Michael Gracie

Getting ready for the weekend

Topping the sleaze charts:
• Government officials got big loan discounts from Countrywide. “Friends of Angelo” included, who else, but the heads of congressional banking and finance committees. Note - these folks voted for a government mortgage bailout plan, and no wonder - they’re getting foreclosed on.

Voted “Best Value From Your Stimulus Check”:

• To hell with retail purchases - get “more bang” for your stimulus check dollar. A new “core inflation” measure is just around the corner…ex food and energy and sexual favors.

And last and least:

• A judge recuses himself from obscenity case over a purportedly obscene website, but it seems what was truly obscene was the media’s lack of fact finding standards. The media will continue to cry about the internet killing them, never understanding the simple truth - their product is for shit.

Alan Dershowitz and Bill Bennett collaborate:

“We two come from different political and philosophical perspectives, but on this we agree: Over the past few weeks, the press has betrayed not only its duties but its responsibilities.” - via Instapundit.com

I’ll bet the botnet building sucker who was “inadvertently” outed by the Washington Post is agreeing with those guys too.

I don’t feel the least bit sorry for him.

You aren’t going to find any scoops here, as I don’t pay much attention to politicians or celebrities, and I think the media is “pre-paid.” So it doesn’t really matter to me whether this site is afforded the same protections as the mainstream media. Nonetheless, we are all one big community, so it is a bummer to hear the Onine Freedom of Speech Act died.
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Journalism.org recently released their 2005 report on the state of the news media. We have seen a lot of interesting changes taking place in news. Participatory journalism, centering on the blogosphere, has been the main event. But lets not forget the battles Google News has had and is having, The New York Times purchase of About.com, and the number of longtime nightly news anchors calling it quits.

I think this latest report may shed some light on the underlying issues which created some of the events above, as well as what the future holds. While not a quick read, the report can be printed in parts from the index. You can find it here: State of the News Media.

Mark Cuban has a follow-up on bloggers pounding traditional media. In Political Bloggers - the new paparazzi, Mark presents the case for mass media outlets to stay on alert over this new force in reporting.

Mr. Cuban suggests that traditional media outlets are going to see continued and accelerating activity from the blogging community, and that more prime-time reporters’ heads may roll as a result. I couldn’t agree more.

Mark also suggested that the powers that be could head off this onslaught by showing some respect for the blogging community, and maybe even invite them in for a little tea and crumpets. I couldn’t agree more, again.

But it just won’t happen. There is too much money (and arrogance) at play here. I suspect the bloodbath will continue.

Meanwhile, when is my streamed, holographic, scent dispersing, “jump-into-the-set” programming going to start, Mark?

You can read my original, comic post here.