by matttbastard
Noted w/o comment:
Time Magazine covers – December 5, 2011
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MSM
I don’t give a toss about Tiger Woods, but this is kinda sorta WIN
by matttbastard
Alt-pr0n mogul Joanna Angel wins @ Twitter today:
thank god i work in an industry where i do not have to make embarrassing apologies and quit my job for being a slut.
Oh, snap!
“Roger Ailes as Howard Hughes”?
by matttbastard
Let’s hope the ugly SOB still clips his toenails.
Seriously — producing daily crypto-fascistic dispatches carefully crafted to rile up the rubes while scoring mega ad rev? Understandable.
Poor hygeine?
Absolutely unforgivable.
h/t Krugman (who, speaking of unforgivable actions, hath besmirched teh honour of Marcy Wheeler!!11one)
Hey, WaPo — Peeing On the Floor = Wingnut SOP
by matttbastard
Jesse Taylor explains why, contra aimai, the latest example of desperate hand wringing on the part of the traditional media over the scourge that is online incivility (fetch forth teh fainting couch!) misses the mark by honing in on the trees, rather than the forest:
I understand that us bloggers use cursewords and invective and sometimes call reporters mud-flinging slapfucks (or we do now!), but the entire point of the conservative anger is that it allows them to push forward complete and total lies and yell down anyone who debates against them.
[…]
The reason conservatives are so able to build up lies is because, by being nasty about it, they know that the dreaded MSM will only focus on the nastiness. Eventually, the entire thing turns into a series of op-eds by Davids Broder and Brooks excoriating both sides for lowering the discourse, asking where President Obama’s promise of postpartisanship went, and then endorsing the three elected Republican officials who haven’t accused Obama of flouridating our children’s water supply as a method of mind control as the new centrist way forward.
Precisely. I could give a flying rainbow butt monkey fuck about how ZOMG RUDE!11 wingnuts are; it’s the fucking lying, stupid. Alas, judging by the continued preponderance of lazy ‘he said, she said’ stenography, too many in the press apparently consider it far more important to fret about the term ‘bullshit’ than to, y’know, call it.
Priorities. They can totally has them.
Don’t call it a comeback (well, OK, if you must…)
by matttbastard
Don’t worry, I’m not gonna put forth a sorry Nikki Finke-style excuse for my lack of productivity this summer. All responsibility for low creative yield is entirely mine and mine alone (FYI, the dog ate my motivation). Ok, so Twitter shares at least part of the blame — though if you follow me there (and if you don’t, well, why the hell not??) you’ll see that I’ve merely shifted platforms when it comes to deliverin’ teh linky goodness, snarky invective and one-line squibs.
Still, for the past 3 (!) years, this site has been my primary base of operations. And though I’ve begun to focus more on feature writing (for cash — hell, at this point, will write for potato chips and soda pop, though booze is preferred) the blog format — this parasitic, freewheeling burst medium that still gets little-to-no respect from more formalistic practioners of the journalistic arts — is my first love.
And, damn it all, I miss it.
Therefore, in the coming weeks, yours truly will be returning to regular daily (yes, daily) blogging, both here at bastard.logic and my other haunt, Comments From Left Field. Am sure some of you are pleased by this bit of news, others gravely disappointed — while the vast majority are, in all likelihood, entirely indifferent. It is this last group with whom I intend to make the biggest impact; would rather that you love — or loathe — me than not give a toss.
Anyway, forgive the brief foray into self-indulgence; on with the show.
PS: Buy a t-shirt — help support Canada’s left-wing fringe (ie, women — buh?!)
Curley in Amber (Or, Reason # 54,765 Why AP is DOOMED.)
by matttbastard
Speaking of media dinosaurs, it would appear the Associated Press is once again eager to hasten its own extinction:
I’ve tried to avoid speaking out regarding reports about the Associated Press’ plans for the future. I’ve done so because AP executives and board members have a habit of saying lots of things that are later “corrected” after they stick their fingers in the air and discover the wind is blowing another direction. So I assume everything I hear that’s attributed to “someone at AP” is merely a trial balloon.
However, the article in the New York Times today about AP (or, if you prefer, “the” AP) “cracking down on unpaid use of articles on the web,” attributes the insanity it reports to the CEO of the AP — by name. As he was going on record with the New York Times, I have to assume that he means what he’s saying.
In other words, I feel fairly confident now that it’s okay for me to start calling a nut a nut.
Here’s a quote from the NYTimes.com story:
“Tom Curley, The A.P.’s president and chief executive, said the company’s position was that even minimal use of a news article online required a licensing agreement with the news organization that produced it. In an interview, he specifically cited references that include a headline and a link to an article, a standard practice of search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo, news aggregators and blogs.”
In other words, what I just did — quote the New York Times and point to the article — would be considered a copyright violation by AP if the point was to an AP story. To quote and link to that story would require me to have a licensing agreement with AP. That policy, of course, is nuts.
And I’m not even saying it’s nuts from a legal “fair use” standpoint or nuts because AP reporters quote and link to bloggers all day everyday. And I won’t even explain why it’s nuts because of the traffic-driving dynamics and economics of advertising revenue that results when I point to an AP story on, say, my hometown newspaper’s website.
I’m just saying “it’s nuts.” And it’s nuts that Tom Curley doesn’t understand why it is nuts.
BTW, remember this little teapot tempest from the stiff-spined TECHNICAL GENIUSES @ AP?
Yep — still embeddable.
Golf. Claps.
Methinks some jaunty grave-dancing music is in order:
Dinosaurs and Mammals
by matttbastard
Apropos, especially in light of the recent public tussle between the straight-from-the-Jurassic editorial staff of the Toronto Star and a certain far-sighted columnist/blogger:
Undeniably, there is money to be made in digital publishing with free reader access, but whether that revenue leads to profits depends upon the scale and scope of the organization. The potential revenue does not appear to be of the magnitude that will support the massive operations of existing news organizations. What works in today’s web landscape are lean and mean organizations with little or no management bureaucracy — operations where nearly every employee is working on producing actual content. I’m an extreme example — a literal one-man show. A better example is Josh Marshall’s TPM Media, which is hiring political and news reporters. TPM is growing, not shrinking. But my understanding is that nearly everyone who works at TPM is working on editorial content.
Old-school news companies aren’t like that — the editorial staff makes up only a fraction of the total head count at major newspaper and magazine companies. The question these companies should be asking is, “How do we keep reporting and publishing good content?” Instead, though, they’re asking “How do we keep making enough money to support our existing management and advertising divisions?” It’s dinosaurs and mammals.
As they say, read the whole damn thing.
h/t Joe Trippi
NBC Sports Blog Lifts Steel Curtain on ESPN’s Roethlisberger Rape Embargo
by matttbastard
If only the GENERAL mainstream media establishment would go after each other with this kind of righteous gusto when warranted — as is DEFINITELY the case here:
“We really don’t want our coverage of the civil lawsuit filed against Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger to become an exercise in the bashing of ESPN. We’ve got some friends who work there (maybe not as many after today), and we don’t generally believe that the network is evil or corrupt or otherwise nasty.
“However, we do believe that the network is way too large for its own good, and that unless and until a true competitor emerges, it’s up to everyone else to point out those occasions when the emperor is riding both bareback and bareassed.
“The handling of the Roethlisberger case makes us wonder whether there’s a complete firewall between the business functions of ESPN and its journalistic activities. We say this because we’re convinced that the Roethlisberger story initially was ignored due to concerns that ESPN would be jeopardizing its access to the two-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback, who also happens to play for the team with the most loyal and rabid fan base in America.“
The entire post is a must-read, take-no-prisoners smackdown that shows ESPN to indeed “be riding both barebacked and bareassed” (first uncovered by NBC Sports here). And it would seem that the spanking has made an impact, as ProFootballTalk reports in an update:
Technically, ESPN is now acknowledging the report, albeit unwittingly. As of this posting, the “Top Stories From ABC News” box on ESPN.com’s various pages includes the headline, “Woman: Super Bowl QB Raped Me.”
Again, if only…
h/t WAM! co-founder & Yes Means Yes co-editor Jaclyn Friedman
(Her take on the Roethlisberger rape suit and ESPN’s initial refusal to cover the story here)
Al Franken’s Supreme Affirmation
by matttbastard
(Image: Al Franken for Senate)
Speaking as a long time SNL fan, I think it’s absolutely fabulous to see that the Minnesota State Supreme Court believes Al Franken is good enough and smart enough to represent the state as its junior Senator. Because, doggone it, people like him more than Norm Coleman (by a final margin of 312 votes).
Chris Cillizza notes that despite Franken’s celebrity pedigree (which, as Cillizza points out, helped swell Franken’s coffers throughout the campaign and subsequent legal battle with Coleman), the former writer/comedian cannily avoided the public eye while lawyers tussled–except to play the role of statesman :
When the race ended in a tie, Franken did something very smart; he stayed out of the spotlight. He was rarely seen or heard and when he did pop into public view it was during an occasional visit to Washington when he was huddling with potential colleagues and getting briefed on issues by potential staffers — in short, acting like a senator. He gave Republicans nothing to use to sow doubts about whether he was ready for the office to which he was headed. While Franken’s personal discipline did little to effect the legal outcome, it played a critical part in slowly but surely securing public support behind the idea that not only had he won but that he was ready to be a senator.
Also, many thanks to the beltway bullshit shovellers at Politico for once again picking up the trusty steno pads to help their GOP patrons explain how an historic victory for the Democratic party is–wait for it–actually good news for Republicans (ZOMG NO WAIS!):
Franken’s upcoming seating will give Democrats their biggest majority in the Senate in a generation, ensuring their party holds a 60-40 majority – enough to quash GOP filibusters if they stay united.
And with that, some Republicans see an ironic silver lining – Democrats have nobody else to blame if their agenda falls short even though that will be tough with an ideologically diverse caucus and the absences of Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), who have been sidelined by illnesses. GOP strategists say it will solidify their argument heading into the 2010 elections that electing more Republicans would be a critical check on one-party dominance in Washington.
“The implications of this Senate race are particularly significant because the Democrats will now have 60 votes in the Senate,” said Sen. John Cornyn, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “With their supermajority, the era of excuses and finger-pointing is now over.”
The more things change…(oh teh irony, indeed)
Don’t Go Back to the Bunker Just Yet, Dick!
by matttbastard
From Dan Balz’s latest WaPo piece on GOP discomfort with Dick Cheney’s recent media ubiquity:
Liz Cheney strongly disagreed with the claim that her father’s vocal defense of Bush administration policies has caused significant unrest within the GOP. She said he has received phone calls, e-mails and letters from people around the country, from officials in government and from members of the military and their families, thanking him for standing up and speaking out. “He’s got hundreds of people coming to him saying, ‘Please keep doing what you’re doing,’ ” she said.
Yes, well, unfortunately for the Grand Old Poopyheads, a number of the lurkers supporting Deadeye Dick in email are likely agent provocateurs from the Democrat Socialist Party. Regardless, let me second the sentiment: Please, keep filling the wingnut leadership vacuum with the nostalgic stench of recent history, you overflowing shitbag of fetid amorality.
Please.
bastard.logic 