Some cranky thoughts after 27,000 DU posts

[DeepModem Mom]

I couldn't leave ya if I tried -- and wouldn't want to. I love DU. This is about me, and news sources. And what are often the first responses after I, and others, post articles.

1. I post from MSM. Despite its sins, past and present -- its failure to inform as mandated by the Constitution and its acceptance of George Bush -- to ignore the articles produced by MSM's resources would be stupid. MSM articles often end up here on the Greatest Page. Some need a grain of salt; some have a clear bias; some deserve dismissal; some are not perfect but contain invaluable, or just interesting, information. Some expose outrages, and, because of the visibility and influence of the pages in which they're printed, move things a bit in a positive direction.

2. EDITORIAL PAGES ARE SEPARATE FROM NEWS PAGES. The NYT editorial page has never, to my knowledge, supported Bush. It is not late to the cause, it did not publish Judy Miller. It does publish eloquent, hard-hitting editorials aimed at Bush and his regime almost every day. The WP's editorials are usually regrettable, but sometimes right on; LAT editorials are sometimes regrettable, sometimes right on. The WSJ editorial page is a toxic cesspool that misinforms many businesspeople who don't realize what they're reading; the WSJ news pages are fine (we'll see what Murdoch does with them).

3. Every newspaper publishes FEATURE articles, and sometimes I post them. Just as Keith Olbermann provides a mix of info, so do newspapers. If they didn't they would soon be out of business. Lighten up.

4. Any attempt to try to persuade DUers to sometimes just think something and not post it is for naught. But, here goes anyway: posting anything here takes a little time, effort and thought. You can't imagine how much a "thanks-for-posting" response is appreciated, and I see that often in response to my own posts and those of others. On the other hand, it might be nice to think for a moment before pouncing on a poster for what they just posted (and I'm not talking about candidate wars, and other hot-button issues here -- that's a different thing). The poster thought the post was of value, even if you didn't. Maybe be a little kinder, or just let it slide.

5. Thanks to every DUer who ever posted their thoughts, their experiences, nuggets of news and insights they find in print or on the Internets -- and thanks to the admins who provide this forum. We have ups and downs, but what an amazing wealth of wisdom, wit, and information can be found here every time you click the DU link!

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Posting here takes thought?

And here, I always thought it only took a yak in a thong.

Now, I have to figure out how to get this goddamned thonged Yak out of my office and down three flights of stairs. Something tells me this could get embarrassing.

[kdmorris]

3. ROFL

I almost spit coffee all over my monitor!!!!

[Klukie]

2. Hey thanks for posting!

[kdmorris]

4. That didn't sound all that cranky

Then again, there's been more than a few times that I've posted something, hit send and told my husband, "I'm gonna get flamed for that". And I don't. My post wasn't even all that bad, and some people agreed with me.

Maybe you are just mildly cranky, because I thought the post was great!

[KoKo]

5. Nice Post...thanks... not cranky...good points. n/t

[Beausoir]

6. Thanks for posting. n/t

[kpete]

7. right on!

info is useful - whether one agrees with it or not.

Thanks for everything you do here, you are an inspiration, kp

[DeepModem Mom]

8. I'm honored, kpete. What on earth would we do without your intrepid reporting?

And, believe me, I know that your time and effort spent posting must be a fraction of the time you spend finding the valuable info you post. A hearty, THANK YOU!

[Gelliebeans]

9. In case I haven't told ya lately...

Thanks and I mean that from the bottom of my heart!

Sometimes news items are a way for people to be included on DU (maybe they aren't as comfortable arguing the finer points of their own political opinion and this gives them a chance to be included in our so-called big tent).

I really try to re-think my post before I pop off. Many times I have written a long reply and decide to walk away and not hit the post button because I am trying to see it from someone else's POV.

[mogster]

10. Right on target

Thanks for posting ;-)

[EFerrari]

11. I love you DMM but the NYTs editorial page is deeply compromised

A few examples: In 2004 they published an editorial with remedial advice for Democrats WHILE the recount was going on. They made fun of those of us who raised questions about Ohio. They supported the coup against Chavez and last week turn around and accuse HIM of making a power grab.

Yes, the news side and the editorial page are separate but they are owned by the same interests.

(And, congrats and thanks for posting. :) )

[Warren Stupidity]

13. Plus the NYT has a stable of RW pundits for their OP-ED page.

Tom (The Unit) Freidman comes to mind.

Plus, and this is far more important: it is an editorial decision where articles get placed and if they even get placed at all. Thus Judy Miller's front page run circa 2002 was an editorial decision and puts the NYT squarely in the War Party as its Most Respected paper of record.

[EFerrari]

14. David Brooks. And that warmonger who is now retired --

I'm repressing his name and may he rot in obscurity.

[DeepModem Mom]

19. You didn't mention Paul Krugman and Frank Rich. All MSM newspapers employ both...

liberal and conservative op-ed contributors, and in contrast to news pages, their pieces are clearly labeled as opinion. I don't think the editor of the editorial page takes part in decisions about placement of articles in the paper -- except maybe placement of pieces to the right of editorials on the Editorial Page(s).

[EFerrari]

25. And Mr. Herbert, my pinko favorite!

Who is that guy who retired? RW, warmonger, I just saw him somewhere -- maybe on Moyers' piece about the media buying into the war? Argh! Can't remember!

[EFerrari]

26. William Saffire! Ha! n/t

[Warren Stupidity]

32. Of course it is an editorial decision.

Who exactly do you think decides what the front page is? The reporters? The guy in layout? The composition of the front page is the major editorial decision the paper makes. The essays on the editorial page and the op-ed page are read by a handful of people. What is on the front page of the NYT, instead of buried on page 14, really matters in our political discourse, and that decision is made by the editor of the paper and his staff.

"The Times plays an unequaled role in the national discourse, and when it publishes a front-page piece about aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds, that story very quickly runs away from home to live on its own. The day after Miller's tubes narrative showed up, Andrea Mitchell of NBC News went on national TV to proclaim, "They were the kind of tubes that could only be used in a centrifuge to make nuclear fuel." Norah O'Donnell had already told the network's viewers the day before of the "alarming disclosure," and the New York Times wire service distributed Miller's report to dozens of papers across the landscape. Invariably, they gave it prominence. Sadly, the sons and daughters of America were sent marching off to war wearing the boots of a well-told and widely disseminated lie."
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/05/27/times/?pn=3

[DeepModem Mom]

34. I think we're using the word "editorial" to mean two different things.

"Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial page editor of The New York Times, is in charge of the paper's opinion pages, both in the newspaper and online. He oversees the editorial board, the Letters and Op-Ed departments, as well as the Editorial, Op-Ed and TimesSelect sections of NYTimes.com. The editorial department of the paper is completely separate from the news operations and Mr. Rosenthal answers directly to the publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr."

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/editorial-board.html

[DeepModem Mom]

21. I love you, sfexpat --

you're a firecracker of a DUer!

[EFerrari]

24. Thanks to you and kpete for making us smarter.

:applause:

[EVDebs]

12. DU is a First Amendment 'tease' !

[Skidmore]

15. DMM, 27K?

I salute you.

[DeepModem Mom]

22. Thank you! nt

[The Straight Story]

16. Spot on my friend

excellent breakdown on news sources.

[UTUSN]

17. Not to mention those swarms of single-issue (or Personality) swarms of flamers

& only partly talking about Primary candidate supporters, but VERY LIKE those in behavior.


I love these big picture o.p.(s) from time to time.

[KharmaTrain]

18. The Media Is Mandated By The Constitution?

I agree with almost everything you posted here...and it's important to present all types of articles and opinions here...especially from the major publications and outlets of the corporate (far from Mainstream or Main Street) media. It's this media that forms "conventional wisdom"...or the approach most corporate mediatypes use to frame and report a story. We must be aware of this, as well as the behind the scenes games to manipulate this information and by whom. As Colbert says, "Reality has a liberal bias" and these articles show us how disconnected the corporate media is from both reality and the truth. It's also our repsonsibility to call this stuff out in hopes it spread around...outside the filter of this media and eventually force them to change the memes or at least back off from deliberately misinforming or serving as a PR service for corporate America and the Repugnican party.

That said, I do have one wee bit question here. I've looked in my Constitution and I never saw the part where the media is mandated to "inform". I see the part of Freedom of Speech...but nowhere does is that freedom defined as a mandate or that it even has to be true. The media can serve an important part in the political process as a watchdog of "the public interest"...but there's no requirement...even in FCC rules...for that to apply. Fortunately our forefathers didn't define what limits that speech entails...for good and bad. It's up to each of us, as educated consumers of the media, to realize when its leveling with us or if it's operating with some hidden agenda. Sadly with the consolidaiton of media and the constriction of the flow of information, the corporate media felt it had cornered the ability to shape events and politics. Fortunately for the blogs, places like DU and folks like you Modem Mom, that some of us consumers are a lot wiser and able to demand accountablity.

Cheers...

[DeepModem Mom]

20. I phrased that incorrectly. The press is given special protection by the Constitution...

with, I think, the intent that they use it to help assure an informed citizenry, which, IMO (and Jefferson's, IIRC), is essential to democracy.

I appreciate your point, also, about the need to know what I call "what's out there." Those of us here who see so many alternative sources of news and opinion need to realize, as we wish and work for change, that those sources are not what the majority of Americans are seeing.

[Cameron27]

23. Thanks DMM

You do a great job, and DU would be a sorry place without you, or Kpete and everyone else who takes the time to bring us the news.

And you don't sound cranky at all :-)

[applegrove]

27. You are right that we rely on MSM to get us the facts. How we feel

beyond that is up to each and every one of us.

[Hissyspit]

28. Hear, hear. I get so tired of the first response to the posting of an NYT editorial being:

"Oh, so NOW the paper that helped take us to war deems to lecture us?"

It is not particularly original thought anymore.

Thanks for this post, Mom, and for all you do! Feel free to be as cranky as you wanna be.

[mmonk]

29. Thanks for posting.

Please forgive any negative feelings some have for the newspaper that helped take us to war.

[DeepModem Mom]

31. Oh, I have negative feelings myself!

The sight of Judy Miller being interviewed on TV, for example, as someone worthy to be heard. Blech!!! Frank Bruni, who loved Bush while covering him in 2000, maybe doing as much as anybody except the USSC to put him in the WH -- now writing NYT RESTAURANT reviews??? Blech!!! And so forth....

[Coexist]

30. well put.

you are a jewel on this forum.

[BlooInBloo]

33. Only DUers' love of drudgico bugs me common-source-wise....

... But didn't the NYT editorial page support the initial Iraq invasion?

[DeepModem Mom]

36. Here's the best I can find on that, from Columbia Journalism Review --

An interesting piece, by the way, which outlines the editorial stances of our leading newspapers in the run-up to the war. The NYT and the LAT were the most anti-war. Unfortunately, Colin Powell got to them all. (Heck, he even got to DeepModem Dad for a brief time, when nothing else had!) Anyway, here's the article:

CJR: The Editorial Pages and the Case for War
Did Our Leading Newspapers Set Too Low a Bar for a Preemptive Attack?
BY CHRIS MOONEY
March-April, 2004

....Here’s what these six editorial pages did write, during the crucial six-week period between Powell’s speech and the beginning of hostilities on March 19, 2003. They ranged from hawkish without a shade of doubt (The Wall Street Journal and, to a lesser extent, the Chicago Tribune), to prowar but conflicted (The Washington Post and USA Today), to antiwar without United Nations approval (The New York Times and Los Angeles Times). None of these six unconditionally opposed war. Neither did any of them throw their weight behind intellectually appealing, but nevertheless unofficial, prowar arguments. These included the so-called “liberal hawk” position, which focused less on Hussein’s status as an imminent threat and more on the moral case for overthrowing a murderous tyrant. In other words, of the six papers we studied, for the most part, the ones that supported war also accepted Bush’s justifications for it....

The New York Times maintained a rigid consistency. Even as the paper called Powell’s speech “the most powerful case to date” against Hussein, it also warned that the U.S. “cannot afford to confront Iraq without broad international support.” The Times maintained this line throughout, applauding when the administration opted for “coercive diplomacy” — a phrase the paper seemed proud of — but also criticizing Bush’s “destructive ‘with us or against us’ approach.” Though willing to support a war sanctioned by the UN, the Times challenged the notion that Hussein posed an “immediate danger” to the U.S. and devoted an entire editorial to debunking the Iraq-al Qaeda connection. “This page has never wavered in the belief that Mr. Hussein must be disarmed,” it concluded on March 18. “Our problem is with the wrongheaded way this administration has gone about it.”...

In February of this year (2004), The New York Times (news pages) reported that U.S. officials had just intercepted a message, probably from al-Zarqawi, to senior leaders of al Qaeda, asking for help fighting Americans in Iraq. As the Times reported, the document suggests evidence of contacts between extremists in Iraq and al Qaeda now, “but it does not speak to the debate about whether there was a Qaeda presence in Iraq during the Saddam Hussein era, nor is there any mention of a collaboration with Hussein loyalists.” “Little evidence,” the Times reported, “has emerged to support the allegation of a prewar Qaeda connection in Iraq.”...

Not only do we have grounds today to question Powell’s assertion, but considerable grounds existed at the time. British papers like the Independent and Guardian scoffed at the claim. The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times weren’t convinced, either. The latter noted that Powell had failed to prove that al-Zarqawi had strong al Qaeda ties, and pointed out that Ansar-al-Islam operated out of a Kurdish-controlled area of Iraq beyond the control of Saddam Hussein."

http://cjrarchives.org/issues/2004/2/mooney-war.asp

In any case, I welcome, and am glad to post, recent NYT editorials such as, "Just What the Founders Feared: An Imperial President Goes to War" -- a piece which suggests that if the Founders were alive today, they would consider GW Bush, for the war and other reasons, not a President, but a King.

[BlooInBloo]

37. I'm with ya more-or-less. :)

[DeepModem Mom]

39. Just to be clear -- I don't defend or excuse any of these editorial boards...

in the lead-up to the war. They failed us. Some kind of mass madness took hold at that time, and Bush got his war. (The article, incidentally, has reminded me what a crucial role Colin Powell played -- and, regrettably, the role he might have played if he'd been a braver man.)

[Swamp Rat]

35. k&r

:hug:

[eppur_se_muova]

38. More mellow than cranky. Reads like minimalist words of wisdom from someone who's been around. nt

[pacalo]

40. A big kickarooney.

[RedEarth]

41. I certainly appreciate your posts and in fact have had

you blog rolled for quite a long time. Your LBN posts and sabra's keep me very well informed. Thanks!

[EFerrari]

42. kick

[NanceGreggs]

43. You call THAT cranky?!?

You want to be called cranky around here, you're gonna have to try a lot harder than that!

But seriously, I've said this before - and your post prompts me to say it again:

First, a shout-out to all of our intrepid 'news anchors' here on DU, who keep us updated on a regular basis.

Secondly, a special thanks to all of the DUers who post video clips. We don't get Olberman here, nor FOX-News. So I especially appreciate the extra effort of posting a video-link to go along with a particular news item that should be seen to be appreciated (or in some cases, believed!).

I actually saw a complete KO show for the FIRST time tonight!!! I finally KNOW first-hand what all the buzz is about!

[DeepModem Mom]

44. And a shout-out to YOU, Nance -- an amazingly talented writer who graces DU...

with that talent. What an asset you are to this forum!

(So sorry you are Keith-less! I was in a hotel last week, with no MSNBC, and wondered why, with all the video technology available to us, there's no way to access a valuable show of that kind over the net.)

[NanceGreggs]

45. Thanks so much ...

... for your kindness! :blush:

Yes, it's true - we've been Keith-less all along, and had never seen the show in its entirety until Sunday night. It was GREAT!!!