The NYT has more on Hizzoner’s media company and how it has data mined its own clients.
Big Gulps of Data
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Category Archives: Main Stream Media
Plus Ça Change, Plus C’est la Même Chose
And then there was last week, one of those exceptions that proves the rule—especially for the Main Stream Media. Da Tech Guy has some thoughts on conventional wisdom, Benghazi, the IRS, and gun control.
All the President’s Men
When They’ve Lost the BBC …
… the Administration is in a heap of trouble. Here’s what Mark Mardell, the Beeb‘s North American Editor says:
The new documents contain two rationales for the changes in language. The first is that it would prejudice the FBI investigation. Perhaps, but I am not at all persuaded.
The other reason given – old-fashioned butt-guarding – is more credible. However you read the motives, the state department and apparently the White House did get the CIA to change its story.
This is now very serious, and I suspect heads will roll. The White House will be on the defensive for a while.
This is, as one former President put it, deep doo-doo.
Citizens Koch
I’ve got this idea for a movie. A guy, no, make it a couple of brothers, get a fortune based on natural resource extraction and use their money to get into the newspaper business.
On second thought, that’s probably not a good basis for a movie after all.
Pigford
Today is the day that part of the blogosphere is focusing on the Pigford story. It’s basically about a scam wherein the Department of Agriculture was to pay settlements to certain “farmers”–whether a settlement is owed or not.
Breitbart broke the story and the Main Stream Media sat on it for years, but the New York Times did a 5,000 word story on it last week that confirmed the work done by the bloggers and Breitbart. So congratulations to all those who helped to expose the fraud, especially to my friend Lee Stranahan.
Listening to Solomon
Almost every single working hypothesis I had about the Marathon Murders case while the suspects were at large turned out to be wrong. Not knowing what was really happening, I’ve chose to let the situation play out rather than add to the wrongheadedness flying about. That hasn’t been good for traffic here at Hogewash!, but OTOH, I’ve also missed out on being the object of things like this.
There is a time to speak and a time to remain silent.
Thanks to Legal Insurrection for permission to use the cartoon.
NPR Suggests Boston Bombing a Birthday Present for Hitler
On Political Correctness
When someone would point out an “inconvenient truth” to the left-wing folks I used to hang out with back in the ’60s (I’m a recovering Democrat), they would be told that it could not be discussed because “that’s not politically correct.” Truth has never been a defense to political incorrectness. Only those stories which advance the “proper” narrative may be spoken.
We see the result of that perverse approach in much of what passes for main stream journalism today. If coverage of the trial of a physician accused of mass murder might cause people to stop and think about what happens to babies in an abortion “clinic,” the story must be spiked. If it turns out that a District Attorney wasn’t murdered by right-wing extremists … we’ll be back after these brief messages. If the wacko who shot the congresswoman is a crazed lefty … [crickets]
The printing press broke a stranglehold on information by allowing the mass production and distribution of books, etc., but even into the 20th century, there were still relatively few mass media outlets. The Internet is changing that. Inconvenient facts are becoming harder to hide.
The truth is out there.
The AP is Technically Correct
The AP has changed it’s Style Book to deprecate the term “illegal immigrant.” Their reason is that the person is not illegal, and that’s true. The act of crossing the border or being in the country without lawful authorization is an illegal act, but the person committing the act isn’t illegal. He’s a criminal.
Thus, a more accurate term would be criminal immigrant.
NYT Reporters to Replace Aggies …
… in joke books. Andrew Klavan has details.
Here There Be Aliens
Here is a color coded map showing the places around the London of the Whoniverse that the Doctor has battled aliens. (H/T, Viral Read)
Blue blobs represent the 1960s (plain for William Hartnell, dotted for Patrick Troughton)
Green ones represent the 1970s (plain for Jon Pertwee, dotted for Tom Baker)
Yellow ones represent the 1980s (plain for Peter Davison, dotted for Colin Baker, pins for Sylvester McCoy)
Red ones represent the contemporary series (plain for Christopher Eccleston, dotted for David Tennant and pins for Matt Smith)
In addition orange envelopes are other bits of Who-related information taken from the so-called real world.
Adam Lanza and the NRA
While I was getting dressed this morning, I heard the newsreader on NPR mention that among the items listed on the search warrant for the Lanza house was an “NRA certificate.”
Oh, horrors! The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter had a certificate from the NRA.
Gimme a break.
The NRA teaches courses in firearm safety, and Connecticut recognizes them as adequate training in safe gun handling for an applicant for a concealed carry permit. While Adam Lanza was only 20 when he committed his infamous crime, he might have taken such a course if he intended to apply when he turned 21. Or maybe he did some rifle shooting at summer camp when he was a kid and achieved some Junior Marksmanship rating. There are numerous reasons why someone might have an “NRA certificate.”
I have one. It says “Life Member.” Neither Adam Lanza nor his mother were members of the NRA.
Women and Minorities Hardest Hit
Soledad O’Brien out at CNN.
Really, is CNN still on?
Diversity at The New Republic
Stacy McCain has a post up about the staff diversity, or lack thereof, at The New Republic.
Read the whole thing, but before you go, see how well you do with this pseudoSAT analogy.
magazine : food :: The New Republic : _____
A. mashed potatoes
B. mashed potatos
C. Wonder Bread
D. creamcheese
Unless your name is Suzy, the correct answer is C.
Expect the Unexpected
Stacy McCain has a post up about the negative economic growth reported for the last quarter of 2012. He wonders how the Main Stream Media will spin their reporting. I’ll bet they will claim that they were drinking heavily while celebrating the election results and blame Busch.
Mr. McCain’s post is entitled Obamanomics Fails–Unexpectedly! in a riff on the Main Stream Media’s continuing disbelief that The Lightworker is unable to defy the Laws of Economics.
Folks, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Expect the “unexpected.”
UPDATE–For the past year, I’ve expected the economy to begin contracting if Barack Obama were reelected. Business that were putting off investing in expansion in hope of a Romney victory are now being joined by joined by other firms facing the costs of Obamacare and four more years of over-the-top regulation and irresponsible fiscal policy. More people are going Galt.
The next four years are going to be tough brutal.
Gun Knowledge Test
Ace of Spades HQ has caught the Chicago Tribune is a rather silly error about bayonet lugs on M16s. See if you can correctly identify the mystery rifle part.
An Attack on Talk Radio?
Roger Kimball has a piece over at PJ Media about the possibility of a leftist attack on conservative talk radio that would consist of buying small stations and shutting down their conservative talk programming.
How might that work out?
The failure of Air America in the marketplace suggests that replacing conservative talk radio with leftist jabber would be a financial disaster. Shifting to music formats might or might not be successful for the new owners. Those buyouts, if they happened, would leave conservative talk radio “stuck” on 50 kW clear-channel stations and other major market outlets which wouldn’t be such a bad place to be. Those stations are for-profit operations whose programming is driven by ratings. They will stick with the likes of Rush Limbaugh as long as the stations’ ratings support good advertising revenue.
The marketplace of ideas is not exempt from the law of supply and demand.
Don’t Get Cocky
WaPo says that the NRA is winning.
Truth, Inconvenient Truth, and Statistics
The low information voters who relied on the Main Stream Media for election coverage now provide us with a worked example of cognitive dissonance.
[M]ore than seven in 10 are dissatisfied with the current state of the economy, and just more than a third are either “very” or “fairly” confident in Obama’s ability to promote a strong and growing economy.
Remember what H. L. Mencken wrote:
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
Sigh.
NPR Gets the Memo
Gun control is so unpopular with the public that very term is considered radioactive by most politicians. Thus, we are beginning to hear about gun safety and gun violence. These are the new buzzwords used by the anti-Second-Amendment crowd.
It appears that NPR has the memo and is shading their reporting accordingly. During my commute this morning, I heard the newsreader announce that VP Biden would be meeting with gun safety advocates and the victims of gun violence today and with the NRA tomorrow.
That seems like an attempt to contrast those in favor of gun safety on the one hand with the NRA on the other.
Is there any organization that has done more to promote gun safety than the NRA?
New York Times Advocates Abandoning the Constitution: First Amendment Hardest Hit
Yes, the New York Times really did publish an oped piece suggesting that we walk away from those parts of the document we find inconvenient.
Of course, if you’re an elite journalist at an organization such as the Times or NBC News, you wouldn’t expect to have to be bound by all those laws and stuff passed to keep the hoi polloi in check.
May I suggest to the constitutional law professor who wrote the piece that he look at Article V. That article lays out the amendment process which has been used to adjust the document as the country has grown and changed. If you believe that changed times require changed rules, offer an amendment.
David Gregory and Mens Rea
In this piece at NRO Mark Steyn quotes NYU professor Jay Rosen as saying that l’affaire Gregory is “the dumbest media story of 2012.” Why? Because, as CNN’s Howard Kurtz breezily put it, everybody knows David Gregory wasn’t “planning to commit any crimes.”
He wasn’t?
I was under the impression that he knew in advance that possession of the magazine was illegal and that he planned to possess it any way. That sounds like planning to commit a crime to me.
What Messrs. Rosen and Kurtz mean to say is that David Gregory is one of us, and we know that he wasn’t going to do anything to damage our calm, so it would be unjust to hold him to the standards that we want to impose on them.
Gentle Reader, their them is our us.
Truths, Inconvenient Truths, and Statistics
Howard Nemerov debunks eight common misconceptions (or outright lies) told to the public by the advocates of gun control. (H/T, Instapundit)
Read the whole thing.
UPDATE–Another Inconvenient Truth.
Mocking David Gregory
Ann Althouse remembers what David Gregory’s magazine stunt reminded her of. She is also due a hat tip for pointing to this from Chips Ahoy.
