Captain's Quarters Comments - Latest Comments in Old Mister Withers Speaks

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

T A M N Y , T . D . — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 08:50:49 -0000

Not MY comment : merely the definitive observations of SAMUEL CLEMENS ( MARK TWAIN ) :

"IF YOU DON ' T WANT TO WORK , BECOME A NEWSPAPER REPORTER .
THAT AWFUL POWER , THE PUBLIC OPINION OF THE NATION ,
IS SHAPED BY A HORDE OF IGNORANT , SELF - COMPLAISANT
SIMPLETONS WHO FAILED AT CANDLES AND DITCH - DIGGING
AND FETCHED UP IN JOURNALISM ON THEIR WAY TO THE POORHOUSE . "

In the post McCAIN - FEINGOLD environment ( c . 2 0 0 3 - to the present )
print publications have circled the metaphorical wagons as their presentation
of ' fact ' incurs greater scrutiny from ' typists ' ( e . g . , Bloggers ) ,
a development that agitates David Hazinski no end .

Newspapers and magazines are also losing advertising revenues
along with their credibility .

ROBERT SAMUELSON noted in a July 2 0 0 7 essay that newspapers jealously
guard their own Freedom Of Speech - - and are cavalier with everyone else ' s .

I still condescend to read the pontifications of journalists , well aware that many
of them have an axe to grind and will happily finesse the truth lest it compromise
their agenda . I also read the blogs with pleasure and gratitude as they adroitly
debunk some of the dumbest and most dubious of reporting . ( ' Captain ' s
Quarters ' , frequently excerpted in http://www.realclearpolitic... , I try to
consult daily ) .

When the Republic ' s most - hyped paper , the New York TIMES , takes the
side of the most egregious Congressional censors ( the supporters of McCain -
Feingold ) while itself continuing to enjoy the protection provided the ' Grey
Lady ' since 1 8 5 1 courtesy of the First Amendment , I daresay I ' ve seldom
encountered such flagrant hypocrisy . Apologists for tradional media ( such as
David Hazinski ) will have to accept the painful truth that newspapers - - and
reporters - - haven ' t a monopoly on truth nor virtue , not by a long shot .

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

Guest — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 19:48:32 -0000

Thank you!

Apparently Hoektstra fed Klein his material.

The story is in Wikipedia already! Now that's funny.

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

BurfordHolly — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 19:40:01 -0000

Just post the url when you're ready and I'll stop by.

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

BurfordHolly — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 19:38:36 -0000

I wasn't contradicting the Captain, but you had to drag your sense of of victimization and entitlement into it like a dung beetle rolling his ball of - well you know.

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

tacodawn — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 18:38:10 -0000

Cry yourself a river Hazinski!

I'm not buying it!

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

Del_Dolemonte — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 18:15:37 -0000

This time of year it's long johns for me.

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

Del_Dolemonte — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:23:33 -0000

Peter Jennings was a high school dropout; he later tried college and dropped out of that too.

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

thibaud — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:06:03 -0000

Holly - love your wise and witty comments, would like to include you in a new online community I'm forming. Please email me at t_thibaud@yahoo.com if you're interested.

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

Del_Dolemonte — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:02:13 -0000

Try typing this into Google

joe klein FISA story

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

Swede — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 15:44:57 -0000

"Journalism" has all the rules and standards of a hobby.

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

ClydeS — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 15:00:11 -0000

I've flushed things down the toilet with as much credibility and ethical standards as many so-called journalists. They're not trying to inform us, they are trying to act as gatekeepers and limit the amount of information available to the public. Just as the hierarchical Church hated the printing press because it made it possible for the public to read the Bible in their own vernacular and bypass the priestly class's monopoly on disseminating that information, so the hierarchical Media hates the Internet and its bloggers, who are bypassing the Media's gatekeeper role.

Information wants to be free; MSM doesn't want it to be.

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

crosspatch — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:41:36 -0000

Murrow was a speech major, never had a class in "journalism" in his life. Cronkite dropped out of college in his junior year. I am willing to bet that not a single one of the most influential journalists of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries had a "journalism" degree and I would be willing to bet that less than half of them graduated college.

Being a good journalist has more to do with being able to string words to together in an interesting way and a sense of being a mirror of what is outside of people's normal range of vision, not a artist paining their impression of it. A good journalist tries to be a camera, not a painter.

Journalism school is more about A: indoctrination and B: discouraging those with the "wrong" world view and preventing them from succeeding in the trade by creating a barrier of entry and allowing in only the ones with correct thinking.

Sounds like sour grapes to me because someone is finally holding their feet to the fire.

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

Larry J — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:37:10 -0000

To add to your point, if a doctor or engineer makes a serious mistake, not only could he be sued but risks losing his license. Even lawyers can be disbarred. Would journalists really like to be held to the standards of real professionals? I think not.

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

Insufficiently Sensitive — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:38:02 -0000

He warns us that it’s just a matter of time before a ‘faked Rodney King
beating’ appears on the tube somewhere.

The original Rodney King beating was already faked, as it was run by the professional journalists who put it on the air. In order to bulldoze public opinion in the “correct” direction, much of the film was redacted - the part showing that Rodney King himself was not just an
innocent victim, but spent plenty of energy himself aggressively attacking
the policemen, and refusing to submit to their lawful orders.

When significant parts of a story are withheld from the public eye, that
denial of perspective is every bit as much faking as the creation of a
staged incident out of whole cloth. In the case of Rodney King, the citizen journalist who filmed the entire incident did no wrong - it was the ‘professionals’ who trimmed his raw material to fit their political agenda who basically lied to the public.

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

underground — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:31:54 -0000

I can't believe this guy compares journalism, the art of summarizing what other people have done, with law and medicine. As mentioned earlier, the editor of this article couldn't even spell principle right! What exactly is this professional standard we're supposed to live up to? Bad spelling and sensationalism?

The independent distribution of information is incredibly important for a free society.

What I think we can see here is that the old media is really waking up to the tenuous position they're in. Anytime an industry is on the verge of failure due to increased competition, they start calling for more regulation and more barriers to entry.

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

carol H — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:12:25 -0000

I agree with your analysis, but what is to prevent rules changes for the benefit of the so-called professional journalists? Some are already pushing for reinstitution of the fairness doctrine in talk radio. Is it so difficult to see that there are forces who want to censor or ban political free speech on the Internet?
Before I revert to moonbat mode, my experience is that liberals only want free speech when it applies to their speech.

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

unclesmrgol — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:04:34 -0000

Burford, I got this from google:

Your search - "the Democrats FISA bill would give foreign terror suspects the same rights as US citizens" - did not match any documents.

Mayhaps you are a journalist?

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

SwabJockey05 — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:01:29 -0000

Sorry Del...but you had to mention it...some of us don't wear pajamas...

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

SwabJockey05 — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:58:44 -0000

Yes

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

itsdeplorablespideyman — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:55:18 -0000

Captain Ed, truer words were never spoken. I think the writers of the Constitution would look at the Internet and imagine it met their thoughts; a universal forum for open debate, for both the saints and the sinners. I'm also sure that any oligarchy in the media was not their intent when it talked about freedom of spech. My own thoughts, I have no idea what they may have thought, but if one believes in the spirit of freedom then all views at the forum of open debate are welcome.

Thank you for an excellent article.

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

Mike G — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:51:31 -0000

Look at Ed's list-- and then note that Hasinski couldn't even come up with TWO examples of blogs getting it wrong. One of them was clearly a failure of CNN's nonexistent vetting process, YouTube is merely how the guy got there. Which is like blaming a shopping mall for the fact that a survey conducted on the premises was invalid.

What, I wonder, are the punishments he envisions for violations of journalism, I wonder? And what would the likes of Dan Rather, Franklin Foer, etc. have to say about facing actual prosecution, not merely ridicule?

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

always_right — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:48:51 -0000

This is how Hazinski and his colleagues (1) are helpless to prevent the popularity and the spread of "citizen journalism"; and (2) they can sit around lamenting the "quality" of such reporting, and the dumbed-down masses of new media consumers.

Reminds me of the hollywood elite.

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

burt — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:43:54 -0000

History appears to be the most relevant of these majors. Unfortunately English, journalism and history departments as well law schools are overrun by very liberal profs.

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

JohnMcJunkin — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:35:37 -0000

Captain Ed and I sat on a panel at the Conservative Leadership Conference in October with yet another old media triumphalist - Brian Wilson of WSPD Toledo - and humored him through his delusional rantings about the superiority of the old media. We keep hearing this again and again, but somehow blog readership and podcast listenership continue to expand - while newspaper readership continues to decline. We're headed for parity because democritization of the press is the right and natural state of affairs.

Re: Old Mister Withers Speaks

Del_Dolemonte — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:34:07 -0000

I also told the Professor that I had no knowledge of any blogger calling themselves "journalists". I mean, look at Captain Ed's masthead-he calls himself "a father and grandfather".

I've actually taken university-level journalism courses-including broadcast newswriting-but have never held myself out as a journalist. I'm just a guy in pajamas like everyone else LOL.