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
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.
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
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.
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 Clintonhttp://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.
