A couple years ago there was a rumour to that effect going round the local high school.
Apparently said rumour was kicked off by a "rival" who had an eye on one of the boys on that team, a boy who was smitten by that top cheerleader.
All of that is just typical teenage drama, but social media magnifies these petty wranglings into shit that becomes really important, certainly for those reading about it on Facebook, which, as much as I find it hard to believe, is where a whole lot of folks get their news.
And that should be truly frightening.
I don't mean to sound elitist here, but if you get your news from Facebook, you're a retard.
Shop around a little. All the news sites are bullshitting you one way or another. With a little time and a little experience, you'll gradually work your way to a place where you can, at least most of the time, tell the difference between the wheat and the chaff.
The difference between the Shit and the Shinola...
**********
For those who get their news from Facebook, I suggest you fork out a few bucks per month to check out WSJ, NYT, and the WaPo.
Canadians should augment that with a daily perusal of the Globe and Mail, even though they're unlikely to find anything interesting there that didn't originate in the already mentioned titles.
Canada is, after all, first among the me-too nations.
While you're busy taking in the Empire's point of view, you should also take a peek at what's up at Sputnik, RT, AJE, Press TV, and the Jerusalem Post.
And there's plenty of once-prime English language journo's, even Pulitzer types, who have been blackballed from the mainstream and are basically glorified bloggers now, because, get this, they thought it was their job to speak truth to power!
So you'll find Chris Hedges at Truthdig.
Robert Parry founded Consortium News.
Seymour Hersh shows up on the fringes sometimes, but he's clearly not welcome in the MSM.
Spend enough time rooting around in the bowels of social media and those foreign news feeds, and you'll soon discover that errant cheerleaders are the least of our problems...
Showing posts with label Seymour Hersh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Seymour Hersh. Show all posts
Sunday, June 16, 2019
Saturday, May 4, 2019
"Free Press" can't remember who Julian Assange is
The Globe and Mail's opinion section was today given over to a celebration about how great and vital a free press is. I don't disagree with that. But I think a lot of the self-congratulatory twaddle I read there today misses the point.
In twelve pages of supposed journalism we are treated to innumerable references to Donald Trump, but one solitary passing reference to Julian Assange, and that was in the Discuss section, in an email exchange between two non-journalists. Unless there erupts a public furore over Assange's kidnapping from the Ecuadorian embassy, he's on his way to Donald Trump's USA, where he can expect to spend the rest of his life in prison.
That furore is unlikely to erupt when our "free press" refuses to acknowledge that the persecution of Julian Assange is the signal current event defining how free our free press is allowed to be, which is very free, so long as your journalism hews to approved parameters. That's why once acclaimed journalists like Robert Parry and Seymour Hersh are no longer affiliated with mainstream media; they crossed that line.
They've been reduced to writing blogs after they got carried away with "speaking truth to power."
Much is made of the fact that some thirty journalists died on the job in the past year. I think they missed a couple in Israel, but our free press misses a lot of stuff that goes on in Israel. Be that as it may, thirty is not a big number. That stat tells me that professional journalists are far more likely to die of complications from alcoholism than they are as a result of their journalism. Farmers and construction workers face far greater mortality risks than professional journalists do.
As for Trump, it should be beyond obvious that POTUS 45 doesn't actually have a lot of clout in terms of decision making in the Exceptional Nation. Generally, once Trump announces a policy initiative, the opposite happens, unless of course it's a tax break that the billionaire class can live with. Beyond billionaire-friendly tax breaks, Trump doesn't get to decide much beyond whether he'll have KFC or a Big Mac for lunch.
The stand-out story in those twelve pages was by Steve Adler, editor-in-chief of Reuters. The sub-head of his article is "Journalists must take steps to restore public trust in the work that they do."
That's exactly right. The credibility of journalism wasn't destroyed by conspiracy theorists and it wasn't destroyed by Donald Trump.
It's been eroded over a long period of time by shoddy journalism produced by professional journalists working at the most prestigious titles in news media.
In twelve pages of supposed journalism we are treated to innumerable references to Donald Trump, but one solitary passing reference to Julian Assange, and that was in the Discuss section, in an email exchange between two non-journalists. Unless there erupts a public furore over Assange's kidnapping from the Ecuadorian embassy, he's on his way to Donald Trump's USA, where he can expect to spend the rest of his life in prison.
That furore is unlikely to erupt when our "free press" refuses to acknowledge that the persecution of Julian Assange is the signal current event defining how free our free press is allowed to be, which is very free, so long as your journalism hews to approved parameters. That's why once acclaimed journalists like Robert Parry and Seymour Hersh are no longer affiliated with mainstream media; they crossed that line.
They've been reduced to writing blogs after they got carried away with "speaking truth to power."
Much is made of the fact that some thirty journalists died on the job in the past year. I think they missed a couple in Israel, but our free press misses a lot of stuff that goes on in Israel. Be that as it may, thirty is not a big number. That stat tells me that professional journalists are far more likely to die of complications from alcoholism than they are as a result of their journalism. Farmers and construction workers face far greater mortality risks than professional journalists do.
As for Trump, it should be beyond obvious that POTUS 45 doesn't actually have a lot of clout in terms of decision making in the Exceptional Nation. Generally, once Trump announces a policy initiative, the opposite happens, unless of course it's a tax break that the billionaire class can live with. Beyond billionaire-friendly tax breaks, Trump doesn't get to decide much beyond whether he'll have KFC or a Big Mac for lunch.
The stand-out story in those twelve pages was by Steve Adler, editor-in-chief of Reuters. The sub-head of his article is "Journalists must take steps to restore public trust in the work that they do."
That's exactly right. The credibility of journalism wasn't destroyed by conspiracy theorists and it wasn't destroyed by Donald Trump.
It's been eroded over a long period of time by shoddy journalism produced by professional journalists working at the most prestigious titles in news media.
Saturday, October 1, 2016
Journalism is over
But journalism schools are not. Not yet, anyway.
Sooner or later the young keeners who want to become the next Oriana Fallaci or I.F. Stone will have to face a new reality. There is no place in contemporary journalism for that kind of reportage.
Me and the Farm Manager travelled to Port Elgin today for Pumpkinfest. We go for the cars, not the pumpkins. It costs five bucks to see the pumpkins. The cars are free. It's one of the finest free car shows you'll ever get anywhere.
Thirty years ago I was doing a bit of writing for my college paper, the Ontarion. Interviewed the President of the Ontario Veterinary College for a story. By the time I got home there was a message on my answering machine from his secretary; he'd like to see the story before it came out. As in he'd "like to see" it or else.
Or else what?
He was the top dog at the most prestigious school at U of Goo.
I was a dumbshit undergrad with writerly pretensions.
He wore a Rolex.
I wore a Timex.
Or else what do you think?
Big turn-out of vintage muscle cars today, and also a lot of old pick-ups. My spirits were buoyed by the FM's attraction to a number of fifty's era trucks. I can almost see myself bringing home a mid-fifties hot-rodded F-100 and getting away with it...
Almost.
Nice turn out of sixties and seventies muscle cars; Super Bees, Road Runners, and so forth. What a shame that you can go to your local Subaru dealer and buy a car off the lot that will smoke those "muscle cars" in the quarter mile, never mind what they'll do to you in a corner.
There were a number of big block Chevys on display, including a supercharged Chevelle with wheelie bars. You can go to your local Dodge dealer and order up a four-door Dodge Charger that will leave your supercharged Chevelle with its wheelie bars twenty car-lengths behind in a drag race.
On the way home I stopped at the Korean variety store and picked up my Saturday Globe and Mail for $5.25. Joked with the guy behind the counter about when it might become a six dollar newspaper.
Probably next month, we agreed.
When I related that exchange to the FM, she rejoindered, "journalism is over."
And she's right.
Would Bernstein or Woodward get past their unpaid internship today? Or Seymour Hersh? I doubt it.
Helen Thomas had a great thing going till she ran afoul of the winds of political correctitude.
If those winds are strong enough to silence a veteran journo like her, imagine how they must intimidate some newbie hoping to impress on her unpaid internship.
We've still got a few folks speaking truth to power. Gideon Levy and Robert Fisk come to mind. But by and large the media space is now occupied by complacent and compliant J-school grads who will tweet and blog and Facebook according to their employers expectations.
The Farm Manager was right.
Journalism is over.
Sooner or later the young keeners who want to become the next Oriana Fallaci or I.F. Stone will have to face a new reality. There is no place in contemporary journalism for that kind of reportage.
Me and the Farm Manager travelled to Port Elgin today for Pumpkinfest. We go for the cars, not the pumpkins. It costs five bucks to see the pumpkins. The cars are free. It's one of the finest free car shows you'll ever get anywhere.
Thirty years ago I was doing a bit of writing for my college paper, the Ontarion. Interviewed the President of the Ontario Veterinary College for a story. By the time I got home there was a message on my answering machine from his secretary; he'd like to see the story before it came out. As in he'd "like to see" it or else.
Or else what?
He was the top dog at the most prestigious school at U of Goo.
I was a dumbshit undergrad with writerly pretensions.
He wore a Rolex.
I wore a Timex.
Or else what do you think?
Big turn-out of vintage muscle cars today, and also a lot of old pick-ups. My spirits were buoyed by the FM's attraction to a number of fifty's era trucks. I can almost see myself bringing home a mid-fifties hot-rodded F-100 and getting away with it...
Almost.
Nice turn out of sixties and seventies muscle cars; Super Bees, Road Runners, and so forth. What a shame that you can go to your local Subaru dealer and buy a car off the lot that will smoke those "muscle cars" in the quarter mile, never mind what they'll do to you in a corner.
There were a number of big block Chevys on display, including a supercharged Chevelle with wheelie bars. You can go to your local Dodge dealer and order up a four-door Dodge Charger that will leave your supercharged Chevelle with its wheelie bars twenty car-lengths behind in a drag race.
On the way home I stopped at the Korean variety store and picked up my Saturday Globe and Mail for $5.25. Joked with the guy behind the counter about when it might become a six dollar newspaper.
Probably next month, we agreed.
When I related that exchange to the FM, she rejoindered, "journalism is over."
And she's right.
Would Bernstein or Woodward get past their unpaid internship today? Or Seymour Hersh? I doubt it.
Helen Thomas had a great thing going till she ran afoul of the winds of political correctitude.
If those winds are strong enough to silence a veteran journo like her, imagine how they must intimidate some newbie hoping to impress on her unpaid internship.
We've still got a few folks speaking truth to power. Gideon Levy and Robert Fisk come to mind. But by and large the media space is now occupied by complacent and compliant J-school grads who will tweet and blog and Facebook according to their employers expectations.
The Farm Manager was right.
Journalism is over.
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Stop reading that senile liar Seymour Hersh and get the truth from the NYT and Wall Street Journal!
I was somewhat taken aback by Louis Proyect's character assassination of Seymour Hersh.
In fact, I had to read it a couple of times just to make sure I wasn't missing a level of irony or two, but no, Proyect seems to be serious.
Proyect styles himself "the unrepentant Marxist." Fair enough, I suppose, but it's a strange sort of Marxism that turns to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal for its truths.
What we know for sure is that regime change in Syria is something that has been on the agenda of The Empire for many years. Many of the details of how that is playing out have been obscured by the fog of war.
I am reasonably confident that the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have spread far more fog than Seymour Hersh.
And as for senility, Proyect's not that far behind Hersh in that trip down the Alzheimer highway.
In fact, I had to read it a couple of times just to make sure I wasn't missing a level of irony or two, but no, Proyect seems to be serious.
Proyect styles himself "the unrepentant Marxist." Fair enough, I suppose, but it's a strange sort of Marxism that turns to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal for its truths.
What we know for sure is that regime change in Syria is something that has been on the agenda of The Empire for many years. Many of the details of how that is playing out have been obscured by the fog of war.
I am reasonably confident that the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have spread far more fog than Seymour Hersh.
And as for senility, Proyect's not that far behind Hersh in that trip down the Alzheimer highway.
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