Eugene David ...The One-Minute Pundit |
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED: I know more than you. I make lots more money than you. I'm smarter than you. I'm sexier than you. I appear on TV all the time. I work ten minutes a day. I rule the universe. I'm going to live forever. You are an idiot. THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 2: A lie isn't a lie when it tells THE TRUTH. THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 3: I've come to realize that the looseness of the journalistic life, the seeming laxity of the newsroom, is an illusion. Yes, there's informality and there's humor, but beneath the surface lies something deadly serious. It is a code. Sometimes the code is not even written down, but it is deeply believed in. And, when violated, it is enforced with tribal ferocity. --JOHN "OMERTA" CARROLL. THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 4: News isn't news when we don't report it. PERMALINKS: THE NEWS HACKS' DICTIONARY THE EUGENE DAVID GLOSSARY AMERICA'S MOST UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNY WEB SITE! Blogroll Me! |
Saturday, June 21, 2003
Posted
8:03 PM
by Gene
Sorry that so many of my posts are inspired by LALATimes.com, but on a daily basis it runs more risible stuff than any other newspaper-based Web site, NYTimes.com and SFGate excepted.
Posted
5:50 PM
by Gene
Freight train derails into So. Calif. neighborhood Town officials upset that their was no warning of runaway cars. Pope gets chilly reception Pontiff's visit to ethnically divided Bosnia-Herzegovina innerves many Christian Orthodox Serbs. Or do we have the equivalent of a byline strike in the works?
Posted
2:54 PM
by Gene
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2:28 PM
by Gene
Posted
12:58 PM
by Gene
All the more reason to rush it through.
Posted
10:45 AM
by Gene
By the way, who's "Marvin Hamish"? A hamish actor?
Posted
8:22 AM
by Gene
Why not talk to Vice-President Inside?
Posted
8:19 AM
by Gene
Must've had some weird square dances. Upstairs above the hall, which also was used as a funeral parlor, the troops found two large rooms stacked with cryptograph machines, secure transmission devices and binders of documents, with more papers strewn on the floor. Very weird square dances.
Posted
8:17 AM
by Gene
Posted
8:01 AM
by Gene
But like the man said, what's good for KnightRidder is good for America! And another thing: what you onanists forget is that thanks to the Web we get a lot more of your bullhockey. What was easily avoided with one newspaper becomes a deluge with hundreds of newspaper sites. Please, PLEASE, jaysonists, we know you love yourselves so much, but please, PLEASE, OCCASIONALLY, respect our intelligence and leave us alone. PLEASE?????
Posted
7:49 AM
by Gene
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently did focus groups around the country with Democratic-leaning voters and found widespread resentment of both Clintons, according to a Democratic aide familiar with surveys conducted in several cities. Many focus group participants called the former president "immoral, smooth, crooked" and dishonest, the aide said, while Hillary Clinton was seen as an "opportunist." "It gives us a brand we just don't need," the aide said. Immoral, Smooth, Crooked™. Who says marketing doesn't work?
Posted
7:40 AM
by Gene
Think Syria knew? Friday, June 20, 2003
Posted
5:11 PM
by Gene
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!
Posted
5:07 PM
by Gene
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT! YOU LOSE!! (And we lose too, it goes without saying.)
Posted
5:03 PM
by Gene
Posted
10:14 AM
by Gene
Posted
9:33 AM
by Gene
Posted
9:26 AM
by Gene
I don't know about worst, but prevaricating, perhaps; annoying, definitely.
Posted
8:49 AM
by Gene
Or as Peter Carlson wrote: ...[T]here are many reasons for the rise of The List. The top five reasons are: 1) Lists are the easiest way to organize information without actually thinking. 2) Magazine editors are too lazy to think of anything more creative. 3) Magazine editors figure their readers are too lazy to read anything but lists. 4) Magazine readers really are too lazy to read anything but lists. 5) David Letterman's Top Ten lists have warped everybody's mind. Most magazine lists are, needless to say, totally stupid.
Posted
7:04 AM
by Gene
Posted
6:48 AM
by Gene
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6:33 AM
by Gene
Posted
6:22 AM
by Gene
![]() 'RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!! Thursday, June 19, 2003
Posted
5:36 PM
by Gene
Posted
12:37 PM
by Gene
Think of it, Slick -- Missus is financially independent now, thanks to her fiction skills. (Notice I didn't say fiction writing.) And just imagine all those hundreds of millions to feed the hungry, clothe the naked -- and speaking of naked, you could a have a nice harem on the side, with hundreds of willing women to service your every whim when you're not out there doing the exhausting business of improving the world. And with the change, why, you could bri -- you could talk people into giving you a THIRD TERM! So why not? Anna Nicole Smith showed there's no harm in it. Go for it, Slick! Be the GOLDDIGGER OF 2003!
Posted
12:31 PM
by Gene
Why can't these mismanaging Super-Pointy-Haired Bosses be out of the money for once?
Posted
12:21 PM
by Gene
Posted
12:16 PM
by Gene
I don't know whether to say "Watch out, Google!" or laugh.
Posted
12:07 PM
by Gene
Let them eat brie.
Posted
6:54 AM
by Gene
Gay Marriage Plan: Sign of Sweeping Change in Canada Has the Times thought of equipping its Web site with sound effects, so that when you click on the first story you'd get loud BOOOOOOOS, and the second, tremendous CHEEEEEERS? It might add to its aura. The late HOWELL would certainly have approved.
Posted
6:45 AM
by Gene
You have to wonder how many other cable programmers are lying between their reruns.
Posted
6:37 AM
by Gene
And yes, the smell of horse manure will be wafting from the LALA Times long after the last person alive from today has shuffled off this mortal coil. (No beer; in today's luxury news suites they drink Perrier.) Beware any article bylined "special." Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Posted
8:34 PM
by Gene
Posted
5:44 PM
by Gene
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5:24 PM
by Gene
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5:18 PM
by Gene
Posted
5:08 PM
by Gene
How many prime ministers is that?
Posted
4:59 PM
by Gene
If they do go up, they risk another catastrophe. If they don't go up -- they can wait a few years and make a much better vehicle.
Posted
11:52 AM
by Gene
"Watch Sominex tonight and sleep. Safe and restful sleep, sleep, sleep."
Posted
9:47 AM
by Gene
Is it me, or do most of these clerics who get in trouble look like Walter Mitty? (The exception, of course, is Mr. Law, who looks like a former GM chairman, and that is NO compliment.)
Posted
6:46 AM
by Gene
Now I can boast of my connections the same way Ken Auletta can. Tuesday, June 17, 2003
Posted
7:40 PM
by Gene
Sumner! Buy another two million!
Posted
5:54 PM
by Gene
And when the man calling him Al Capone says Clinton was a good president (typical Kinsley.com punchline), it's a double compliment.
Posted
5:42 PM
by Gene
By the way, the bank's the Philly branch of a Rhode Island firm owned by a Scottish bank. When do you suppose they find out?
Posted
5:39 PM
by Gene
We may be tempted -- given his history, given that he does look like an overgrown Dennis the Menace, given his shrill, piercing whine -- to say shut up, but he knows, as most people know, Fogbound is filled with appeasers and Beeb fans, who'll do anything to sell us out in the name of a peace (sic) of paper, or a promise, or a puff piece in the Times. Keep it up, Newt.
Posted
5:16 PM
by Gene
Posted
5:03 PM
by Gene
Posted
4:57 PM
by Gene
Monday, June 16, 2003
Posted
6:24 PM
by Gene
Posted
6:20 PM
by Gene
Posted
6:11 PM
by Gene
Posted
6:07 PM
by Gene
Posted
5:28 PM
by Gene
Without television, they might still be fighting in Vietnam. [Or, since this hack can't write, maybe "they" would have concluded the war successfully and several millions of Southeast Asians would still be alive.] The Tiananmen Square massacre may have escaped detection. [Boy did that make a big difference.] Cameras were there when JFK and Trudeau [HA HA HA HA HA!!!!! These Canadians are SO -- er, provincial] were laid to rest, when the Shuttle went up [and blew up, again and again and again and again and again], when the Berlin Wall came down [and the Osama empire went up, hardy har har], when The Newsroom [some CBC series nobody here has ever heard of] said hello, when Cheers said goodbye. TV also brought us reality programs, MTV, Comedy Central, Oprah, Jerry Springer, the WTC falling 50 billion times, the OJ chase, race riots like LA '92, focus groups, CNN's intrepid reporting of Tailwind and from Iraq, non-stop pundits, non-stop advertising, The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Gilligan's Island, the CNBC Bubble, al Jazeera, the month-long anthrax panic, the presidency of Richard Nixon, the presidency of Billy Jeff, the 2000 presidential election, crooks and rogues like Barry and Enright and Chuck Barris and Jim "The Cobra" Aubrey and Fred Silverman and Aaron Spelling and RUPERT!!!!!!!!! and Sumner and Jesus II and Mickey Mouse Michael and Geraldo and Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, pompous asses like HHWWalter Crrronkite and Norman Lear and GOD and Lord Koppel of Eisner, the Deer Hunter suicides, Action News, $12 million anchormen, $500 million athletes, canned laughter, monopolies, TV "critics" -- but why go on with the mentally challenged? He/she/it goes on, [I]n my experience children who watch shows such as Bob The Builder or Teletubbies seem to be bright, engaged and well-adjusted. Kids who watch no television at all — not so much. Okay, Know-It-All, explain why home-schoolers -- many of whom probably are raised without television -- make up a disproportionate number of the finalists in contests like the National Spelling Bee? But then to systematically dissect this piece of dead frog in print would take days and ruin my eyesight. We can end it, though, with his/her/its last line: So the real test is this: Can you turn it off? Yes, you can turn the television off. BUT WHO CAN TURN TELEVISION OFF?!?!? Happily, some nerd at the Toronto Star's Web site got the last laugh: Time to accept television f[SIC] (Courtesy of the IMBECILES at ArtsJournal.com, who HAD to link to this.)
Posted
12:11 PM
by Gene
Isn't monopolizing great, GENERAL JR.?
Posted
9:44 AM
by Gene
Posted
7:10 AM
by Gene
Posted
6:58 AM
by Gene
For God's sake, Sousa wrote you a march. You don't have to give us "Meg's Mirthful Mugging."
Posted
6:49 AM
by Gene
![]() Flowers? Peaceful-looking white wisps? The late Ayatollah should be surrounded with fire and flying pitchforks. And a lot of young Iranians would seem to agree.
Posted
6:44 AM
by Gene
Posted
6:25 AM
by Gene
Now on to the World SerieszzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZ.
Posted
6:23 AM
by Gene
And we couldn't have done it without LOTS of support. Sunday, June 15, 2003
Posted
8:59 PM
by Gene
Posted
8:49 PM
by Gene
Posted
5:40 PM
by Gene
Posted
5:38 PM
by Gene
Posted
5:35 PM
by Gene
Posted
2:59 PM
by Gene
What's the difference between a dog's call to nature and ATWOLA magazine? ATWOLA does it four million times a week. Sorry, but these hacks have a visceral contempt for their readers. (I've changed the name from AOL Time Warner rag as that name always pops up in the URLs of AOL sites, and it does sound comical.)
Posted
9:28 AM
by Gene
Posted
9:25 AM
by Gene
That we have to ask this after such a raid means it will be a long, long time before we take the Saudis' protestations seriously.
Posted
9:12 AM
by Gene
Posted
9:06 AM
by Gene
"I don't think (terrorists) have the middle name 'Ozzie,'" says David Nelson.
Posted
9:03 AM
by Gene
Posted
8:49 AM
by Gene
![]() After the news we're selling the joint for umpteen gazillion I'd take a little nap too.
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