- I Am Spartacus

I've been overwhelmed lately... sorry for my absence. I've been handling multiple crises, but I should be past it (for better or worse) in a week or so.

In the meantime you will not want to miss this announcement from Michael Walsh at the new "Bigjournalism.com" website. He says all the things about the journalism business that has bothered many of us for years. He's an insider; a producer of "the news" who makes it clear that those of us who have problems with the MSM aren't crazy after all. A small sample:

Around the time of the Iran-Contra affair, politics entered the newsroom. Maybe it was Oliver North and his chest full of fruit salad. Maybe it was Arthur Liman, grilling the witness. Maybe it was Brendan Sullivan, shouting, “I’m not a potted plant!” Still reeling from Ronald Reagan’s historic, 49-1 wipeout of Walter Mondale, reporters started rooting against the administration, and not just the op-ed columnists. The ideal of American journalism – objectivity – began to be assaulted, at first obliquely and then openly. Deconstructionism, the curse of the modern university, set in: how can you really be objective? Don’t we all bring our prejudices to bear on what we see and hear? Isn’t it really impossible to know the truth? Why bother?

And so American journalism began to look, sound and read more like European journalism, frankly partisan and often untrustworthy, even in its presentation of what we used to laughingly call “facts.” By the time the Clinton Administration had succeeded the hapless rump parliament of G.H.W. Bush, the battle was joined and impeachment only served to drive another nail into the coffin of any Code of Ethics.

The election of 2000, and Bush Derangement Syndrome, was the end, and since then the MSM – having essentially self-selected itself into a giant Harvard fraternity, as conservatives like me left to do other things – has been at war, not only with its own readership, but with the country. To watch the self-congratulatory logrolling of Morning Joe (which could be a good show, but isn’t) on MSNBC at dawn, and the roaring sneer-fest that is the station’s programming-bloc over four hours in the evening, a parade of Mr. Ed, Sputtering Chris, the Former Sportscaster, and the lovely and talented Rachel Maddow, is to see the real face of the leftist media, and what it thinks of you.



On many levels I'm a proffessional consumer of news, and from my persepctive the problems with the MSM are obvious. I haven't watched a big network (ABC,NBC,CBS,CNN) news program in more than a decade.... not even a little. What's the point? I already know what they're going to say.

At least now it looks like the people who have something else to say, will be saying it in more places than on Fox News.