Billmon:
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May 9, 2006
WB: Why Big Media Hates Us
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Gulliver’s Annotated Travels
My years in Lord Bush’s cult were punctuated with uncountable campaigns and crusades. The Rangers and Pioneers had learned from the mistakes of the PNAC past, and now this time would surely bring the Lord’s message to the world. In 2004, these evangelical crusades included books, TV, films, songs, all part of an re-election campaign, “Who is Our True Leader?”.
The answer, of course, was George W. Bush. He was the living Perfect Master. (But you wouldn’t understand this properly until you joined his cult and learned his decision making.)
Bushies were told that when George Bush spoke on TV, people would watch it, then immediately want to join the Bushie cult. There would be hundreds of thousands of people queuing up to be initiated. Enough hundred thousands to even win a re-election!
I was particularly fond of the talkshows. The thing that impressed me most, was that they were promoted by “Clear Channel”, a mainstream media arm. This was surely a sign that the Lord’s message was breaking through into that ball of misery, confusion, and delusion Bushies called “Mission Accomplished”, and known by everyone else as, “Same Shit, Different Day”.
The decision of Fox to broadcast Bushie cult propaganda was probably based on a calculation involving the number of cult members and how much time they were likely to spend watching TV and then go shopping. Rupert Murdoch, an Australian media mogul, produced talkshow after talkshow, like a modern day Barnum & Bailey. It was the acceptable face of the cult at the time. Bushies have always had a big problem trying to explain their confused, contradictory beliefs to anyone who can count past two. At the time of the “Who is Our True Leader?” re-election campaign, Bushie beliefs included:
– Bush’s three cohorts Cheney, Rumsfeld and Powell were incarnations of the three disciples Peter, Paul and Mary.
– Bush’s mother Barbara was the Holy Mother of the Universe.
– God was great, but Bush was even greater. (Why? Because Bush revealed God to US. God spoke through Bush. Without George Bush, there was no God.)
– We all believed it was only a few years before nearly everybody on the planet was in the cult, then Bush would be crowned King of Earth, and the Golden Age of Mammonic-Christianity would officially begin, her triple-row of six-six-six pendulous golden breasts nourishing our every desire. (Our Mammonic powers would be so advanced by that time, we’d probably all be flying round in Escalade’s.)
In this cracked atmosphere of post-Net bubble, cult faith, 9/11 mythological insanity, “Who is Our True Leader?” was a breath of fresh air, rooted in science, reason, fact, and experience, swelled with spiritual speculation, and stripped of liberal equivocation. Bush, our God, was the Great Decision Maker. Yes, this really was the Crusade that would bring Freedom to the billions. How could they refute such evidence?
They were heady times indeed. The Dark Lord was walking the Earth with more power than ever before.
Then Our Leader screwed the pooch on deficit spending, got caught with his pants down on pre-knowledge and then cover-up of 9/11, a faux world war, a global economic meltdown … and that was the end of that.
Pouf, just the way Condi Rice likes to wave her Gucci hand in dismissal. Pouf.
He gone now. Bye-bye.
Posted by: Lash Marks | May 9 2006 4:31 utc | 2
Americans seem to still adhere to the notion that news is the “product” that networks/newspapers sell and that the viewers/readers are the “customers”.
The product they sell is advertising time & space, and the customers are the companies who would advertise there. The news and information they put out is just window dressing to get the public’s attention so we will read/watch the advertisements.
Blogging short-circuits the whole process. No wonder they hate it. Ignore that man behind the curtain!!!
Posted by: ralphieboy | May 9 2006 5:38 utc | 3
I’m looking forward to Billmon’s take on the news from the CIA.
Foggo, of course out.
WP says, “Under the plan, Vice Adm. Albert M. Calland III would be replaced as deputy director by retired CIA official Stephen R. Kappes, who quit in November 2004 in a dispute with then-Director Porter J. Goss.”
Is this Negroponte taking over as #2 in the administration? Or is he Cheney’s man? Damned if I can read the entrails.
Posted by: Dick Durata | May 9 2006 5:45 utc | 4
Good one Lash Marks, especially this:
The decision of Fox to broadcast Bushie cult propaganda was probably based on a calculation involving the number of cult members and how much time they were likely to spend watching TV and then go shopping.
Because it would make good (cynical) business sense if the people could be seduced into thinking all the hysterical faux-debates and oreillys infantile ego-centric pontification would dovetail seemlessly into the normalization of the greedy over the nice guys (finish last) culture — that the political establishment would indeed, when joined at the hip with religion, legitimize and promote a new hyper consumption guilded with an obliviousness to consequences. A sort of capitalist super-colloid.
Posted by: anna missed | May 9 2006 5:54 utc | 5
And just in case, Rupert is courting Hillary. The end (of all this) gets pushed further out of sight.
Posted by: anna missed | May 9 2006 9:07 utc | 6
My wife’s still hooked on the old fishwrap. It’s kind of funny when she’s telling me about something she’s reading and I finish the story for her because I’ve been following it already on the internets for about 36 hours or so.
That 20 bucks or so a month is waste in the budget, as far as I can tell. I’d sure like to hear if someone’s got a strategy for making the cable company not charge me for cable news shows I don’t watch..
Posted by: bcf | May 9 2006 14:09 utc | 7
I haven’t bought Pravda on the Potomac, Sunday edition, for 2 years.
Just as a political statement.
And it feels so good.
Please go over to the OT thread now, and send Mr. Cohen an EMail.
He feels unappreciated.
Posted by: Groucho | May 9 2006 14:20 utc | 8
Someone left the big fat Sunday paper (I don’t subscribe) on my front porch the other day. They’re giving them away!
It went straight to the puppy’s crate.
Thank you!
Posted by: beq | May 9 2006 14:53 utc | 9
Billmon is perpetuating anti-dinosaur smears. Shame on him.
Posted by: Lennonist | May 9 2006 15:07 utc | 10
The Smiths Blog to Washington
From Wickedpodia (as opposed to Wikion an older version.)
The Smiths Blog to Washington is a 1998-2006 political and journalistic movement which tells the story of an idealistic group of computer literates who moved from reading the news and personal journaling to blogging after the VRRC zips up their whoring pants long enough to impeach a president and then steal an election and then…other remaining questions to be answered…who are then compelled to take on the Washington spin machine to fill the void of a deceased press.
There, the Smiths are taken to task by a corrupt press establishment whom The Smiths naively admired before blowmegate because this press was their late father’s best and oldest friend during the Watergate era. As time goes on, the young Smiths become increasingly dismayed by the corruption in the halls of government that is never adequately reported by the press.
When it was first released, The Smiths Blog to Washington was attacked as an anti-American, pro-Communist movement for its portrayal of corruption in American Government. The Smiths were portrayed as nutty conspiracy theorists who hated America because they did not fall down in awe before the CoC’s codpiece in a mission accomplished set piece.
The blog was banned in Nazi Germany, and in other Fascist countries such as Italy and Spain, dubbing was used to alter the message of the blogs to conform with official ideology, according to the book, Remembering Things that Never Happened, or, My Life as a Right Wing Shill, by Anonymous.
In 1942 when a ban on American films was imposed in Nazi-occupied France, blogs were included at the last minute for when they would be invented in the future. One Paris theater owner reportedly screened blog entries around the clock for 30 consecutive days prior to the ban.
According to rumor, Ronald Reagan was Frank Capra’s original choice to play the role later given to James Stewart. Upon hearing of Capra’s intentions, a furious Harry Cohn, then head of Columbia Pictures, sent a telegram saying “only the damnedest of fools would ever believe Ron Reagan could stick up for the little guy.”
which brings the bloggers to the current era with a remake of Iran/Contra–well, it’s more like Iran/Contra meets The Crucible starring Dubya Bush as Ronnie Raygun, John Poindexter as himself, Albert Gonzales as Torquemada, John Negroponte as Constantine Simitis, Ann Coulter as Joe McCarthy and Ray Cohn and J. Edgar Hoover in drag (after she cannibalized them to gain the power of their schtick), and a special guest appearance by Saddam as himself, with Osama playing the part of Satan in the remix of South Park’s searingly dramatic re-enactment of the actual meeting between the two that never happened. Also includes a cast of thousands of sycophantic cable-generated talking heads whose collagen-injected mouths constantly move and yet, amazingly rarely say anything that is not prefaced by Blond Girl held, kidnapped, caught shopping in daylight…
—————-spoiler alert!!!!!!—————–
the part where newspapers start putting money into investigative reports is the most unbelievable moment in the blog movement, and anyway, it comes too late in the story for the audience to care anymore… when CNN changes its name to CNinanity and goes with Larry King 24/7, well, I thought, d’oh, as if it hasn’t already happened on a million other screens.
but the newspaper boys are really cute. it was so sad when they were gunned down by the big pharmas. okay, I’ve told too much already. go see the darn thing for yourself!
———–spoilers end———-
Posted by: fauxreal | May 9 2006 18:37 utc | 11
While I agree that the Internet makes a better news source, and the only subscription I get myself is a strictly local paper, consider the following:
(1) The Internet is entirely dependent on an extremely vulnerable physical structure — look at the attempt in Congress right now to undo Network Neutrality. In a month or so, the whole thing could come crashing down in one or more countries.
(2) There is no way to prove, in any meaningful sense, that something was ever posted on the Internet. Pulling something out of the Internet Wayback machine is suggestive, but not absolute, and in any case does not cover everything. A printout is automatically suspect because it is so easy to doctor. If someone chooses to pull something, in effect it is gone. They can’t do so with newspapers. (You’d think the Bush administration would want to move everyone to the Internet for that alone, but then again I doubt Bush is smart enough to operate a computer.)
(3) The Internet is expensive. Leaving aside the corporate and government funding that provides the backbone — I haven’t heard a new statistic for some years now, so this may no longer be true, but last I heard the public Internet is a money pit — in order to surf the web you need a computer, a reasonably reliable connection to the Internet, and electricity, all of which cost money. The Gate Foundation helps with that — just about the only admirable thing Bill Gates has done in his life — but even so we’re still talking about something you have to pay a great deal for. A newspaper? Well, you still have to pay, but get a subscription and you can read it anywhere, any time. You can even read it if the power goes out.
(4) It is possible that newspapers provide more jobs per reader than the Internet does. I can’t say — you would have to work out how many extra people are hired by phone companies, cable companies, computer companies, and electric companies to deal with increased demand because of the Internet, but I suspect that overall, you would find more jobs created by newspapers. And, of course, if you read a local paper, those jobs are mostly local as well, instead of being offshore-able.
(5) In theory, at least, newspapers have accountability. When somethinig is published, the newspaper is saying “we are staking our reputation and therefore our readership and livelihood on the truth of this story”. That this implied “threat” is no longer a particularly strong one is shown by Judy Miller — it’s pretty obvious that the only thing she regrets about having been a shill for the Bush administration is getting caught. The Times has probably lost few or no readers to another paper for having employed her, although perhaps it has hastened the flight of readers to the Internet. (The idea probably held more water decades ago, when most cities had two or more local papers covering national and internation news.) Still, it must be considered that the Internet makes it very easy for some would-be-Judy Miller to publish suspect news under an alias. If they get caught, they can just move on to a new alias. (Thus say I, and you’ll notice I’m anonymous myself.) This is why serious scholars are mostly leery of Wikipedia as a cited source as compared to print materials. (And one of the Wikipedia founders would mostly agree.)
(6) A lot of the current Internet reporting is mainly reactive to more traditional news sources. That may or may not be a factor — but if and when the newspapers decide to pack it in and cease publications, there will have to be a certain amount of change on the Internet to reflect it.
This list is, I realize, nothing particularly new or brilliant — other people have said it before. But one trend I have definitely seen in technology over the last decade is that a premature crow of victory often turns out to be the high point for the would-be victor. Remember when Java was going to break Windows’ strangehold? When Netscape was sneering at Microsoft for having missed out on the Internet? The huge number of vendors who were sure that e-books were the way of the future? Heck, remember back when Beta users used to be dismissive of VHS because VHS had an inferior feature set? I guess what I’m trying to say is: newspapers may well be doomed to cessation of publications, or at least vastly reduced scale of operations. But that doesn’t mean that the Internet is a guaranteed victor. Let’s wait another decade and see, rather than declare ourselves the winners right now.
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vcious When You Corner It | May 9 2006 19:21 utc | 12
Arrgh! Typos typos typos! “Gates Foundation”! “something”! [Bangs head against keyboard]
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | May 9 2006 19:25 utc | 13
newspapers may well be doomed to cessation of publications, or at least vastly reduced scale of operations. But that doesn’t mean that the Internet is a guaranteed victor. Let’s wait another decade and see, rather than declare ourselves the winners right now.
Very true – the net is vulnerable. I know, I did build some parts of it.
@Lennonist:
So Very Rude and Distasteful, These Slurs On The Dinosaurs
Posted by: Groucho | May 9 2006 19:49 utc | 15
i recall mcluhan saying something to the effect that getting into a newspaper was like slipping into a warm bath. since many of us stay immersed in the net & blogsphere all day, how long till we start sprouting gills?
Posted by: b real | May 9 2006 20:09 utc | 16
the internet as “media” is hot & cold, as much a radio as tv. so, I suppose one might say internet immersion simulteneously intensifies and deadens the sense of connection to publics and the isolation of “end-user.”
in mcluhan terms, I’m not sure this is good or not.
Posted by: slothrop | May 9 2006 20:43 utc | 17
I have a friend who is working on “electronic paper”, basically a super-flat screen, which will lead to the final marriage of the Internet and printed media.
And when high-speed connections become more commonplace, we could well wind up reading newspapers that look like something out of “Harry Potter” with moving pictures built into the format.
Posted by: ralphieboy | May 10 2006 12:20 utc | 18
Gene Lyons:
Tis A Consummation Devoutly To Be Wished
Posted by: Groucho | May 10 2006 14:30 utc | 19