~~ Ronald Reagan ~~
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Real Reporters Compete — They Don’t Collaborate
Yesterday I asked, “Where has old-fashioned journalistic competition gone?” I love it when I get my question answered in less than 24 hours.
Real journalists will talk among themselves about ideas and bounce stories off colleagues they can trust, but to form a club with a clear political agenda is something mobsters would be proud of. As General George S. Patton said, “If everybody’s thinking alike then somebody is not thinking.” There’s a lot of people here not thinking.
I think it is a given that the majority of leftists are extremely immature, almost like middle school children. Is there a parent alive who hasn’t heard her child grouse, “Mommmmm, everyone else is doing it!”? And how many of us have retorted with, “Would you follow everyone off a cliff because ‘everyone’ is doing it?” I think it is obvious that these Journolistas would since their immature brains figure they are invincible and as long as Mommy and Daddy don’t find out, they are home free.
This collaboration will be discounted by each of those on the list. They will ignore, deflect and discount their participation in this cabal. The only hope of the JournoListas is that their uninformed viewers/listeners/readers don’t find out, or don’t care, that they plot their agenda driven dribble with other media to work as copy machines for Democrats. They are media people who want always to be seen and heard, but on this issue, blindness is golden.
UPDATE:
Oh no, there is another one.
But let’s forget about the JournoList for a moment and turn our eyes to another listserv out there in Google. I’m referring to Matt Stoller’s private, invitation-only TownHouse listserv. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Stoller, he’s a progressive blogger-turned-senior policy advisor for Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL). Now we all know what we can do besides teach with a history degree, but I digress.
According to SourceWatch:
Townhouse provides the online equivalent of a political backroom for Democratic Party-aligned advocates, consultants and lobbyists. On this closed listserv selected liberals — including bloggers Glenn Greenwald, Markos Moulitsas and Atrios; film maker Robert Greenwald; leaders of liberal think tanks such as Robert Borosage of Campaign for America’s Future; Wes Boyd, Tom Matzzie and other leaders of MoveOn; and other Democratic campaign and PR consultants — can confidentially discuss and debate their issues, strategies and tactics.
An article on Salon reports: “Townhouse began after the disastrous 2004 election, when young Democratic activists began meeting on Sundays for beers at Townhouse Tavern, a subterranean watering hole in Washington’s Dupont Circle neighborhood…
Through it all, Stoller controlled the membership. If you stayed in his graces, and met the group’s qualifications, you got yourself a ticket to both the electronic and the alcoholic conversations. At all times, the whole enterprise was declared off the record, to be spoken of in hushed tones only with others who knew the proverbial secret handshake. … the public introduction of Townhouse now presents the big-name bloggers and online activists with a transparency dilemma. On the one hand, bloggers like to talk of themselves as a democratic, grass-roots movement. (Moulitsas often conflates himself with the entire ‘people-powered movement’ in his blog posts.) On the other hand, the blogosphere boasts an emerging leadership elite, which is increasingly profiting on its insider status in both the Democratic Party and among one another.”
And via Instapundit:
Peter Wehner: JournoListers Risked Their Integrity. Risked? “What we have, in short, is intellectual corruption of a fairly high order. From what we have seen and from what those like Tucker Carlson and his colleagues (who have read the exchanges in detail) say, Journolist was — at least in good measure — a hotbed of hatred, political hackery, banality, and juvenile thuggery. . . . Journolist provides a window into the mindset of the journalistic and academic left in this country. It is not a pretty sight. The demonization and dehumanization of critics is arresting. Those who hold contrary views to the Journolist crowd aren’t individuals who have honest disagreements; they are evil, malignant, and their voices need to be eliminated from the public square. It is illiberal in the extreme. . . . Those who participated in Journolist undoubtedly hope this story will fade away and be forgotten. I rather doubt it will. It is another episode in the long, downward slide of modern journalism.”
and
Posted by Sara
on 07/27/2010 at 10:56 AM in Media -
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