Category Archives: Journalism

Updated: CNN On Tea Protest: 'Not Really Family Viewing'

Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Liberty, Media, Propaganda, Race, Taxation

How far has the level of “news” fallen when a reporter doesn’t know that her role is to report, not editorialize.

The following is an irate display of ignorance and arrogance by a CNN anchor (via Glenn Beck). Following a rude “exchange”–it was certainly not an interview–with a clean-cut patriot carrying a toddler, who addressed the vile woman respectfully as “Ma’am,” Madam resorted to this rant:

“I think you get the general tenor of this. It’s anti-government, anti-CNN, since this is highly promoted by the rightwing conservative network Fox. And since I can’t really hear much more and I think this is not really family viewing, toss it back to you.”

Note the tone “Susan Roesgen” adopts; it drips contempt. Roesgen ought to be fired, simply because this is not journalism; it’s activism.

Update I (April 18): CNN defended Roesgen: “She was doing her job, and called it like she saw it.” From oral-sex jokes to red neck and racist insults: there has been not a vestige of honest reporting about tea party protests from mainstream malpractitioners.

Poisonous Pundits Never Go Away

America, Economy, Elections 2008, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, Journalism, Media, Political Economy

Just a few months back, during the Bush era, high-ranking commentators like Larry Kudlow and proxies were touting the strength of the US stock market. Stocks were undervalued. The economy was “strongly reaccelerating.” “Goldilocks, Goldilocks,” Kudlow would crow from the CNBC rooftop. (What on earth does than mean?)

Kudlow and Company could not say enough about the economic benefits of a depreciating dollar. A weak dollar was an asymptomatic blessing, helping to make “US assets very cheap,” and thus ameliorating the trade imbalance. Never mind that it has made Americans poorer.

That was the man and his entourage’s cri de coeur.

“Today’s economic weakness is coming from the business side, not the sub-prime/housing/consumer side,” Kudlow wrote in January 2008.

Back then, Kudlow called for cheaper money and more credit: “the Fed needs to deliver a 50 basis point rate cut at its January 30 meeting. A big-bang rate cut would help businesses, consumers, and mortgage owners. It would make the cost of money cheaper and expand the overall liquidity base of the economy. … Inflation is the most overrated issue out there,” Kudlow asserted.

Kudlow failed to see that government had set the scene for the “minority Meltdown.”

Another snake-oil merchant is Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal. He wrote a book praising Bush’s quicksand society. It was titled “Bullish on Bush: How the Ownership Society Is Making America Richer.” Fox New’s Greta Van Susteren has seen fit to make the man who praised the state’s house-for-every-Hispanic schemes an authority on our economic woes.

Like Kudlow, Moore’s congenital inability to call the situation has not dented his career.

Now Kudlow has switched, conveniently, cribbing Peter Schiff’s analysis and pretending he was capable of the same prophetic predictions.

Why does he retain his job?

If you don’t believe me, check out the manner in which Schiff was maligned in 2007 by Kudlow’s crowd as another “Michael Moore,” for forewarning about the consequences of the US’s consumption and credit-based economy.

Riz Khan Interviews Amos Oz On Al Jazeera

Intellectualism, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Journalism, Literature

And an ‘A’ For Al-Jazeera Again.

Two exceptionally bright men, Riz Khan and Amos Oz, talk. If I’m stating the obvious, it’s because it’s rare to see an example of such objective, intelligent journalism in the American news media.

I’m an admirer of Oz’s work. His early books I devoured back in Israel, in Hebrew, naturally. (The man was extremely handsome). Oz is an exceptional writer; his books translate well too. I recommend them.

I’ve always thought of Oz as a dove–a man of the Left. But this is what the old Left used to be: reasonable, patriotic, fair (and manly).
Oz’s use of the English language—a second language—is charming, precise, and colorful. He exemplifies the older Israeli intelligentsia.

It’s a shame I can’t get Al Jazeera. American “news” channels are an example of cretinism (and the “V” factor) in action.

Part I:

Part II:

Updated: Coulter Clubs Countdown Keith

Ann Coulter, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Socialism

Commissar Keith Olbermann of MSNBC needed a good smack for his sneering pomposity, uncompromising partisanship, and dedicated efforts in furthering Fabian economic planning and centralization. Unlike the Obama Doberman, Rachel Maddow, his comrade in arms, will occasionally have Ron Paul on her show.

As a libertarian who opposed the war in Iraq and the occupation of Afghanistan (the only legitimate libertarian positions), I had once harbored a soft spot for Olbermann. It’s since become abundantly clear that he’s unprepared to so much as cross Obama–even when it becomes apparent that his man is digging-in in Afghanistan.

Ann Coulter’s angle is fun. I’d have never mustered the interest to look into Olbermann’s Ivy-League pretensions. Curiously, no less an august authority than the Newspaper of Record reported that Olbermann was a Cornell graduate. It turns out that it was from that school’s agricultural college that our earthy Keith rose to fame:

“… Keith didn’t go to the Ivy League Cornell; he went to the Old MacDonald Cornell.

The real Cornell, the School of Arts and Sciences (average SAT: 1,325; acceptance rate: 1 in 6 applicants), is the only Ivy League school at Cornell and the only one that grants a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Keith went to an affiliated state college at Cornell, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (average SAT: about that of pulling guards at the University of South Carolina; acceptance rate: 1 of every 1.01 applicants).”

I’ll be glued to the screen for the next hour, waiting to see how Keith handles the blow to his Cornell core. He’ll have to contend with quite a bit of snickering in the future.

A good read is “Olbermann’s plastic ivy.”

Update: Olbermann was flustered and awkward. He made Coulter his “Third Worst Person in the World,” and struggled to counter her revelations about his plastic Ivy degree. By appealing to her inclusiveness, Olbermann flunked logic miserably. Paraphrased:

“I thought we were all supposed to respect our fellow Cornell graduates no matter the college from which they graduated.”

An appeal to good will and emotion? How like a liberal to sidestep immutable truths by an appeal to emotion: “please be nice to me, Annie.”