- This has been on my radar screen for a while. But that’s where it has stayed. I’ve been frozen by it and haven’t written a word on it. Apparently that is also where it has stayed, if it got that far, for most bloggers and their underlings in the mainstream media, aka journalists. (Yes, I haven’t told you what it is yet because, as simply as it can be stated, the thing is too large to easily grasp.)
David Pryce-Jones brings us up to speed about how the European Union, undaunted by the will of the people of individual European nations, will accommodate itself without them:
Well, of COURSE, Martin [1]. That was always the point of the thing, and is exactly what the opponents said of the EU, as the various countries were singing over their sovereignty to that Brussels monster.The whole idea was that none of the countries, or the people in them would be able to have their say. I’ve been saying it for as many years as it was being considered and pursued, and loudest when Tony Blair was busy doing his thing.
The concept of criminals running the place as Billy points out tonight [2], is of a piece with what we’ve been seeing of the Democrats of late. The Clintons for example, and Obama. I’ve no doubt the both of them will be getting along with them splendidly, should they actually, God help us, attain power. And yes, there’s a lot of implication in that statement.
The freedom of the people under the banner of the EU is now a lost cause, of course. But there’s additional problems, problems for the USgiven that via NATO and other treaties, our friends are now far less likely to be able to respond to a military situation. And given the Iran/Sriya link, such conflict seems likely. (Domination by left-leaners tends to preclude such responses) The implications for the future of that half of the world are incalculably bad.
J* oyner started this mess [3]
Media Bloggers Association president Robert Cox [4] argues in a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed that the line between “citizen” and “journalist” has become so blurred as to have all but disappeared.
This issue has reared its head again because of the so-called “Bittergate” episode.
Well, let’s be precise. This issue came up because Obama supporters don’t like him being held up to what he says. Despite implications to the contrary that was not ‘yellow journalism’ Unless you’re going to suggest the tape of what he said was edited somehow)… No, that was reporting.
Look, frankly I’m not at all convinced it’s worthwhile starting up the lines again between professional jouranlist and Blogger, and particularly over something like this. The man got caught with his shorts around his ankles. (OK, yeah, I know, that’s Clinton’s schtik.) The such reports would not have been made is to me a great indication of why nobody takes professional journalists seriously anymore. Professionalism? Please. Are CBS/NBC/ABC/CNN/NYT to be held up as professionals? I’m not sure much value can be had from professionalism, if these are the standard.
The advent of blogs and other self-published media turned us full circle to the days of the pamphleteers. Most citizen journalists are untrained and, frankly, most are rather poor.
No less poor, I’m afraid than what the MSM has been for the last 40 some odd years. But you know what? The marketplace seems to have had an effect on this, if we’re to take the impending demise of the big three, and the NYT, and the poor ratings of MSNBC, and CNN, and the massive rise of Blogs as any indication.
The citizen “journalists” as you mention who are poor, are similarly blessed with low hitrates. That free market thing again.
And let’s while I think of it, discriminate between ‘journalists’ and “News people”.
A News person writes down the news. A journalist [5]writes down what he thinks. The biggest problem the press of today has, particularly the MSM I mentioned, is here those lines get blurred.
Look at the definition of journalist in the link I’ve just provided. Nowhere in any of the definitions will you see the word ‘news’. By contrast, look at newsman.
Blogs do not have that much of a problem, for the most part.. I estimate that 90% of the popular political blogs are doing opinion… iIE journalism… not news reporting. True, they mention current events by means of repeating what the news wires say, but most of heir time and emph is on rendering opinion-oriented analysis on those events. Your blog, James, is that way, and so it mine.
I make no pretense to being a news person. I am, however, a journalist by the definitions the dictionary provides us. But I am by no means impressed that we should accord any special treatment to professional ‘journalists’. Particularly if the the quality of ‘professional’ journalists involves ignoring the type of story the blogger caught, in this case.
- Yes, I moved SiteMeter. Reason: Perhaps 20 0r 30 people are coming in daily via mobile devices. These people are served by a seperate page that the BitsBlog server generates when it sees it’s dealing with something other than a standard browser, such as a mobile phone, or a Palm, or something. That script however, did not contain the counter, because of it’s placement in the sidebar, and those hits were not getting counted. This move should solve that issue.