Joe the Joker

This guy, what a joke. He's sent to Israel to report, as a member of the media, on the Israeli side of the current Gaza conflict. But, he says media should not be allowed to report. Here is Joe the reporter calling the media to gather around him so he can say he is not the story and then proceed to question the reporters beliefs and loyalties.



h/t to The Daily Dish which, by the way, should be mandatory reading...if you like reading.

Oh, FOX News

Check out this video from FOX News from a diner in PA.



The reporter asks the patrons to raise their hands if they are voting for McCain and then for Obama. Everyone we see in the shot raises their hand for Obama. Still, the reporter calls it a "split". You can then hear someone in the background say, "Split?" and everybody laughs.

Hurricane Bear

The television news media often obsesses over one specific story for hours or days at a time. Now, every Hurricane that hits the U.S. seems to get round the clock coverage, including reporters stationed around the expected landfall point who spend all day or night giving the same 4 minute presentations about what they have been seeing in their assigned area.

Sometimes there's a bear.



Sometimes Geraldo falls down.



But usually it's just boring worthless crap.

Blog Agog

This is the power of blogging.

Timothy S. Goeglein, a top Bush aide, has resigned from his guest column for the Fort Wayne, Indiana News-Sentinel. Because he got caught plagarizing his column. By a blogger.

The best of part of the story comes near its conclusion. The plagarist, and may I say again, Bush aide, was caught because he lifted a sentence from an already-published paper. The author of that paper misspelled the name of a professor of philosophy from Dartmouth. Then Goeglein copied and pasted, so in turn, misspelled the name.

Genius. You can find the full article here.

All Hail the Power of Blog!

It's pretty undisputed that bloggers have become a powerful group. Of course they are not one interest group, but rather a network that is able to instantly rally others to certain causes and quickly disseminate information, educate, or call for action. This story out of China is an illustrative case.

Earlier this month a bystander in Tianmen was beaten to death while using a cell phone to take a picture of an argument between government officials and villagers over the dumping of garbage near the village. The villagers were against it, shockingly!!!. Soon after the beating death occurred bloggers in China began to call for justice and the enforcement of the law. The bloggers took the deceased man in as one of their own, calling him a citizen journalist. The government essentially relented, or at least decided to act, and within days arrests were made and an investigation is now well underway.

Other examples of the power of the blog come from Jena, LA and Burma. In Jena a small group of African-American bloggers kept track of what was going on and acted as the catalyst to get the story into the mainstream media. In Burma, a small group of Burmese (and other) bloggers were able to sneak images and video out of the tightly controlled nation to expose the government imposed beatings and oppression of Buddhist monks and citizens calling for democracy.

Still, many journalists mock the work of bloggers. It is a constant topic on blogs concerned with media and politics. Bloggers are so plentiful that they are easily able to keep track of newsworthy events but also act as citizen watchdog groups on the media, in the consumer world, and far beyond. Bloggers are able to both out maneuver regular journalists and make sure the regular journalists aren't bullshitting their viewers at the same time.

Just this morning I was watching a cable "news" show that used "blogger" in a derogatory manner when referring to a reporter. The host of the show expressed his disbelief at an Associated Press reporters behavior towards Presidential candidate Mitt Romney during a news conference by saying something to the effect of "I thought he was a blogger at first but it turns out he works for the AP". (By the way you should check out this Romney v. Reporter video, it really exposes Romney for the little weasel he is.)

Point is, read this blog more and we'll help you save the world and tell you what's bullshit and what isn't. Because we have power.

CNN Responds to Michael Moore

CNN has provided and exhausting, ah hem, exhaustive response to Michael Moore's problems with CNN's reporting on Sicko. Fact checking and fact accuracy besides it is pretty clear to me that CNN's attention paid to Moore was purposefully skeptical if not down right inaccurate for a reason known as...ratings!...that's right, what a surprise.

Anyway, the CNN spokesperson's response, delivered point by point, to problems Moore had with CNN's reporting are insignificant and boring!

Here is an example,

POINT NO. 3:

CNN: In fact, Americans live just a little bit longer than Cubans on average.

"The Truth" (from Michael Moore's Web site):

Just the opposite. The 2006 United Nations Human Development Report's human development index states the life expectancy in the United States is 77.5 years. It is 77.6 years in Cuba

CNN RESPONSE:

Moore cites the 2006 United Nations Human Development Index, which uses life expectancy data from 2004. CNN relied on the 2007 World Health Organization report, which uses life expectancy data from 2005. That data shows Americans with a life expectancy of 77.9 years and Cubans with a life expectancy of 77.2 years.

Uh, give me a break CNN. Way to find a different stat and use it to make it seem like Michael Moore lied or at best simply got his facts wrong. I can't wait until the 2006 and 2007 and 2008 stats come out so we can see who is most right. No one is gonna stop watching you because Michael Moore got mad. Why waste time responding. Everyone knows corporate media is influenced by the corporations that sponsor them. You're not fooling anyone.