Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Embarrassment
And the lack thereof. Michael Malone at ABC beautifully, if tragically, with shame, reports on the ”get-a-room” performance of the national media in this presidential election year and his own awakening:
The traditional media are playing a very, very dangerous game — with their readers, with the Constitution and with their own fates.
The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I’ve found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.
But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I’ve begun — for the first time in my adult life — to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was “a writer,” because I couldn’t bring myself to admit to a stranger that I’m a journalist.
Yeah, well here’s my advice on that point, Mike. Call yourself a reporter, an editor, a columnist, a commentator, whatever it is you actually do. “Journalist” is a bogus word for people who are trying to make it sound like this wretched business is something exalted, something professional, something that requires arcane, secret knowledge hard come by. All things it never was, as amply demonstrated on a regular basis by some of the best in the business working at some of the finest publications in the nation. Yes, there are some skills, knacks and tricks of the trade. It helps to be familiar with stuff like … your subject matter … the English language … telephones and computers. Bloggers, untrained, in a couple of years have shown that millions upon millions of dollars have been wasted in this country on journalism degrees.
Dadgummit, but I do love reading about people spending good money to get degrees in things, and then regretting it.
No, that’s not really true. I don’t like reading about that at all. I do like it when going through rituals, is a process thought to be equivalent to actually learning something, or achieving something, and then at the eleventh-hour one or several folks have light bulbs go off in their heads…duh…hey, maybe this wasn’t a good thing we did here. And if ever there was a ritual exalted inappropriately, placed on the same level as learning something or doing something, inappropriately — this stuff we nowadays call “journalism” is a wonderful candidate for such a problem.
We’re waking up.
Don’t know if it’ll be enough of us, or whether it will be in time. But we are waking up.
Unfortunately, I think it’s safe to say now that journalism is changed forever. Irredeemably. All because of Obamamania. Some eighty or ninety percent of this slow erosion — and that’s a conservative estimate — took place within the calendar years of 2007-08.
Sad.
Hat tip: Insty.
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Two minds with but a single post.
- vanderleun | 10/28/2008 @ 23:54The constitution is threatened by those abusing the rights given from it. “Freedom of the Press” is fully abused now, “Freedom of Speech” is heavily abused now. The abuse of our freedoms will cost us our freedoms.
- Shannon in AZ | 10/29/2008 @ 04:16The degree fixation is ruining our country.
I’m not a historian, but I would bet a bottle of turkey 101 proof of course, that if a historian would do his homework, every major accomplishment has been done by somebody that was totally fixated on the problem at hand and that they did not have a degree..
How many of our corporations were founded by somebody that didnt have a degree.
How many of us working in the IT business for the last 30 years that built the majority of the systems that are still functioning did not have a degree.
Get the degree only people out of the way and lets build America up and make it even stronger.
Virgil
- vbierschwale | 10/29/2008 @ 11:18http://www.KeepAmericaAtWork.com