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
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Saturday, June 28, 2003
Does anyone edit superstar news hacks on the Web? In the third graf of her June 27 piece on BLUNDER.com Eleanor "The Token" Clift writes, "[L]awmakers fear the unknown." Then in the last graf she writes, "Democratic officeholders have a fear of the unknown." So is it lawmakers or Democratic lawmakers? If I did something like this I'd be in a tiz for days. With someone like Eleanoooooh it's an extra $200,000 in the bank.
CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) says (with a smile) that our death toll in Iraq has passed the "grim milestone" (oh, how pleasing to the ears) of 200. That, by even CURLEY's admission, is still little more than half the death toll in Gulf War I, and three-and-a-half-percent the US toll in Vietnam. Still, with news hacks, Iraq will be QUAGMIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! forever.
Isn't it enough Kofi that the League of Nations has already screwed up big time in Africa? No -- we gotta screw up one more time!
Looks like the latest superbudgeted superhyped superdumb piece of cinematic dog t -- er, the latest wondrous masterpiece of the filmic art blew a relative fuse at the box-office.
She's been out of the public eye for six years, but the Demi Moore publicity machine is working full throttle again.
And it wouldn't work if we jaysonists didn't supply copious amounts of WD-40.
And it wouldn't work if we jaysonists didn't supply copious amounts of WD-40.
JACK, THE MAN WHO MADE MOVIES STINK, WANTS TO QUIT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Your life's just BEGUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyway, his would-be successors have been drooling for the chance for years. Boy could we put one over on the public now! And what a standing-room list: Slick, Billy "The Broadcaster's Lackey" Tauzin, Ed "V-Chip" Markey, can't count out Mary "Copyright Forever and a Day" Bono -- heck, can't count out Trent Lott, who passed the Disney Protection Act under cover of darkness (although that's probably a nonstarter because he's REPUBLICAN -- then again, with "one-party rule" maybe it'll start after all). Sen. Foghorn Leghorn's NG because he's almost as old as Methusa -- JACK, and we don't want a cartoon character as our lobbyist (even if one already is). Shouldn't dismiss high-profile frauds like Mickey Mouse Michael though. That could be his retirement job. His most natural successor (and we definitely shouldn't count him out) is Ken Auletta, who knows all about expensive suits, Morton's, and sucking up. He's at the top of my list. Although Claudia "The Cheerleader" Eller would make a natural spokesperson for bad movies. Don't forget the Spy Brothers Carter and Anderson. They'd party without END.
Are there any available candidates already in the Mafia?
Anyway, his would-be successors have been drooling for the chance for years. Boy could we put one over on the public now! And what a standing-room list: Slick, Billy "The Broadcaster's Lackey" Tauzin, Ed "V-Chip" Markey, can't count out Mary "Copyright Forever and a Day" Bono -- heck, can't count out Trent Lott, who passed the Disney Protection Act under cover of darkness (although that's probably a nonstarter because he's REPUBLICAN -- then again, with "one-party rule" maybe it'll start after all). Sen. Foghorn Leghorn's NG because he's almost as old as Methusa -- JACK, and we don't want a cartoon character as our lobbyist (even if one already is). Shouldn't dismiss high-profile frauds like Mickey Mouse Michael though. That could be his retirement job. His most natural successor (and we definitely shouldn't count him out) is Ken Auletta, who knows all about expensive suits, Morton's, and sucking up. He's at the top of my list. Although Claudia "The Cheerleader" Eller would make a natural spokesperson for bad movies. Don't forget the Spy Brothers Carter and Anderson. They'd party without END.
Are there any available candidates already in the Mafia?
eBay wouldn't engage in this whirlwind of PR if scamming weren't a problem. Let's see if it actually works.
Friday, June 27, 2003
Maybe it's more than your politics: About five hours ago America's most intrepid reporter, Walter Winchell, said that an Arab newspaper reported that al Qaeda's number-two man and its chief spokesman were captured in Iran. Five hours later, that scoop is inexplicably missing.
Time to pull that hat down over your head again, WALTER.
Time to pull that hat down over your head again, WALTER.
KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH I hear KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! the footsteps KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! of the newshack KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! THOUGHTPOLICE!!!!!
KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH!
The author of the first of the Biskindites' Movies-Were-Better-Than-Ever-in-the-Seventies movies, an award-winning hack named Newman, has died. This piece of cinematic brilliance helped bring forth the set of circumstances that now make good movies impossible and "critically-acclaimed" movies impossible. (Ironically, the author of this immortal masterpiece also wrote the Superman supermegamarketing movies, which I guess had to be masterpieces too.)
I got an idea, Dubya! Let's make Nelson Mandela president for a month.
I predict after a month we'd have depression, famines, pestilences, hundreds of terrorist attacks and 23 simultaneous wars. Wanna do it, Dubya?
I predict after a month we'd have depression, famines, pestilences, hundreds of terrorist attacks and 23 simultaneous wars. Wanna do it, Dubya?
New Yorkers who made a national pastime out of seeing the shrink are sending their dogs to yoga classes. This way their dogs go to the dogs too.
QUAGMIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! takes a new turn. Now it's called Incomplete.
P. S. The word "retired" appears in the story five times.
P. S. The word "retired" appears in the story five times.
Paul "You Can Do Anything with Numbers" Krugman, inspired by Frank "The Gliberal" Rich's way of imitating a stroke before he'd write his columns, turns his face beet red and his head three-times-normal size fantasizing that America is becoming a one-party state. Calm your blood pressure, Paul, there's an answer: the one-party state of media and academe.
Reuters is gushing that some clowns starting America's 4,728th cable channel have sandblasted Jackie Gleason "Honeymooners" shows from the late sixties. These are not the immortals of '55-'56, the Holy Grail of sitcomdom; these are hour-long musicals, with (as I recall them) corny plots, corny songs, corny production numbers, and very little funny. Yet it is a measure of how hard up cable-TV networks perennially are for reruns that we got a press agent to call them "classic." Hey but The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres and Gilligan's Island (which also aired on the alleged Tiffany Network, then called CBS) are "classic" too. Right?
Congresspoops Mary "Copyright Forever Minus a Day" Bono and Billy "The Broadcaster's Lackey" Tauzin made a rap video ("to an Eminem tune") for record-industry lobbyist Hilary. Figures. They both have ATTITUDE.
Hope someday that video shows up in public and does the same damage to their reps as all those Enron videos. Six of one....
Hope someday that video shows up in public and does the same damage to their reps as all those Enron videos. Six of one....
I am hard-pressed to judge Strom Thurmond's significance. Yes, he led the Dixiecrat walkout of the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia in '48, presaging the South's walkout of the party in the decades following; but what else did he do? His Senior Outhouse career was as undistinguished as it was long. Name one piece of -- legislation for which he's famous. No, Strom Thurmond was a get-along, go-along politician, changing allegiance with the changing times, who'll be remembered, thanks to serving in his old age under the Kliegl lights of television, as a doddering puppet for staff-member ventriloquists. I'm not sure that's how he should be remembered; I'm not sure that's how he shouldn't be.
Thursday, June 26, 2003
I'm starting to peruse Jeff Jarvis's blog, and I'm starting to think maybe working in the AOL megamachine for years and years isn't as deadening to the soul as I thought.
Another GoogleBlogger innovation: all our posts now have eighteen digits. WOW!!!!!!!!!!
Stories like this are useless (or worse, more synergistic jaysonist mea culpas) because people now instinctively know to give up and say, Big Media, you win again. When we turn over our life, our liberty, and even our pursuit of happiness to a few moguls, we may as well burn our Constitution and our laws. It is precisely such stories that led Bill Safire to hope and pray that GENERAL JR.'s rehearsal for his career as a zillionaire lobbyist could be overturned. I wish I could be hopeful, but as the experience of over a century shows, faced down by media moguls the public doesn't stand a chance.
IF the Saudis prosecute the alleged Riyadh bombing "mastermind," AND convict him, AND sentence him to death or at least an airless cell for life, THEN we'll know they're serious.
I'll hand this to the Nine Fingers: even with their lack of understanding of the Constitution, they realize the Founders put the prohibition on ex-post-facto laws in for a reason, even if it helps buggering ex-priests.
RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s PR man Roger writes a delicious story about the premiere of yet another superbudgeted superhyped superdumb piece of cinematic dog t -- er, another wondrous masterpiece of the filmic art. As he puts it with typical understatement, "[Drew] Barrymore is no Claudette Colbert."
Another nice thing about the new GoogleBlogger: you can't right-click open your blog in a new window with View Blog. Way to GO!
The Nine Fingers' ruling on Texas's sodomy law seems reasonable; government's last place should be in the bedroom. But then those forces of left, er, right, the enforcers of America's speech code, the defenders of what Joseph Epstein has called totalitarian pluralism -- the NEWS HACKS -- grab hold of the story like a dachshund engaged in a death struggle with his leash, and before you know it, COMRADE STALIN HAS SCORED A TREMENDOUS VICTORY OVER BOURGEOIS REACTIONARY HOOLIGANISM!
William Safire says GENERAL JR.'s opponents can get around Billy "NAB" Tauzin in the House. We'll see. We'll see.
All this scratching of the head, Donna, over MONEY? Heck LeBron didn't wax philosophic before singing that Nike contract. Neither did the Hokies -- they just followed the example of the exalted senior Sen. Ossified Kleagle and said, "MONEY!!!!!" And isn't MONEY what professional college sports is all about?
ANOTHER NEW GOOGLEBLOGER INNOVATION: It won't stop posting -- even when you have nothing to post! IT'S THE ELECTRONIC HICCUPS!!
WE KNEW YOU'D COME THROUGH!!!!!
WE KNEW YOU'D COME THROUGH!!!!!
Arafat Says Arab Militants Expected to Approve Cease-fire
And the following week there'll be three suicide bombings. (I guess he "said" this in English.)
I'm waiting for the cream-pie from this latest CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) to splat us in the face.
And the following week there'll be three suicide bombings. (I guess he "said" this in English.)
I'm waiting for the cream-pie from this latest CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) to splat us in the face.
Looks like Mickey Mouse Michael has given Harvey Whiner the go-ahead to throw his company's money down the toilet.
Sorry Whiner, last I checked, Arthur Freed was still dead. He has to be. I don't think he'd produce Pippin otherwise.
(It's printing bloviations like these that allows Jaysons to emerge. Why can't editors control their charges' insatiable desires? Because they share them?)
Sorry Whiner, last I checked, Arthur Freed was still dead. He has to be. I don't think he'd produce Pippin otherwise.
(It's printing bloviations like these that allows Jaysons to emerge. Why can't editors control their charges' insatiable desires? Because they share them?)
A NEW GOOGLEBLOGGER INNOVATION: Make an error typing in your links, and it disables all your previous links on the Edit Post page!
We KNEW you'd come through!
We KNEW you'd come through!
8 MILLION COULD LOSE OVERTIME PAY!!!!!!!!!! Well if this isn't nirvana for hard-core conservatives, Dick "Free Market" Armeys, Jim "Dow 36,000" Glassmans, Buttman, er, Cato Institutes, etc., etc., etc., -- but then you go to Google and learn from the leftist news-tantrum-throwing group FAIR that the source of that headline, the Economic Policy Institute, is "progressive." One of my favorite Beltway frauds: give your group an anodyne name to disguise its contempt for the public. Even better: no mention in the MESS.com report that the group's, er, "progressive." I HATE WASHINGTON!!!!! I HATE NEWS HACKS!!!!!
The hero of the third world is reduced to communicating by mail.
Hey hero worshippers! Isn't it time to join the 21st century?
Hey hero worshippers! Isn't it time to join the 21st century?
I'm not sure what the difference is between the new, "improved" GoogleBlogger and the old, unimproved GoogleBlogger, colors and fonts excepted -- but we did have to wait for hours to get it.
Let's see if it crashes as often as it used to.
Let's see if it crashes as often as it used to.
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
The New York Times had a general in the army! (Half-point demerit for being reported by Little Howie "Hair Shirt" Kurtz.)
Comedy Central has laid off twenty percent of its workers thanks to Viacon's getting total control, but don't cry; it'll triple in size in five years, thanks to the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers.
Another Harvard Business School case study from the Disney Network: You pay umpteen gazillions to keep a show on the air, then you move it around the schedule forty times, then the ratings tank, and you blame -- nobody?
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Can Bush Be Both Ignorant and a Liar?
Kinsley.com should be careful whom it picks fights with, for BILL THE ENTOMOLOGIST has proved one can be a OMNIPOTENT and a liar.
Kinsley.com should be careful whom it picks fights with, for BILL THE ENTOMOLOGIST has proved one can be a OMNIPOTENT and a liar.
For policemen and firemen to be wearing blackface (at all, let alone in public) was WRONNNNNNNNNNG, but for one of America's most PC cities to fire the men smacks of a certain intolerance too.
And who fired the men? Mayor Saintly Hero.
And who fired the men? Mayor Saintly Hero.
A thoroughly depressing story on urban spelunking in Detroit. What could be glories are vacant rotting hulks because Babbitts don't want to be caught within 1,000 MILES OF A NIG -- an urban-warfare zone.
While there's a bit of the Camille Paglia to this long dissertation against you-know-who and her books, the fact remains this is the first negative article I've read on the phenomenon in quite a while. You-know-what books have entered the Pantheon of the Untouchable, along with HBO series -- they cannot, and WILL NOT, be criticized, not only because of the "what's-good-for-AOL" mentality that dictates the news biz, but perhaps because the jaysonists feel that by criticizing you-know-who and you-know-what they may discourage kids to read (as if they don't provide enough discouragement themselves), ignoring what this writer says very plainly: too many adults are reading the books too. The argument that you-know-what books are a manifestation of "cultural infantilization" cannot be ignored.
Thank you, ArtsJournal.com, for not linking to a press release or a trendy rave, for once.
Thank you, ArtsJournal.com, for not linking to a press release or a trendy rave, for once.
Looks like those knee-jerk communistic CNN types weren't the only ones who slobbered over Saddam. (Half-point demerit for being reported by Little Howie "Hair Shirt" Kurtz.)
Does anyone remember a book called Living History? It's down to 9 on Amazon.com.
Don't put too much credence in publishers' numbers.
Don't put too much credence in publishers' numbers.
I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THIS WOULD HAPPEN: Guess who's joining in the battle over Spike (Arf! Arf!) TV? THE SON OF SPIKE JONES!!!!!
In some secluded rendezvous....
In some secluded rendezvous....
Atlanta's transit authority wasted millions of high-tech, New York's Health Department wasted millions on high-tech. Lord knows how many other times this has happened. Maybe the promise of Bill isn't all he cooked it up to be.
Certain gung-ho conservative bloggers are getting all riled at Congressman Weathervane's lame assertion (made before the Je$$e Gang) that he would overturn Nine Fingers rulings with executive orders. Why now? Where were they when presidents flung pieces of paper out the Oval Office declaring God-knows-what and allowing God-knows-what? Why are these truth-tellers suddenly shocked! SHOCKED! that a president would want to have his way? Methinks they doth blog too much.
Monday, June 23, 2003
Okay, so it wasn't 38, but proving that the cultural crime of all time happened at that @#$%&* Iraqi National Museum is an ever more desperate enterprise, and perhaps it's a measure of how news hacks can't afford to overplay their hand that the Post relegated this to an inside page, on a Saturday, and I only found out about it two days after the fact via ArtsJournal.com.
Somebody had to compile a list of "10 Most Influential Blogs" (the usual, many like the Professor and Andy S. and Mickey with connections to Big Media), which means they get read and nobody else does, which means other good blogs get ignored, which means we have the same self-selection in blogging that we have in Big Media, which means blogging is ossifying, which means why bother blogging?
The LA police officer who writes for NRO under the nom de keyboard "Jack Dunphy" sums up the news hacks' attitude very well:
We know best, you see, and if you disagree it can only be attributable to some gross defect of character that renders you unfit for polite company.
I mentioned earlier the great difference between news hacks and politicans. That reminds me of a lyric from the long-ago flop musical How to Steal an Election:
And when you're on the ticket (Yes, sir!)
You'll learn rape is not a crime
When you do it to the voters
A million at a time! (Doodley doodley doodley)
Substitute "in the newsroom" (or rather, news suite) and "readers" (or "surfers") and you'll get the idea. News hacks, politicans -- as the great Don Marquis's alter ego archy the cockroach quoted a flea, "millionaires and bums taste about alike to me." And many news hacks and politicians are both.
We know best, you see, and if you disagree it can only be attributable to some gross defect of character that renders you unfit for polite company.
I mentioned earlier the great difference between news hacks and politicans. That reminds me of a lyric from the long-ago flop musical How to Steal an Election:
And when you're on the ticket (Yes, sir!)
You'll learn rape is not a crime
When you do it to the voters
A million at a time! (Doodley doodley doodley)
Substitute "in the newsroom" (or rather, news suite) and "readers" (or "surfers") and you'll get the idea. News hacks, politicans -- as the great Don Marquis's alter ego archy the cockroach quoted a flea, "millionaires and bums taste about alike to me." And many news hacks and politicians are both.
Little Howie "Hair Shirt" Kurtz does a favor for the New York Observer -- so much of a favor you'd never know it's lost millions. (It's "not far from turning a profit" says Howie in his best let's-weave-and-dance-and-canter-around-the-truth mode. Clever writing! Maybe you ought to be in the Observer. And this is in the same column as Mortimer's fib?)
Senators Say Five Years in Iraq Is Realistic
Longer is likely, I'd bet. I don't care -- as long as we do it right.
Longer is likely, I'd bet. I don't care -- as long as we do it right.
You-know-who's American publisher is insisting you-know-what has sold an "estimated" five million copies. But you-know-who won't let her British publisher give out sales figures. Is her American publisher telling the truth? Regardless, one thing's clear: the PR -- er, news hacks won't if they can help it.
The Nine Fingers in the Wind have also decided Congress can force libraries to install Internet porn filters whether librarians like it or not. All these decisions were what are called "split," which is to say, The Nine Fingers in the Wind don't know how to point.
The Nine Fingers in the Wind have decided race preferences in universities are maybe sorta kinda rather good and maybe sorta kinda rather bad.
I've no doubt knee-jerks like Jim "Dow 36,000" Glassman would insist the cure for our economic doldrums is more M&A.
Problem is, so many companies have already M&A'd so much it would require GEs to merge with Microsofts. Which would be just fine with Jim "Dow 36,000" Glassman.
Why do I think the hard-core "capitalist" is nothing more than a communist in drag?
Problem is, so many companies have already M&A'd so much it would require GEs to merge with Microsofts. Which would be just fine with Jim "Dow 36,000" Glassman.
Why do I think the hard-core "capitalist" is nothing more than a communist in drag?
What is the difference between a news hack and a politician?
None. Both kinds of creatures always campaign, always search for a better job, always mug for the cameras, always lie (the politician calls it "plausible deniability," the news hack calls it "objectivity") -- and they're both in "show-biz for ugly people."
None. Both kinds of creatures always campaign, always search for a better job, always mug for the cameras, always lie (the politician calls it "plausible deniability," the news hack calls it "objectivity") -- and they're both in "show-biz for ugly people."
Sunday, June 22, 2003
At Tony Award time I said that Broadway was a glorified tourist trap and the allegedly bustling theater scene outside New York was largely a thing of navel staring. Here's proof of both. All these geniuses trodding the earth writing musicals, and they're mad because -- the New York critics don't like them! Could it be that the reason the critics don't like them is because -- their music is no good? One of their excuses is they're up against the Broadway Branson machine, but because it disgorges so much bad and overrated doesn't make their work any better. So people like Adam Guettel (who'd be nowhere without that healthy dose of Richard Rodgers in his bloodline) have taken their acts on the road, to the usual appreciative crowds of 100. It is highly unlikely any of the names in this report will ever find an audience outside what the news hacks must call "cults." It's just not a good time for music, period -- not least because of the musicians.
Greek Forces Find 680 Metric Tons of Explosives on Ship
And if it had been bound for us would the Greeks (who loved us during the war) have sent it on its merry way?
And if it had been bound for us would the Greeks (who loved us during the war) have sent it on its merry way?
In yet another lengthy self-serving jaysonist mea culpa, CNN and CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!), all but admitting there's no difference between them and alcoholics and drug addicts, say "we're sorry" for devoting so much time to Laci. Hey IDIOTS! You've been saying the exact same thing again and again since OJ. The fact that this story was more important than Columbia shows YOU'LL NEVER CHANGE -- and unlike most alcoholics and drug addicts, that's precisely how you six- and seven-digit frauds want it.
GENERAL JR.! BILLY "NAB" TAUZIN! SUMNER! ZON!! RUPERT!!!!! LOWSY MAYS!!!!!!!!!! WE MUST PREVENT BROADCASTERS LIKE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!
Friends and supporters say his denunciations of the war, his fiery stump attacks on Bush and his signing of Vermont's landmark bill allowing gay and lesbian civil unions have painted an inaccurate national picture of Dean.
As governor, Dean was a fiscal conservative whose steadfast opposition to some taxes and spending programs rankled the state's vast reservoir of liberal activists.
Unfortunately, he's not running for governor.
As governor, Dean was a fiscal conservative whose steadfast opposition to some taxes and spending programs rankled the state's vast reservoir of liberal activists.
Unfortunately, he's not running for governor.
When Palestinians kill Israeli civilians, and the Israelis strike back by killing terro -- Palestinian leaders, that's WRONG!
NEWT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NEWT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This week BLUNDER's "Conventional Wisdom" features a "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Edition." I don't blame them: if I were MR. ARROGANT BLUNDER I'd want to stay anonymous myself. (Although who knows: at BuffettMedia the moron's a hero no doubt.)
Take this story -- about millions in waste on unused computers at Atlanta's transit authority -- and multiply it by three. Now take THIS story, and multiply it by 50,000, and you get an idea of the jaysonists' priorities.
The author of you-know-what refuses to have her publisher disclose her sales, an extremely shrewd move on her part, for it allows the news hacks to do what they do best -- endlessly speculate, endlessly publicize, and endlessly BS.
THE INTERNS HAVE TAKEN OVER THE USA OKAY SITE AND WON'T LET GO!!!!!
Former Congressmen Bob Stump dies (headline)
Rep. Bob Stump, R-Ariz. died Friday at a Phoenix. (photo caption)
The interns must have had something against former Congressmen Stump.
Former Congressmen Bob Stump dies (headline)
Rep. Bob Stump, R-Ariz. died Friday at a Phoenix. (photo caption)
The interns must have had something against former Congressmen Stump.
One hopes the historical spectacle is the next big sewer drain for the film biz, but it's been lucky far too many times before.