Even The Drudge Report is now sleeping on weekends! Today's deadly al-Shabab terrorist attack at #WestgateMall in Nairobi is more proof, as if needed, that on Saturdays, in the year 2013, just like the past 15, the U.S. News Media has left the building and only the JV team is manning HQ -and that includes Fox News, which should've been airing Sky News' coverage but didn't. Heaven forbid something bad or important actually happens on a Saturday and we need to know the actual details

Channel Four News video: Kenya attack: Al Shabaab claims responsibility
Story at: http://www.channel4.com/news/kenya-nairobi-mall-shooting-gunmen-killed-shopping

Latest harrowing ITV video at: http://www.itv.com/news/story/2013-09-21/gunmen-open-fire-in-kenya-mall-nairobi/

http://www.itv.com/news/

Gunmen Open Fire In Kenyan Shopping Mall http://t.co/iYivMgoFeV
— Sky News (@SkyNews) September 21, 2013

Sky News hasn't updated this tweet in over seven hours even as more and more people have died in the terrorist attack. 
NOT impressive.
https://twitter.com/SkyNews

Hero of the day, a police officer carries a baby to safety on the barrel of his gun #WestgateMall attack. pic.twitter.com/doHvCezH6U
— Mohammed Hersi. (@hersimohammed) September 21, 2013

Keep up with tweets at: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23WestgateMall&src=hash&f=realtime

Toll has gone from 20 dead to 25 to 30 within a few hours.

Sky News is still sticking with 22 dead.

Witnesses say people were executed on scene.

Terrorists yelled out beforehand, "Muslims get out, we are here to rescue you."

Similarities to Mumbai attack already being made.

I've been watching and listening to SkyNews LIVE for hours at:

http://news.sky.com/templates/watch-live

So should you.

Disappointingly, but in keeping what I and many other have seen and commented on privately, even The Drudge Report has had nothing about this incident many, many hours after-the-fact.

That only adds fuel to the, first, speculation, and now, common belief, among myself and people I know throughout the country in the media that despite the record numbers of readers going to that website, the people who are actually physically manning the Drudge Report on weekends, whoever they are, are NOT doing as good a job as readers were used to, and came to expect on weekends years ago.
Boring stories stay up far too long -sometimes 3-4 days- and stories that ought to be up stay unposted after even lamestream media has them.
What the hell is going on? 

As I've detailed here on the blog more than a few times before, contemporaneously, largely as a result of MSNBC and CNN continually sleeping on the job while breaking news was happening around the world overnight -while I was awake and listening to the BBC or Sveriges Radio or watching the morning TV shows on SVT and TV4 in Sweden- Fox News Channel is what I usually turn to first when some Breaking News happens, but today they are TOTALLY f-ing missing the boat.

Watching them today is painful, like watching portfolio videotapes of some once-cute girl doing Community College TV newscasts in Oklahoma, circa 1987.
Why, why, why???

You have a family relationship with Sky News -you are the younger, dumber and more shallow brother in case you forgot- and yet Fox News is refusing to use any of those amazing resources, including video of the situation and reporters in the area.
Why?
What are you waiting for, an invitation?

We have a huge country where real news is happening all the time and yet Fox News is doing another story with three guests about funding Obamacare? Really???
Can you you please stop kicking Obama and contemplating your navel and your ass for just a couple of hours?
It's embarrassing for me as a regular Fox News viewer to see this disregard for viewers intelligence and be served up this swill.

And at 2 pm, as I just flipped the TV back to Fox from a college football game, they give us a tan John Boehner, the soon to be ex-Speaker of the House because of what a horrendous job he's been doing the past two years.
(It's a reflection of how much everyone within the House GOP either hates or dislikes Eric Cantor that he can't push over a push-over like Boehner that is barely coherent at times.)
Is everyone in New York today inside a TV studio sleeping?

Also, I've wanted to say this for quite a few days and since i haven't seen anyone else say it anywhere -that I've seen- let me be clear.
IF hundreds of people were missing from New York City's Upper West Side after a flood there, you better believe the national news coverage would've been a lot more intense, professional and lengthy than what we saw in Colorado this past week, which many NY and DC-based news organizations treated like another bus in India or Bangladesh that went off the side of a mountain and killed all aboard.
Colorado, they still consider you "flyover country," even if they come visit you to go skiing.

Oh well, hurricane season isn't over yet here in South Florida! 
And we all know how the people in New York at the TV networks root for us to get hit hard by one so they can fly in and do stories where they can 'act' like brave journalists facing the elements!
Just saying...

MSNBC's coverage of RNC is a marriage-made-in-heaven of Political Correctness & Ethnic Politics. If Mainstream Media's PC Police there deem it racist to say "Chicago," what does it mean NOW if you say "Chicago deep-dish"? Or, how many times can MSNBC jump-the-shark?

Speakmymind02 video:  Paranoid political correctness runs the roost when head rooster Chris Matthews is around, clucking his wild theories that for years have become increasingly creepy and offensive.
Chris Matthews: “They keep saying Chicago, by the way, you noticed?”
John Heilemann: “Well, there’s a lot of black people in Chicago”
These sort of cringe-inspiring PC moments are painful even when you didn't see them LIVE, but then that's MSNBC's problem in a nutshell: hardly anyone's watching their RNC  coverage, as they are being whipped by not only Fox News, but even pitiful CNN, with FNC beating them by a factor of more than 4.1:1. Only the party faithful turn there -the shut-ins getting their Liberal religion via cathode ray. Uploaded August 29, 2012. http://youtu.be/BW7nPFR0Oq8

MSNBC's coverage of RNC is a marriage-made-in-heaven of Political Correctness & Ethnic Politics. If Mainstream Media's PC Police deem it racist to say "Chicago," what does it mean NOW if you say "Chicago deep-dish"? Or, how many times can MSNBC jump-the-shark?

Having lived in Chicago during the mid-1980's, as well as Evanston and Wilmette, I can confirm that little bit of Breaking News knowledge imparted by jump-the-shark journo John Heilemann of New York Magazine -Chicago does indeed have many Blacks.
And many Poles, Eastern European/Russian Jews and tons of Mexicans, too.
Imagine that?

But then it IS the country's third-largest city.
It should hardly be surprising to anyone who knows America's history and especially its immigration patterns of the past 150 years.
That very mixture of cultures is another reason that I would have liked to have seen them get the Olympics in 2009 for 2016 instead of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

In case you recognized the name, yes, John Heilemann was the sub-subject of my August 22nd post, titled, Paul Ryan: Why he matters and needs to be unleashed on Obama and the Dems' treasure trove of bad ideas -he connects with smart, reasonable voters who see that under Obama, we're not just going the wrong direction on too many important issues, our margin of error is getting smaller everyday; DWS on thin ice with Obama HQ in Chicago but Sun-Sentinel is ignoring the story
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/paul-ryan-why-he-matters-and-needs-to.html

I lived in the Chicago area while Harold Washington, Jr. was mayor.
Yes, a Black man as mayor almost thirty years ago.
(Not that he would have gotten any votes from any members of Chris Matthews own family if they had lived there then.)
So how come they didn't mention that when they said, if you pardon the expression, "Chicago"?

Probably because mentioning something so fundamental to the city and to its recent history would've proved inconvenient, and not part of the MSNBC paranoid Talking Points narrative, since even now, when you say Chicago, people all over the world think first of Al Capone and corruption and the bears and the Cubs and pizza, not racial politics.
But, apparently, based on what he himself says and does, that's the first thing that Chris Matthews thinks of. 

Everyone who lived there at the time knows that without the White reform element in Chicago, Washington wouldn't have been elected.
Just like Tom Bradley in Los Angeles and David Dinkins in New York.
You know, many, many years after a Black man was elected mayor of a big city that was NOT  on either media-centric coast, Carl Stokes in Cleveland.
Not that it makes the fact any less important.

But who cares about that sort of common knowledge and common sense when you can get paid to sit around and make up crazy nonsense on LIVE TV and posit that saying "Chicago" is racist, and have nobody slap you in the back of the head.
So does this mean that when I say "Chicago deep-dish" I've stepped beyond the pale?

Chris Matthews and MSNBC Now Claim the Word 'Chicago' Is Racist
By Rusty Weiss 
August 30, 2012 at 12:12 a.m.

Chris Matthews was on Hardball tonight covering the Republican National Convention with guests Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post and John Heilemann of New York Magazine.  In what is seemingly the natural progression of things these days with Matthews, the subject of the 'otherization' of the President was being discussed.  Because, if you weren't aware already, Barack Obama is black, and any time a Republican chooses to discuss the failure that is his administration, the media will be there to quickly remind you that they only feel that way because of his skin color.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/08/30/chris_matthews_saying_chicago_is_racist.html

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/rusty-weiss/2012/08/30/chris-matthews-and-msnbc-now-claim-word-chicago-racist#ixzz252qumTv7



The Daily Caller
The DC Trawler with Jim Treacher blog
Another thread snaps in Chris Matthews’ frayed tether to reality
http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/30/another-thread-snaps-in-chris-matthews-frayed-tether-to-reality 

Not Breaking News: U.S. cablenets stay with taped programs rather than go LIVE from Paris as official results of 2012 French Presidential election are announced; watch election commentary LIVE from Paris at France24 or BFMTV

Not Breaking News: U.S. cablenets stay with taped programs rather than go LIVE from Paris as official results of 2012 French Presidential election are announced; watch election commentary LIVE from Paris at France24 or BFMTV


Final Ipsos poll via France24 at 8 p.m. in Paris: François Hollande 51.9 %, Nicolas Sarkozy 48.1%.


France24: Overall, 20.1 percent of French voters abstained from casting their ballots.
BFMTV says it was 81% participation.


Here's what the U.S. cable networks ran instead:


CNN - The Next List
MSNBC - Meet the Press (encore of NBC's telecast), which featured Tom Brokaw raising the complaint of voters that U.S. reporters are more than a bit full of themselves, and, that their being so keen on reporting on what George Clooney thinks at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, rather than DO THEIR JOBS, is one of the reasons.
Yes, the thin wall between serious news and Entertainment Tonight  
Fox News Channel - Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace (encore telecast)


Yes, with all the technology available to them, this is what we get from the Mainstream Media: nothing. C'est la vie!


You can watch the heated commentary LIVE in English via http://www.france24.com/en/aef_player_popup/france24_player#

Once you click the arrow, it'll work, but there's so much demand on the line now that every few minutes it slows down and requires refreshing, just like the LIVE blog.

Click the blue link in the bottom left marked Watch : FRANCE 24 live : SPECIAL

Or you can watch it in French via BFMTV at http://www.bfmtv.com/direct

Already, less than an hour after the official results were announced, many of the Socialist members who have appeared on TV are talking about the victory as something much larger than it is, esp, considering since it was not a legislative election.

(Those elections are next month.)

They sort of remind me of many of the young female thirty-something Democratic/GOP consultants we see too much of on TV in the U.S. all the time, who you'd really like to know what they've ever actually accomplished besides getting the attention of the show's male producers, because the facts don't seem to ever get in the way of what they say.
As becomes obvious when you listen.

Meanwhile, the Front National Le Pen supporters are crowing that they are the ones who really are responsible for Sarkozy's defeat and angling for more respect,

Sarkozy gave a very classy concession speech but at the beginning of it, one of the female reporters from France24 in Tulle, where Hollande supporters were celebrating, kept talking over Sarkozy for a bit before they killed her microphone.
Hollande has still not spoken as of 3:15 Eastern U.S.

MSM's 'Mirror, mirror on the wall' news approach: Earthquake in VA? Send resources to Times Square to interview pretty tourists -but nobody in VA!

My screenshot of Fox News Channel joining in the fray to the lowest common denominator -not explaining what really happened, but rather, what do people in New York City think about it?

Like the worst immature behavioral excesses of a teenage girl constantly looking to catch her own reflection in any passing mirror and a clueless dog who persistently chases after its own tail, we saw the American Mainstream Media in all their collective unsophisticated glory this afternoon, as an unusually large earthquake with its epicenter in Louisa County, about 40 miles NW of Richmond, Virginia's capital, hit around 1:51 p.m.

But why interview someone who was near where it happened -you know, in Virginia- when you can just send a network crew over to Times Square and interview pretty tourists, or have Wolf Blitzer stand out side near Union Station?

In going back and forth from one cablenet channel after another for an hour, I NEVER once saw a local Richmond TV station affiliate's live feed picked up as is usually the case. Why?

Why would I possibly care what people in NYC think?

Above, my screenshot of CNN's Wolf Blitzer reporting LIVE from 95 miles away from where something actually happened.

Get someone from The Brookings Institution on, stat!

Above, my screenshot of Fox News Channel brings us views of New York City's underpaid, sexually-harassed female office drones walking the pavement while they Tweet their mundane thoughts to their four "Followers" while walking across the street, and checking to see what California-based celebs they "Follow" think about what is happening thousands of miles away in Virginia.

Soon afterwards, Fox anchor Megyn Kelly makes her needless cryptic remark about receiving a message from a LEO about the possibility of The Washington Monument "leaning."

Nice going, reporting something before it's actually confirmed.

Why don't you report LIVE from underneath it? LOL!

The perpetually-indignant Kelly is the one Fox News personality I really dislike!

Usually, I mute her, but since my back was turned to her while I was on my computer reading reports from people who know what they're talking about,

http://www.usgs.gov/

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/

http://www.1140wrva.com/main.html

I left the volume turned up.

My mistake, since it only confirmed what I think about her -not much.

Above, my screenshot of MSNBC -refraining from blaming Tea Party supporters for a few minutes- shows The National Mall in Washington, on the left, looking west towards The Washington Monument, and at right, Times Square in NYC.

No doubt there were moviegoers in The Village seeing matinee performances of The Sorrow and The Pity who were forced to evacuate and, unfortunately, leave their organic food smuggled into the theater in their seats, as they lined up outside like lemmings, as eager liberal petition workers immediately descended upon them to sign up to protest something or another.

Oh, the agony of the news patriarchy!

It's all true! Amy Ridenour's "The Sad Truth About Media Coverage, and a Modest Plan for Reform"; Andrew Breitbart & the Norah O'Donnell contretemps

Smart Girl Summit: Andrew Breitbart on the MSM's Absurd Accusations About Tea Party Activists. August 1, 2011.

http://youtu.be/3I19td8cfWM

National Center for Public Policy Research

The Sad Truth About Media Coverage, and a Modest Plan for Reform

by Amy Ridenour

August 7, 2011 at 5:06 PM

The sad truth about media coverage is not just the bias, but the focus.

The country has just had its credit rating downgraded for the first time ever. The cable networks are all over it. So do you suppose the focus is on how to fix it? Only a minority of the coverage, and a small, superficial minority at that, goes in that direction. Mostly, news interviewers want to know: which political party's fault is it?

Read the rest of Amy's spot-on essay at:

http://www.conservativeblog.org/amyridenour/2011/8/7/the-sad-truth-about-media-coverage-and-a-modest-plan-for-ref.html

Meanwhile, former MSNBC-er and new CBS News reporter Norah O'Donnell was part of a contretemps the other day about bias accusations at a recent White House press conference over the subject of the national debt limit, a fact that Andrew Breitbart noticed, too.

But in the current environment, no good deed goes unpunished.

AdWeek

Huffington Post Caves to Breitbart Retracts claim that he doctored video of WH press conference

By Emma Bazilian

August 2, 2011

Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart is celebrating a victory over the Huffington Post after the site retracted an article alleging he may have doctored a video clip from a White House press briefing to make it look like CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell was upset about the recent debt compromise.

In an article posted yesterday, HuffPo said that Breitbart was being accused of doctoring video of an exchange between O'Donnell and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.adweek.com/news/press/huffington-post-caves-breitbart-133838

Patterico's Pontifications had the two warring versions of said video in their August 2nd post:

http://patterico.com/2011/08/02/huffpo-smears-breitbart/

-----

http://www.youtube.com/user/Pajamasmedia

http://www.nationalcenter.org/

Crassness & tone-deafness of his Inner Obama: "Chris Matthews Sees Japan Earthquake as 'Opportunity' for Obama to Remind People He Was Born in Hawaii"

http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=hdaGnznzkU

Not really much I can add to this video!

Related article at: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2011/03/11/chris-matthews-sees-japan-earthquake-opportunity-obama-remind-people-h

As a person who, once-upon-a-time, pre-2003, liked Chris Matthews, always watched his TV show, and even bought his books and gave them as gifts to friends and colleagues -just like I once did before for Paul Krugman, pre-NYT column!- much like Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, Broward School Board members Ann Murray & Jennifer Gottlieb, Broward County Comm. Stacey Ritter and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez, his own words are like a noose he puts around his own neck.

Can I help it if I just want to share his self-evident foolishness with you?

-----
Streaming LIVE TV news from Hawaii News Now
5 hours behind Eastern time- U.S.
http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/Global/category.asp?C=176904&nav=menu55_1_1

Streaming LIVE TV news from Japan via Fuji News Network (FNN)
14 hours ahead of Eastern time- U.S.
http://www.livetvcenter.com/fnn_556.asp

Sun-Sentinel & Miami Herald snooze for hours as websites have ZERO on earthquake & tsunami in Japan as other sites move quickly; NHK's LIVE coverage

Screen-shot of CNN coverage of Japanese earthquake and tsunami at 2:25 a.m. Eastern

Early this morning I was watching the 12:30 a.m. repeat airing on The BigTenNetwork of IU's loss to Penn State in the Big Ten basketball tourney in Indy at Conseco Fieldhouse, their ninth loss in a row.



Screen-shot of BigTenNetwork at Big Ten basketball tourney
During a second-half commercial break, l flipped over to Fox News Channel and it was then that I first saw the story that is developing as South Florida's news media snoozes -THE largest earthquake in the recorded history of Japan, and the seventh largest ever recorded in the world.
A tsunami warning is now in place for the entire Pacific Coast of the United States and Canada, with six-foot waves expected to hit Hawaii around 9 a.m. Eastern and smaller waves hitting California, Oregon and Washington state at 11 a.m. Eastern.

Evacuation orders for all beach hotels in Hawaii are already in place, with nobody permitted to remain after 8 a.m. Eastern.


Screen-shot of Fox News Channel at 2:15 a.m. Eastern

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel finally posted something about the earthquake and subsequent tsunami in northeast Japan at about 3:45 a.m., two hours AFTER other major newspapers started posting information to their websites, usually screen-shots from NHK-TV in Japan.

Watch NHK-TV's LIVE streaming coverage in English at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/42025198#42025198

After flipping around to check certain key news websites to see who was asleep and who was awake on this amazing story, the Miami Herald was in its customary state -sound asleep.
At 4 a.m. Eastern there was still NADA on the Herald's website.



Screen-shot of Miami Herald at 2:30 a.m. Eastern
http://www.miamiherald.com/



Screen-shot of The Drudge Report at 2:30 a.m. Eastern
http://www.drudgereport.com/



Screen-shot of The New York Times at 2:18 a.m. Eastern
http://www.nytimes.com/


Screen-shot of The Los Angeles Times at 2:30 a.m. Eastern
http://www.latimes.com/



Screen-shot of Svenska Dagbladet at 2:45 a.m.
http://www.svd.se/

MSNBC even got into the picture for a change on this story, unlike their invisible news coverage early-on last year during the Polish Prime Minister's airplane crash in Russia and the Moscow subway bombing, where they stuck to their curious 'crime-block' programming, featuring repeats of their 'Predator' series or profiles of U.S. prisons, which is still a weird programming choice no matter how many years they run that overnight and on weekends, instead of actual news programming.

They were, however, 'punked' at 4:04 a.m. by someone claiming to be at Narita Airport, outside Tokyo, who ended his personal account with the new maxim of 2011: "Winning!"
That's the lasting power of Charlie Sheen.


Screen-shot of MSNBC's coverage

The unseen male MSNBC anchor seemed a bit stunned but didn't let on that anything unusual had just happened.

Sometime around 4:30 a.m., the Miami Herald finally awoke and posted something. Better late than never I suppose, huh?

Watch NHK's LIVE streaming coverage in English at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/42025198#42025198
------
1:15 p.m. Friday Update:

If you're looking for some LIVE coverage from Hawaii, try Hawaii News Now at
http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/Global/category.asp?C=176904&nav=menu55_1_1

Remember, Hawaii is five hours behind Eastern, the same amount we are behind
GMT, to give you some perspective.
Hawaii gets roughly 4,000 Japanese visitors a day and the latest news that Narita Airport is going to remain closed due to physical damage from the disaster is NOT good news. According to what I heard on Hawaii News Now around Noon Eastern-time, three airports in Japan hope to resume flights soon to Hawaii, including Nagoya.
Honolulu Star-Advertiser newspaper website;
http://www.staradvertiser.com/

Coincidence that three anti-Glenn Beck stories appear in one week? His show draws 300,000 more total viewers than ALL cable news competitors COMBINED

Just a coincidence that three anti-Glenn Beck news stories/columns appear in same week?

Of course, since so few American TV/print reporters, editors or producers actually read and speak passable Arabic, or are the least bit knowledgeable about the Mid-East, they can't very well write about Libya intelligently, now can they.
Which is why beyond the actual news value of what happened to and with him last week, there were so many stories and columns in the American press about Charlie Sheen, because you don't have to know anything to write or talk about him...
Everybody's an expert.

Before you read the following three stories/columns, here's something to keep in mind, since facts actually matter.

The Glenn Beck Show on Fox News Channel is drawing 300,000 more total viewers than ALL cable news competitors in the time period COMBINED.
Just saying...

If I was the news director at a local TV station in a major market in the United States and my eyeball numbers were more than the total of ALL the other local TV stations COMBINED, plus, I was also leading in the 25-54 demo to boot, and my adversaries were saying that I was in a slump, I'd take that kind of losing streak and laugh all the way to the bank.
And so would my family!

CNN would take that kind of losing streak right now at 5 p.m. Eastern in a heartbeat.
And so would MSNBC and CNBC.

But they can only dream of a such an upside-down news world now, since at 5 p.m., they're merely ants at the picnic, not the guest of honor.
They're barely noticeable unless one of them crawls on your arm or leg -and completely harmless and useless- so you just flick them away with your finger and they go buh-bye. Just saying...

Apropos of these stories, coming soon, I may soon have a blog post here on some real actor/celebrities who actually HAVE lost their hold on film audiences at the box-office, but you rarely if ever see the sort of joyful negative stories on them in the American press like the stories below on because... well, they really, really don't like Glenn Beck -or his audience.
Just ask them, they'll tell you.

Hmm-m... note to self: Their film grosses fizzling and reviews not-so-positive, have Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Anniston, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt lost their juice?

More after the links.

-------

TheWrap
Media | Books
His Ratings Fizzling, Has Glenn Beck Lost His Mojo?
March1, 2011 @ 6:59 pm
http://www.thewrap.com/media/article/behind-glenn-beck-fox-news-slumping-ratings-24967


The New Republic
Politics
The Decline of Glenn Beck What caused it?
James Downie, Reporter-Researcher
March 3, 2011, 10:59 pm
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/84662/the-decline-glenn-beck


New York Times
The Media Equation
The Fading Power of Beck’s Alarms
By David Carr
March 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/business/media/07carr.html

----

None of these pieces have mentioned the most obvious and most likely reason for the lower numbers.

Beck's TV show, which I watch everyday, usually, the 2 a.m. repeat, has been pre-empted more often than usual due to what was going on in Egypt, often for pointless -often nine-hour old- coverage of Tahrir Square in Cairo when NOTHING was happening.

Reminder: Just because you point a TV news camera at something doesn't mean it's news.

Because of those pre-emptions on the repeat show at 2 a.m., before RED EYE, I actually saw some Fox News weekend panel program I'd never seen before, which itself was a few days old and was clearly intended to run-out-the clock until 3 a.m. came around.

Additionally, there have been many more repeats since January than at about any time since Beck joined Fox News Channel.

Seems like I even recall him being sick and having surgery, though I can't recall the exact details.

Sometimes, there's no conspiracy, it's just that there's either no program to see, or the one that airs is one you've already seen twice before -I don't need to see it a third time.

I love pizza, but sometimes when I was out with friends in the D.C. area, after a movie or ballgame or whatever, sometimes when asked what I was in the mood for, I'd choose Vietnamese, unless I knew that we were near a great pizza place. If it isn't what you want the way you like it, TV, like pizza, isn't the same.

Similarly, with all the news about Tunesia, Egypt and Libya on Beck's show, why would loyal viewers who really don't care about foreign policy compared to domestic or economic issues watch something they really don't have any interest in, something that isn't their cup of tea?

I love well-played basketball, esp. top-tier college basketball, not surprisingly, considering I only went to college at a school like IU where basketball is much more than tradition but a culture.

Still, I haven't watched the NBA All-Star Game since about 1990, and haven't watched more than 20 minutes of the NBA this entire season.
It's not interesting to me since nothing matters until May.

Or, maybe those fans see a repeat or a pre-emption and finally get around to watching one of those prime-time shows they've been continually taping for weeks and STILL NOT started watching yet, so they think, today is the day I start watching 'em, otherwise I'm deleting them all.
Just saying... sometimes, lower ratings are not so mysterious.

And when you STILL have MANY more viewers than all your time-slot competitors combined, it's really absurd to talk about a SLUMP.

When the Yankees of the 1920's amd '30's actually lost a game or two in the World Series instead of sweeping their opponent in four games, were they in a slump, too?

Hipper-than-thou Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein finds the U.S. Constitution musty and uncool. It's so 1776!

http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=hd6UkU6UaG

Posted by Larry O'Connor Dec 30th 2010 at 11:31 am at
http://bigjournalism.com/sright/2010/12/30/which-part-of-the-constitution-is-confusing-ezra/


And when that something tends to re-confirm your own seasoned intuition about why the American mainstream media has lost SO much credibility, respect and just plan eyeballs/readers the past 10-15 years, it makes you wonder if in the year 2010, reasonably smart print reporters STILL don't understand that when the red light is on, the TV camera is actually ON and that you are being broadcast for everyone to see; and some people record that for posterity. 

Such is the case today with this curious video featuring Ezra Klein, which I first discovered on Andrew Breitbart's popular MSM-skewering journalism website, Big Journalism, 
http://bigjournalism.com/, itself, a spin-of of its very popular parent website, Breitnat.com, http://www.breitbart.com/


After reading the accompanying article by Larry O'Connor and re-watching the video, I'm inclined to think that it's very likely that there will be a forthcoming new feature in this space in the new year titled, "Children's letters to liberal WaPo blogger Ezra Klein."

If you believe anything over 100 years old can't be properly understood, then why do we STILL love Shakespeare?

Why do some people -thou not me!- still pay big bucks to hear classical music or opera in concert halls that they've already heard hundreds of times?
Surely cable TV can do 'Better Than Ezra' as an eyewitness to history, but then that's why they're MSNBC, right?

Oddly enough, the U.S. Constitution proscribes the oath of office that the newly-elected President of the United States must utter under oath, and yet the person we were told two years ago was a brilliant constitutional law expert, Barack Obama, had no problem whatsoever understanding what those words meant -and neither did anyone else.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html


Klein seems to have no problem understanding the original part of our Constitution we call the Bill of Rights, and in particular, the First Amendment guaranteeing "freedom of speech"

But then that's part of the current MSM's problem isn't it?
Its very disconnectedness with the majority of the American electorate makes it a poor source to judge anything of note, and when something happens they don't expect, esp. with blue-collar or Southern appeal, they always cast it in negative and even sinister tones, out of habit.

It makes you wonder what would this crop of overly self-impressed reporters and columnists have made of John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams?
And God forbid if Jefferson had been from Georgia, forget about it!

So many current print and TV reporters are forever opining the merits of compromise for others in their columns, blogs and public/TV appearances -that's when you give in and let them have their way, in case you forgot- or trying to make heroes of pols who are unprincipled go-along types.


But when push comes to shove, reality has shown us that despite their talk, they aren't really the compromising type themselves.

Reality has shown us that what they like to do is pick-and-choose from American history and its institutions, as if it were a Chinese takeout menu, and while they are very protective of their own rights. yours? Well, YOURS are up for debate.


This continually shows itself thru their very opinionated screeds and squeamishness about the parts that they personally disagree with, like American's right under the Bill of Rights to bear arms, for example, which they want to do away with.
But you couldn't have one right without the other.


So much of today's MSM don't understand this fact -or want to understand- which is one of the reasons why so many Americans are genuinely repelled by certain of them when they appear on TV chat shows, because while the citizens know their history and what real compromises were made in order for the Constitution to be passed in Philadelphia 234 years ago, many young-ish reporters are clueless, and many of the worst offenders are currently toiling in South Florida.

Ernie Pyle is dead and he isn't coming back.

http://journalism.indiana.edu/resources/erniepyle/
------
Update of January 2, 2011 at 2:09 p.m.On The Drudge Report this afternoon, http://www.drudgereport.com/ 

Matt has this Klein story featured with the headline
Ernie Pyle is dead and he isn't coming back.

 
http://journalism.indiana.edu/resources/erniepyle/


Update of January 2, 2011 at 2:09 p.m.
On The Drudge Report this afternoon, http://www.drudgereport.com/ Matt has this Klein story featured with the headline: WASH POST STAFFER: Constitution Impossible to Understand Because It's Over 100 Years Old...
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Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough on History
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A4Kti0iw3M


See also: American Revolution "1776" - David McCullough
http://www.c-span.org/Events/American-Revolution-1776--David-McCullough/19609-1/
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Below are some prospective issues that may appear in upcoming letters to 'Ezra the Elder':If Tallahassee isn't the most corrupt state capital in the United States -and it isn't Albany, either- what is?
How do you solve a problem like JenJen? (Jennifer Gottlieb)
Can you explain how airplanes don't fall from the sky?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_Billy_Goat


What's the reason there's no WMATA pedestrian tunnel connecting the north and south-bound Farragut North train station and the east-west-bound Farragut West Metro train station in Washington, D.C. when they are less than a city block apart, and would obviously make everyone's life easier?


Why are all the press hangouts near the Washington Post on 15th so very, very lame, unlike the way press bars always appear in films, hence one of the reasons so  much of DC's media drinks and eats between K Street and DuPont Circle.
Those cool images oif what life could be like are precisely why so many college students put up with crap while working for the student college newspaper, because they can picture that idealized life and can imagine making it a reality?

How will it all end for Daniel Snyder and the Washington Redskins, with his wife inheriting the team and running it after he sticks his foot in his mouth one time too many and suffocates, or with him selling the team to be rid of the headache and universal criticism of him and his grating personality, and the new team owner raising the Vince Lombardi Trophy within three years?


The extra-hard sports imponderable:
The sports teams I root for most fervently have had the following people associated with them over the past few years since I returned to South Florida from the Washington, D.C. area:
Dave Wannstedt (Dolphins football coach),
Mike Davis (IU basketball coach),
Randy Shannon (University of Miami Hurricanes),
Tony Sparano (Dolphins football coach),
Peter Angelos (Orioles owner),
Stephen Ross (Dolphins owner).
Hoosier head basketball Tom Crean seems to have gone a long way in solving IU's personnel problem, but the pious Dolphins and Hurricanes seem almost oblivious to the longstanding problems that have bedeviled them for years, despite the self-evident nature of those problems.
Why?

Big Ten Network's Mary-Rachel Dick is in Bloomington for the announcement of Indiana's new head basketball coach Tom Crean.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szn0VqSa61Q


Timeout during 2007 IU Basketball game against Kentucky at Assebly Hall, Bloomington, (IN), featuring the "William Tell Overture" and "Indiana Our Indiana" - the Indiana University Pep Band and IU Cheerleaders


See also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVpstk3WBk4
http://www.youtube.com/user/breitbart

Article: Which Part of the Constitution is ‘Confusing’ Ezra?

Sometimes, when you least expect it, say at the end of the year when you have a million things on your mind, something falls into your lap.

Yes, hipper-than-thou Uncle Ezra, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/ will ruminate on all matter of imponderables, but first, back to this video above.

Surely it must be more than the exposed cleavage everywhere, right?
So why is Uncle Ezra so confused?


Delicious!!!
Can you name the 7 'extra' U.S. states that Obama refers to when he says that there are 57 states? (Is one of them the State of South Florida?)


What's the point of two Carolinas and two Dakotas?

Will the curse on the Baltimore Orioles only end upon the death of Peter Angelos, or will it have staying power like the curse of the billy goat on the Chicago Cubs?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3_eozGUays