Comments on: Huffington Post Bailout

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 05:19:31 +0000

journalism as an advertising platform, a cultural indoctrinaire, anything, but naything of any real first person substance. You might enjoy I.F. Stones writings or if you really want to go first person Ginsberg’s Howl. The reason our 5th estate is so powerful is its not only recording “its” version of our culture vis a vie editorial oversight and publishers enforcement re:advertisers, but… its so powerful as its synthsizing the culture de novo from its selected abstracts. In many ways the print and noise media is our modern meditational but like anything else just how many handfuls of corn chips can you really eat and get anything new out of it?

By: karinova

karinova — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 05:12:46 +0000

I’ve gotten to a place where I make a point to seek out news I don’t want to hear.

By: karinova

karinova — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 05:09:52 +0000

Brian,
Exactly. Cable news goes down easy, just the way you like it, and is just about as substantive and nutritious as fast food. Also, it clogs you up. There have been sooo many stories in the past few years– hard stories– that just don’t get covered.People’s LIVES are at stake in Iraq/Af’stan and at home, and yes, it’s complicated and messy, but it’s important and there ARE facts that can be reported.Instead we get the easy-to-respond-to stories, foolish distractions like the Palin family’s clothes, and the Obama childrens’ school. What is this, high school? Again, I repeat: MY life is at stake. Give it to me straight; I can take it.

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 04:35:21 +0000

its pretty fair to say much of what passes for journalism is an info-mercial of sorts, a repackaging of ideology of first resort, a moving shell game. plausability sells the story after you provoke the reader to jump on board. As all news organizations throw out their organic journalists of walking word processors we will get to the point that net-net we will simply be co-conspirators in papering variously politically and editorially approved artifices. Just pick up a fox or msnbc lens and start your day your way. Never though hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, have it your way, would morph into journalism.

By: karinova

karinova — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 04:34:07 +0000

Full disclosure: I’m black, female, and moderate-to-liberal. I’ve never lived away from a coast; I grew up in NYC and now live in California, near SF. I’m an immigrant (totally legal! settle down!).

I love both HuffiPo AND RedState. I just don’t think they’re news, no matter how popular they are.

By: karinova

karinova — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 04:29:33 +0000

You know it’s funny. I admit my personal definition of MSM (newspapers, networks, PBS, anyone claiming to be “news”) is only semi-rational and may not be durable for long. At some point, all media will all be fully blended, and all news will be delivered via the tv/internet. So it’ll be harder to say exactly what “real” hard journalism is. The industry better start defining it– at least to themselves– ASAP.

For now though, I see a difference between a water cooler discussion of the paper and the paper itself (no matter how disciplined and neutral the discussion). RedState and HuffiPo don’t break or report news, they parse it. To put it another way, the NYT *has* an op-ed page; HuffiPo *is* an op-ed page.

Again, I’m not criticizing HuffiPo. It is what it is. It’s just that in my mind, “news” doesn’t parse.