All Umbrage All the Time

It is a fair rap against Politico - and the New York Times, and MSNBC and many of the other news outlets out there. They are in the tank for Obama, you would simply have to be blind to not see it and no, I'm not some raving McCain supporter - I don't like him and won't be voting for him but I guess it's just you and your assertions that have any validity in your mind rather than the opinions of the great unwashed masses.

welcome to the

The printed media are no more being replaced by the internet than the printed media was replace but the invention of the telephone!
A case can be made that better communication faster among people in the USA improves the market for the printed media!
But a few decades ago the printed news media alligned it's self with a political party slightly, and feeling no conciquences it went a little furhter until, by the mid 1970s it was absolutely carrying the water of one political party! about the only objectivity could be found in the sports coverage or the number who died in the latest plane crash... but outside of that.. there was one lens threw which the world could be reported on, as an industry standard.
Now don't whine! Opertunity abounds! The web provides ballast to righten a tipped industry that is far from even keel. The web is not the storm tipping it over! Web users certainly are not either!

I like this article. It provides a much needed perspective from a legacy media insider. And its true, now that I think of it, that much of the blogosphere, merely regurgitates the information already produced somewhere else.

But here's the rub - legacy media's constraints and lack of editorial license makes them less believable as they continue to only cover those things that advance their world views.

As an example, I give you the recent flap over NYT's decision to publish Barrack Obama's but not McCaines opinions on Iraq.

Look - legacy media needs to make the playing field even. That's why people mistrust them.

Tom Desrosier
http://www.dare2believe.com

I like this article. It provides a much needed perspective from a legacy media insider. And its true, now that I think of it, that much of the blogosphere, merely regurgitates the information already produced somewhere else.

But here's the rub - legacy media's constraints and lack of editorial license makes them less believable as they continue to only cover those things that advance their world views.

As an example, I give you the recent flap over NYT's decision to publish Barrack Obama's but not McCaines opinions on Iraq.

Look - legacy media needs to make the playing field even. That's why people mistrust them.

Tom Desrosier
http://www.dare2believe.com

Wouldn't the "green" decision to be to ban all printed media (newspapers, news magazines, etc) and rely solely on the internet? Do we really need a daily paper? A weekly journal? What is the carbon footprint of Newsweek? How many resources are used to create, transport and distribute a magazine which is accessible on the internet?

1.5 million can buy a lot of gas. Why would I need a bureau in Baghdad when I can translate with google and read bloggers who live in Baghdad. Eye-witness accounts that are not filtered through the middle levels of the bureacracy that exist in any organization with more than a $10 budget. The question you need to ask yourself is what are you doing? Are you furthering an agenda with your journalism or are you doing what Joe Friday requested and providing "Just the Facts, Ma'am"

Also, any mistakes made in the last few sentences of my comment are due to the fact I could not see the rest of it. However, you, Mr. Alter...your mistake was typing the first word of that.

So, let me get this straight Alter. The internet is bad. Your printed media is the only salvation from the cesspool of drooling, glassy-eyed morons. I don't think so. But way to go in using that lofty printed word to insinuate that there is nothing but stupidity and bad journalism online. Interesting that you say this after you write a piece that wholly consists of your whining and crying about the death of that great printed word. And people may have appreciated your tribute to the written word had you perhaps come down from your heights first. I forgot, Jonathan Alter, the fact that I'm writing this online means there is no way that I could have understood, with my internet infected mind, the simple, lightheareted joke hat was the flag burning Omuslimm obama. Wow, get off it man. In teh mean time, realizedthat there are those of us who use the inernet a a powerful t ool to actually uncover the truth in a time where people like you are doing nothing but whining about our ability to do so. You're no better than the alarmists that told us the evil computer was going to throw us back into the dark ages. Every new thing has met with criticism, and if it didn't, it couldnt be improved. But you? All you do is whine and cry in what I'd loosely call an article, and definiely not call an intelligent, FAIR AND UNIASED one. Or did you forget hat those were both tenets of good journalism. Oh wait...you're not being a journalist. Just a guy on a pedestal who hasd his sensibilities stepped on.

Wow, Alter. You've managed to say nothing at all important about the campaign, instead grouping all online readers, including the ones reading *your* article on a regular basis, into this fish-eye lensed perspective of the internet as some sort of cesspool of the worst of humanity. How insanely hypocritical of you. How condescending of you to insinuate that i we all had subscriptions to the New Yorker, we'd have gotten the joke in that satirical cartoon. I forgot, I have to actually have a magazine in paper form in front of me to understand the finer things in life, like a feeble attempt at shock jocking in cartoon format. You're no better than the alarmists who told us that the evil cmputers were going to throwour civilization into the dark ages come the turn of the centrury. And if you like the New Yorker so much, why not realized that they too, have embraced the technoology you so much despise.
Quit whining. You are repaing the benefits of the information age just as much as anyone else. With any kind of good comes bad. No sense wasting everyone's time whining about it. I can't believe Newsweek let this go to print.

"The New Yorker cover satirically depicting Obama as a flag-burning Muslim and Michelle as a gun-toting radical would have been seen by only a few hundred thousand subscribers, almost all of whom would have gotten the joke. "

Uh, no. It would have been seen by anyone who walked past the magazine stand in any supermarket, newsstand, and bookstore. It probably would have been picked up by the evening news and show across the networks because of the outrage it would cause. The only difference is the speed with which information would disseminate.

You're wrong about blogs and information gathering, I think. I find that the blogs that get big enough do start tracking down their own news, because for one their readership gives them the power of access and they love it, and two, the exclusive information increases their number of readers. There will aways be information gatherers to take the place of those whose methods have become obsolete.

"The New Yorker cover satirically depicting Obama as a flag-burning Muslim and Michelle as a gun-toting radical would have been seen by only a few hundred thousand subscribers, almost all of whom would have gotten the joke. "

Uh, no. It would have been seen by anyone who walked past the magazine stand in any supermarket, newsstand, and bookstore. It probably would have been picked up by the evening news and show across the networks because of the outrage it would cause. The only difference is the speed with which information would disseminate.

You're wrong about blogs and information gathering, I think. I find that the blogs that get big enough do start tracking down their own news, because for one their readership gives them the power of access and they love it, and two, the exclusive information increases their number of readers. There will aways be information gatherers to take the place of those whose methods have become obsolete.

We used to dream of a non-political politician (whatever that was.) What we have is somebody's granddad and a non-person politician who absolutely has no opinions at all except the boilerplate socialism that all "name" colleges try to develop in their little snowflakes.

Much of this may pass. The one thing which will not pass is the venom being exchanged online between partisans (on both sides). Obama may or may not be a uniter. But neither his followers nor his opponents have any inclination to come together -- ever. The nature of the invective has gone so far beyond "misinformed" or "ignorant" as to drive a permanent wedge between previous friends and neighbors. The venom may make us feel better, but every day it widens the gulf between people who once could have respected each other.