Showing posts with label Dana Milbank. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dana Milbank. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Calling all Super Sleuths: Are you a good enough detective to solve this Mainstream Media news mystery?; Kathleen Parker and the Miami Herald's longstanding lack of columnist diversity


Calling all Super Sleuths: Are you a good enough detective to solve this Mainstream Media news mystery?; Kathleen Parker and the Miami Herald's longstanding lack of columnist diversity

If you saw the following five headlines in print or online, what would be your first guess as to what you'd just come across?


Mitt’s convention speech -In his own words. Well, almost.

Santorum’s failed pander - A false and snobbish attack on the president.


Out-of-touch Republicans - Romney and Santorum’s struggles bode ill for GOP.


Santorum’s war against elites - Campaigning with a chip on his shoulder.

Pushing Michigan away - Why the GOP won’t win the state in November.


What would be your guess for the source of this rather limited political perspective?

a.) A subscriber-only website for wealthy Democratic bundlers, all of whom are members in good standing of "Friends of O"?

b.) A college newspaper of a mid-sized Liberal Arts college in Ohio, with lots of high-minded, moralistic and incurious young women columnists who never attend their own school's home football or basketball games, and who aim to fit right in at some large East Coast newspaper, and just so they leave no doubt about where their political allegiances lie, they make sure they're right there in black & white.

c.) A special preview of the forthcoming print version of the monthly KosKooks4America comic book that will be bankrolled by George Soros?

d.) Your own local area's weekly VillageVoice-owned free newspaper that runs all those escort ads in the back, which opts NOT to do very much original enterprise reporting on local government or politics, opting instead to wait for the MSM to actually report their Conventional Wisdom take on the news, at which point the free newspaper's so-called reporters will run ten sentences of rants based on whatever the MSM headline is.

Those of you who are more Sherlock Holmes and Patrick Jane than Inspector Clouseau in your sleuthing will no doubt be pleased to discover that your intuition and instincts are still well-developed and accurate.
You've still got IT!

The correct answer is that the headlines above all came from today's Opinions page of The Washington Post.  http://view.ed4.net/v/PSLW3N/FXIPE2/YHHH8W4/0Z22UB/MAILACTION=1&FORMAT=H?wpisrc=nl_opinions


My screenshot of today's Washington Post Opinions page email, which I receive everyday.


Yes, that bastion of journalism diversity, where you too can find gainful employment as a reporter, editor or columnist, regardless of your sex, race, sexual persuasion or whichever Ivy League school you graduated from, as long as you are a team player and know how to sing in a choir without being asked.
You will NOT ad lib or deviate from the gospel according to The Washington Post.

The guilty parties above are, respectively:
Dana Milbank, Mitt’s convention speech, In his own words. Well, almost.

Kathleen Parker, Santorum’s failed pander, A false and snobbish attack on the president.

Harold Meyerson, Out-of-touch Republicans, Romney and Santorum’s struggles bode ill for GOP.

Ruth Marcus, Santorum’s war against elites, Campaigning with a chip on his shoulder.

Katrina vanden Heuvel, Pushing Michigan away, Why the GOP won’t win the state in November.


If there's anything above that deserves special attention due to its ironic nature, it's Kathleen Parker calling out Rick Santorum for calling President Obama being a snob.
Ironic because the worst kind of insufferable snob is one that won't admit it, and that's what Kathleen Parker is.


Well, that is besides being a journalist with a rather convenient memory, which is almost mandatory to be a card-carrying member of the MSM.
Which is to say that when reality bursts her version of the world, she finds it easy to either compartmentalize what challenges that view, or forget it entirely.
But aren't the facts supposed to matter?


Tell me, in this April 2008 video, who is Hillary Clinton accusing of being an elitist snob?



Hillary Clinton responds to Barack Obama's remarks to Democratic Party supporters at San Francisco fundraiser that "Small towns cling to guns or religion"
http://youtu.be/xNoJ0q6HrK8
"Pennsylvanians don't need a president who looks down on them. They need a president who stands up for them, who fights for them, who works hard for your futures, your jobs, your families." 
-Hillary Clinton
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/us/politics/13campaign.html

Oh, now you remember!

A close examination of Parker's own past columns over the years show what a genuine hypocrite and snob she is, when, at various times, in order to make herself more marketable, she's tried to create new identities for herself.


For a while, Parker tried to cultivate a public image of herself as the 'thoughtful Moderate,' who called-out the excesses of both liberals and conservatives, or, if she thought that it would play better, cast herself as the  modern-day educated "Southern" woman columnist, someone who was game to play at being semi-folksy in calculated ways once in a while to differentiate herself from the gray blather around her, esp. when she was  in Orlando.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/kathleen/parker091008.php3?printer_friendly


Sure, because Orlando was the South!
Maybe to someone who never leaves Manhattan. 


Locally, there's really no telling why the Miami Herald foolishly has persisted in running Parker's all-so-predictable columns, or even worse, running those of awful Mary Sanchez of the Kansas City Star, whose dreary and unoriginal columns sound exactly like the Herald's own Editorial Board's predictable and myopic view of the world, esp. on illegal immigration, rather than make any serious effort to develop their own clever and original South Florida-based conservative or moderate columnist, whose fresh, idea-filled columns would run in the OpEd section, not in the State & Local section, which as most sharp-eyed observers would agree, is THE most predictable section of a newspaper its size in America.
Stale and reeking of moth balls.


If you agree, and I know that many of you do, given the feedback I get about the state of the Herald in emails and at various public policy or govt. events throughout South Florida, where I run into and speak to friends and colleagues and people who at least claim to read the blog, maybe you should share your concerns about that (and the Miami Herald's general state of listlessness) with Herald publisher David Landsberg about his singular lack of vision and ambition for the paper in the 21st Century.


In case you forgot, I already have -a few times.
And publicly posted it here on the blog for all to see.


In any case, for whatever illogical reason they have, the Herald keeps running Parker and yet when push comes to shove, how does her column really differ fundamentally in its message from reflexively liberal Dana Milbank's or Eugene Robinson's?


That's just it, it doesn't.
It's the chorus effect.
Lots and lots of the very same perspective are NOT equivalent to a diversity of opinions. 

Friday, February 13, 2009

Marlins Stadium Non-Vote; Pronounced Plouffle as in Liar

7:30 p.m.

Just got back from the Marlins Stadium non-vote at County HQ in downtown Miami, at the multi-use, multi-ethnic and multi-agenda driven Stephen P. Clark Government Building, via the 93 Biscayne Max.
Stephen P. Clark Building. 111 NW First Street, Miami, FL 33128

This morning was the first time I've taken that semi-express bus in about a year from nearby Aventura, and after the trip back to Aventura early this evening, all I can say is that it's much
quicker -and imminently more relaxing- in the morning while reading the papers, though I did get some great shots of The Freedom Building at sundown; while waiting at the same red light that I haven't caught green on since the first term of the Reagan Administration.

While coming back home I also saw the multiple police helicopters flying over North Miami -at least three- looking for a multiple-murder suspect as the bus trudged north and approached NE 125th St. & Biscayne.  Two of them remained stationary as if frozen, and the other making sweeping banking turns while it looked for the suspect, as if it were trying to flush a bird out of some trees.

Just a thought here, but perhaps in the future, Metro-Dade Police and local LEOs might want to consider contacting Transit HQ so that they can get BOLOs out via radio to bus drivers going thru areas where a dragnet is taking place, so they don't let the suspect board and have everything become a hostage drama.  One of precisely the sort that would be turned into a very mediocre film that I would never seek out at the movie theater and only see once it's in heavy rotation on TNT or USA Cable.

As it was, I already felt like I was a hostage for the better part of the day downtown, as the county's  powers-that-be did a positively dreadful job of keeping the hundreds of folks joining me for the first few hours properly informed, while we parsed phone messages and rumors that came in as one hour turned into another.
Mere "Extras" in someone else's film.

Meanwhile, just a few feet away down the hallway, conveniently, members of the local media could watch the City of Miami hearing live on a TV, while hoi-polloi like me and the others were left to grasp at straws and try to figure out what was going on at Dinner Key.
More mañana on the Marlins Stadium debacle and the half-assed communication and citizen customer service efforts.

After being there for almost six hours, and seeing lots of familiar faces, including some other bloggers and public policy website folks, I also met some new folks of a similar mind-set, many of whom I'll be talking about over the weekend as I discuss everything that happened -and didn't.
Avec photos.

But that will wait 'till then, since I first need to relax and get ready to watch some action and
adventure with the continuing chronicles of Sarah Conner and the new ones of the amazing Eliza Dushku on the Dollhouse series premiere on Fox-TV.
Lucky Friday the 13th has finally come for those of us who love both.

But before I get too comfortable, I wanted to share this great video that I saw earlier today,
before leaving for downtown Miami, from my daily Mediabistro Fishbowl DC email on yet 
another sign of the "Obama difference."
Not for the first time I'm here to say, be careful what you wish for.

Take it away Dana Milbank at the National Press Club.