Somebody searched the Washington Post website for the words let’s not David Broder and this blog was the number 1 result. Number 2 was a Washington post page, followed by a mixture of “real journalists” and blogs. 

This is amazing. No, not that any blog would mention the amazingly boring David Broder, but that a blog with little traffic would beat out a newspaper at it’s own site on a search of it’s own columnist. It would like asking for a power tool at Home Depot and having the manager tell you could get the best deal on it at a T-shirt store down the street. 

I wonder. Google stormed to the number one search engine with algorithms that rank blogs highly. They’ve tinkered with the formula, but blogs keep coming out on top. I wonder if they bought blogger because they noticed that using neutral yet relevant algorithms blogs kept coming out on top. Could it be Google figures even if they can’t point you to the best match, they’ll point you to somebody who can?

It’s a common refrain among those bloggers who keep tabs on the media — “Don’t they know how to use Google?” And if they do, or even when searching newspaper sites, they keep coming across blogs. Is this the sort of thing that is causing a change in attitude within Big Media, as reported by Jeff Jarvis?

I’d much rather think about this kind of hit than all the ones I get looking for lady’s hirsute pits.

The LA times finally issues a correction about Paul Bremmer’s farewell address – he gave one, the LA times reported he hadn’t. 

What’s telling for me is their reason for not knowing — it wasn’t publicized to the Western press. In other words, because the CPA didn’t give them a press release and a transcript, the press covering Iraq had no idea that he gave a farewell address. The press that purports to have their finger on the pulse of Iraq for us hasn’t a clue, and doesn’t realize it. Next time you read about how the Iraqis feel or what they think or what is going on in Iraq, just remember this. 

And since this appeared in a “news analysis” piece, let me remind you, “news analysis” is just a fancy word for “opinion” that deliberately tries to make you think its actual news. 

That’s one of the rots in modern journalism – the lack of investigative ability and the reliance on handouts — from “sources”, from organizations, even from readers. Far too often a story is generated by the source, not the press. A think tank or advocacy organization (e.g. The Center for Science in the Public Interest) issues a press release about a study, and poof instant story that relies on the press release. I was amazed to discover through Google how many stories are created this way, and how reliant they are on the press release, with no critical examination of what lies behind the press release. Oh, perhaps the token “critic”, but face value belief in the way the story is written. And then you go to the organization’s web site, and you read the press release, and you see how much of the “story” is a verbatim copy of the press release, and then you read the substance behind the press release, and you realize how much of the context is missing, or how many of the caveats are missing, or how laughably “scientific” the study is, and you realize you’ve been duped.

Or a “source” drops a dime and settles a score, and a hit piece appears, and if you know anything about the situation you know it’s a hit piece, but the reporter either doesn’t care (heck, the response is a whole nother story that will fall in your lap) or doesn’t know enough to know better.

There is a world of difference between an organization that relies on “facts” handed to it, and an organization that goes out and uncovers the facts themselves. And since news organizations don’t fact check in any meaningful sense, what we have is a press that purports to keep us informed but simply provides us with information that particular people and organizations want us to see for their own reasons. The whole breast implant scare was cooked up by the journalist trial lawer complex to poison jury pools — journalists used stories pre-packaged by trial lawyers complete with fake science but real anecdote. 

And this is what passes for journalism. And this is why I no longer believe a word written in the paper other than direct quotes — and even then I’m not sure.

Biggles Asks Question

Can I fire the press? I mean it, really. 

I managed to watch the Bush press conference the other night – it slipped my mind that Band of Brothers was on over on the History channel. While President Bush clearly has some deficiencies – most notably public speaking, the press clearly has its own deficiencies, like anything to do with their job of reporting the news. The press acted like a bad Monty Python imitation: Confess your mistakes, confess your mistakes, apologize for your mistakes, confess to your inability to communicate, confess, confess, confess. Poke him again with another soft-in-the-head question. All that was missing was Cardinal Fang and the comfy chair. 

The Q & A period did manage to make one thing clear at least: now we know why the Strother Martin character from NPR never gets called upon – although it did allow the President to demonstrate once again that sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand. So I guess I can’t complain that it was completely uninformative.

Sadly, the truth of the matter is that the press doesn’t work for me; it doesn’t work for you either. Oh, the press likes to talk about “serving the public interest” and “the people’s right to know” (oddly enough, that one isn’t in the constitution), but their job isn’t to inform the public, their job is to sell stuff. The newspaper people push whatever the department stores are selling, which by the looks of things is mostly bras and panties. The TV news people mainly hawk denture creams and adult diapers.

I mean if the press really was interested in giving us the news, why do they spend so much time on the titillation du jour (e.g. Kobe Bryant or Scott Peterson), and why would they pass up a chance to seriously question the President and instead try to play Gotcha! 

Yeah, I know, it’s their favorite game, even when they play it so poorly.

Don’t you love it when the news media tells you how important they are because keep the public informed with important and serious information, and that “fluff” only gets on because the public “demands” it? Cori Dauber goes looking for important and serious information about the terrible attack in Spain, and like Diogenes has a hard time finding what she’s looking for because fluff crowds out the good stuff, even on cable news channels. (I wonder if she’s going to change the name to Ranting Prof now that she’s solo.)

I seem to remember when MSNBC (I think) did some survey about what news people would pick they were surprised that people favored hard news. I haven’t noticed any improvement, though.

As long as I’m complaining about the state of current journalism, there were two excellent letters to the editor in the paper today:

Punish criminals, not honest folks with guns

Your strident and hysterical objections to the recently passed concealed-weapons law are based on two false assumptions. First, you assume that honest citizens who obey the law and are no threat to anyone suddenly become dangerous monsters if they are licensed to carry a gun. I have carried guns under various circumstances since I was a child, and that was a long time ago, and I have never felt any urge to use one improperly or illegally. I am not alone in that. Honest people are honest, whether they are armed or not, and your assumption otherwise is insulting to all honest citizens. 

Second, you assume that passing a law against something prevents people from doing it. It doesn’t; it simply establishes a penalty for doing it. Honest people follow legal guidelines, but criminals ignore them and risk the consequences. That’s why we call them criminals. 

There are legal and illegal uses for guns. The right to have one available for legal use is guaranteed by the Missouri Constitution. The concealed-weapons law allows people to carry guns in a socially acceptable manner. Missouri is safer for it. 

Leroy Madden
Ellisville 

Tell it like it was

In reference to the March 7 story headlined “13 Palestinians are reported killed in Gaza battles”: 

Once, just once, can’t the main headline read “Palestine militants and suicide bomber attack at Israel-Gaza crossing point,” and a smaller one read, “In retaliation, 13 Palestinians are reported killed”? It is heart-wrenching enough to hear of such carnage without at least your telling it like it was. 

Please remember the words of the late Prime Minister Golda Meier, who stated at one point in a previous conflict, “We can forgive the Palestinians for killing our children, but we cannot forgive them for making us kill theirs.” 

Meyer and Selma Kahan
Creve Coeur 

Two excellent letters making great points clearly and concisely. Two (three?) amateurs providing better written content than anything else in the paper today. Of course, if they had to write a column, they’d have to pad them out to fill the whole thing.