Tuesday, 30 September 2008

The Press

The Seattle Times dumps its editorial page? - Well, no...


James Vesely (Seattle Times editorial page editor) starts out with this:

TWO days hence, much of our commentary and opinion will move to a new, online presentation that includes letters to the editor, op-ed essays and a variety of cartoons, comments and blogs.
He says it’s because opinion – not news – is what’s popular online...
Online-information searches during the day and evening hours is deciding for us where most people go for commentary.  Currently, commentary is king in the online world, where opinions vary and clash hourly in the process of democracy.
At least, that’s my impression, after unpacking that first sentence (“searches ... is”? “deciding...where”?).

And since nobody (to speak of) buys advertising on the opinion page, why not eliminate what doesn’t sell?  (Here’s why.)

But all is not lost!
Most op-eds, the guest essays that often place notable politicians and writers in front of you, also will move to the Web site, leaving us room for local columnists and local editorial opinion in print.
(Did’ja really believe they’d dump the editorials?  How would anybody know what to think?)


Via:
2Blowhards (where there seems to be the impression that the Times is dumping print  editorials altogether) via Dustbury (who RTFA and is Not Deceived).

Posted by: Old Grouch in The Press at 22:27:47 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Thursday, 25 September 2008

The Press

John Yardley on the newspaper of the future


The Washington Post’s book critic has a plan.


Below, my reactions...

more...

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Saturday, 20 September 2008

The Press

“Defense,” huh? Like against Georgia and Ukraine?

Wall Street Journal headline, September 20-21, 2008: Moscow Will Boost Defense Spending to $50 Billion

“Defense”
“Military”
Same space, different spin.

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Tuesday, 09 September 2008

The Press

Four years ago today


On the evening of Wednesday, September 8, 2004, the CBS News program “60 Minutes II” ran a story “New Questions on Bush Guard Duty.”  The story was built around several documents that purported to show preferential treatment for George W. Bush by the Texas National Guard during his Vietnam-era service, and timed to appear simultaneously with a similar story in the Boston Globe.  If true, the report would have been tremendously damaging to Bush, and could easily have affected the outcome of the election, less than one month away.

Even before the program had finished, sceptical viewers were posting suspicions that the documents weren’t all they seemed; that, in fact, they were forgeries.

To: Howlin

WE NEED TO SEE THOSE MEMOS AGAIN!

They are not in the style that we used when I came in to the USAF. They looked like the style and format we started using about 12 years ago (1992). Our signature blocks were left justified, now they are rigth of center...like the ones they just showed.

Can we get a copy of those memos?

107 posted on Wednesday, September 08, 2004 8:19:00 PM
by TankerKC (R.I.P. Spc Trevor A. Win'E American Hero)
and within hours...
To: Howlin

Howlin, every single one of these memos to file is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman.

In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing, and typewriters used monospaced fonts.

The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers. They were not widespread until the mid to late 90's. Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang systems that were dominant in the mid 80's used monospaced fonts.

I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old.

This should be pursued aggressively.

47 posted on Wednesday, September 08, 2004 11:59:43 PM
by Buckhead
(The post numbers in the footers are direct links to these Free Republic posts.)

By the next morning, the controversy was all over the web, and for the next week or so, bloggers and their commenters did the research that the MSM should have done.  What had begun as a classic case of “gotcha” journalism quickly turned in to an exploration of reporting standards and media ethics.  By the time the dust had settled, the story had been demolished, the documents found to be phony, CBS News and its anchor Dan Rather were in disgrace, the mainstream press embarrassed, and the pajama-wearing bloggers triumphant. And one month later, Bush won the election.
Charles Johnson's famous animated overlay comparing the 'original' and 'recreated' document
Charles Johnson’s famous animated overlay superimposed an “original 1973” memo
with his re-created Microsoft Word version. Found here.

The neat thing is, most of those web posts and comments are still around! Today you can start at the beginning and follow the whole controversy, as it unfolded.

Bill at INDCJournal got things rolling with:

Power Line’s coverage starts here:
The Sixty-First Minute (then follow the links)

And: Little Green Footballs:  CBS Killian Document Index

Enjoy!

Previously:

Posted by: Old Grouch in The Press at 17:35:03 GMT | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Saturday, 06 September 2008

The Press

A no-longer hidden war


Peggy Noonan, pining for the good old days (the ones when people didn’t leave open microphones lying around):

We have had these old press fights in the past – they were a source of constant tension when I was a child, when Barry Goldwater came forward as a conservative and the press scorned him as a flake, and later when Ronald Reagan came up and the press dismissed him as Bonzo.
And Jerry Ford. You know, the guy who couldn’t hit a golf ball without braining somebody, and who couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time. Oh, and of course Dan Quayle. And Bush I. And Bush II.
But this latest fignt commences on a new and wilder battlefield. The old combatants were old school gentlemen, Eric Sevareid and Walter Cronkite;
Ah yes, those specialists in the Always Deniable Attack Indirect, notably the Raised Eyebrow and the Questioning Inflection. But Different Times require Different Measures!
the new combatants are half-crazy cable anchors, the lower lurkers of the Internet, and the anonymous posters on the comment thread on the radical web site.
Who originate the smears. Which the “legitimate”press then “reports”.without checking. Oh, and don’t forget to mention the New York Times. (Fortunate that we dealt with Dan Rather four years ago.)
This new war on new turf is not good, and carries the potential for great harm...

A friend IM-ed the day after Palin’s speech, and I told him of an inexplicable sense of foreboding.
Cue scary music.
This campaign, this beautiful golden thing with two admirable men at the top and two admirable vice presidential candidates, is going to turn dark.
Didn’t take.long, did it?

Hey Peggy, it’s the same old war, it’s just that this time around, the legacy media is no longer making even an effort to conceal that they’re the propaganda arm of the Democratic party.


Elsewhere:
Ross Douthat: “Publications I Normally Admire”

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Thursday, 04 September 2008

The Press

URGENT STOP PRESS PALIN LATEST



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