to me (which is the story of the Bush administration, and of every administration). Of course, that’s the story of big government itself. Unfortunately, it’s not something that we can get around when it comes to making war.

Weird

A Question For The Corner

Why do Corner permalinks have such loooooonnnngggg URLs? Here’s the one for Derb’s latest “Darwinism” post:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/
?q=OTNkZTFkMDdmZTE5ZTc4MDE5ZTVmNTNiZGUzNTBmMjY=

Do you want to ensure uniqueness of them to the end of history? If so, that’s real farsightedness. By my count, with that “q=whatever” parameter, you can provide 62^43rd unique post IDs (upper/lower case plus the ten digits, with 43 characters). We know you Corner guys (and gals) can be prolific, but consider that this may be overkill. Unless there’s something going on that requires a unique fixed field length up front, it is possible to do it by simply going sequential (I’m only up to 9000 or so on my blog). I haven’t done the math, but I suspect that with your scheme, you could assign an ID to every particle in the known universe, with more than a few left over. The sun would start to dim long before you got out to even the twentieth field for your post IDs.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!