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!
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Saturday, March 12, 2011
There are unfortunately few specialty reporters these days covering nuclear energy and technology closely.
Which should help the news hacks rub their hands.
Which should help the news hacks rub their hands.
And hey EDDIES! I've got another brilliant idea for bringing back your waterfronts -- FLOATING RESTAURANTS!
Oh wait, didn't we try dinghies?
(Via the ASSPress)
Oh wait, didn't we try dinghies?
(Via the ASSPress)
I! WANNA ROCK 'N' ROLL ALL NIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT --
AND PARTY E-VE-RY DAY!!!!!
A core tenet of RENDELLISM is bringing in as many stoodents into your town as possible. As the late EDDIE might say, "College kids means lots of youth! And youth means HIP! And hip means EXCITEMENT! And excitement means -- well, uh, I think it's a good idea." Two or three times a year the owners of some apartment building, in conjunction with the local bars, stage a block party on 15th and Locust, complete with bad loud live music -- and lots of BLUTOS. Today being a reasonable facsimile of St. Patty's Day they're staging one. The BLUTOS also bring their girlfriends, some of whom aren't that good looking either. I live in a dorm -- pardon, an apartment building nearby and I resent it because I'm tired of seeing so many clones on the streets. (And very few of the partygoers wearing the required green tees are wearing the b-l-a-c-k -- an unspoken tenet of RENDELLISM.) And after the BLUTOS leave kolledge they never come back. RENDELLISTS who think kolledge kids will revive their warrens are steering them toward another cul de sac. If you click on the link of that Vegas blog I posted yesterday you'll see lots of pictures of BLUTOS. They can't be helping Vegas. The town woefully tries to maintain what's left of that faux-elegant Rat Pack aura (and face it, they were slobs too) by attracting the top of the top of the top of gamb -- GAMERS; but if all those BLUTOS with "test tubes" are the norm they're surely flying far, far away in their private jets, another reason Vegas may not fully recover from its depression. Yes, kolledge kids gentrified a neighborhood around Bill Cosby University. I wonder how that's helped the ghetto poor who still surround it? BLUTOS will no more revive our cities than the EDS 'n' MEDS that bring them here, which will not stop RENDELLISTS from touting them.
AND PARTY E-VE-RY DAY!!!!!
A core tenet of RENDELLISM is bringing in as many stoodents into your town as possible. As the late EDDIE might say, "College kids means lots of youth! And youth means HIP! And hip means EXCITEMENT! And excitement means -- well, uh, I think it's a good idea." Two or three times a year the owners of some apartment building, in conjunction with the local bars, stage a block party on 15th and Locust, complete with bad loud live music -- and lots of BLUTOS. Today being a reasonable facsimile of St. Patty's Day they're staging one. The BLUTOS also bring their girlfriends, some of whom aren't that good looking either. I live in a dorm -- pardon, an apartment building nearby and I resent it because I'm tired of seeing so many clones on the streets. (And very few of the partygoers wearing the required green tees are wearing the b-l-a-c-k -- an unspoken tenet of RENDELLISM.) And after the BLUTOS leave kolledge they never come back. RENDELLISTS who think kolledge kids will revive their warrens are steering them toward another cul de sac. If you click on the link of that Vegas blog I posted yesterday you'll see lots of pictures of BLUTOS. They can't be helping Vegas. The town woefully tries to maintain what's left of that faux-elegant Rat Pack aura (and face it, they were slobs too) by attracting the top of the top of the top of gamb -- GAMERS; but if all those BLUTOS with "test tubes" are the norm they're surely flying far, far away in their private jets, another reason Vegas may not fully recover from its depression. Yes, kolledge kids gentrified a neighborhood around Bill Cosby University. I wonder how that's helped the ghetto poor who still surround it? BLUTOS will no more revive our cities than the EDS 'n' MEDS that bring them here, which will not stop RENDELLISTS from touting them.
WE might not make a movie from a WUHK by the cri-TIC-ally-ACCLAIMED ahTEESE BERKE BREATHED. Thankfully ESPNCORP did -- but REALLY ES, why didn't you make it into a YouTube video? It would have been cheaper.
Sorry, PAUL DRECK, this isn't A GLITCH IN THE SCHEDULE anymore.
P. S. at5 7:52 P. M. THR's lead copywriter PAMELA runs an ad saying everything will be okay. Perhaps -- but this was a $150 million 3D FILLUM. 3D never fails. Right?
Also to get back to even movees will have to do significantly better than last year. I want to see lots of sequels and remakes do better. Most likely the biz will still be down, and Pamela will still hold a job she doesn't deserve to.
Sorry, PAUL DRECK, this isn't A GLITCH IN THE SCHEDULE anymore.
P. S. at5 7:52 P. M. THR's lead copywriter PAMELA runs an ad saying everything will be okay. Perhaps -- but this was a $150 million 3D FILLUM. 3D never fails. Right?
Also to get back to even movees will have to do significantly better than last year. I want to see lots of sequels and remakes do better. Most likely the biz will still be down, and Pamela will still hold a job she doesn't deserve to.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Say who writes the "songs" for Katy, uh -- you know, the one who shows off her bazoom? Among the obits that will be vastly underreported this year is Hugh Martin's. That name won't ring a bell with any but the most devoted music buffs but his songs will: with Ralph Blane he co-wrote the score for Meet Me in St. Louis, which includes that superior melancholy ballad "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" -- and far better, "The Trolley Song", one of the best songs ever written for the movies, a song overtly about love by chance and pleasingly covertly about sex, and both songs made Judy Garland immortal as if she weren't already. Anyone here remember the Best Song Os-CAR® winner for 2010? Didn't think so.
Another championship round for TGSM:
[T]he lasting image of Woods will be a pair of tee shots.
He hit a smother hook with the driver on the second hole, which traveled only 122 yards - about the same distance he typically hits a sand wedge. Then came a pop-up on the 14th hole and a 188-yard drive.
"It's pretty tough not to giggle," U.S. Open champion Graeme McDowell said about Woods' tee shot on No. 2.
Hey it's pretty tough not to fall to the floor in hysterics.
[T]he lasting image of Woods will be a pair of tee shots.
He hit a smother hook with the driver on the second hole, which traveled only 122 yards - about the same distance he typically hits a sand wedge. Then came a pop-up on the 14th hole and a 188-yard drive.
"It's pretty tough not to giggle," U.S. Open champion Graeme McDowell said about Woods' tee shot on No. 2.
Hey it's pretty tough not to fall to the floor in hysterics.
Do I sense news hacks are ready to rub their hands again?
"If they can't get adequate cooling to the core, it could be a Three Mile Island -- or WORSE!!," said nuclear physicist Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which is working to improve the safety of nuclear power. The loss of coolant at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania for only 30 minutes led to a 50% meltdown of the core in that 1979 accident. (Melting-down overemphasis and link added)
And we all know the CATASTROPHE that followed -- mostly in news hacks' MINDS. Of course this is a dreadful emergency, but the Japanese have probably suffered far worse losses in the tsunami than in even a worst-case incident at this plant -- for the people will be evacuated, and the radiation ultimately contained.
Can't we keep cheap boom-boom politics out of anything?
"If they can't get adequate cooling to the core, it could be a Three Mile Island -- or WORSE!!," said nuclear physicist Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which is working to improve the safety of nuclear power. The loss of coolant at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania for only 30 minutes led to a 50% meltdown of the core in that 1979 accident. (Melting-down overemphasis and link added)
And we all know the CATASTROPHE that followed -- mostly in news hacks' MINDS. Of course this is a dreadful emergency, but the Japanese have probably suffered far worse losses in the tsunami than in even a worst-case incident at this plant -- for the people will be evacuated, and the radiation ultimately contained.
Can't we keep cheap boom-boom politics out of anything?
This remarkable video has surely exploded on the Web; we first found it on HENRY HONEST's site, and it's popped up on ARCHDaily! We now suppose most of the deaths from this calamity occured along the coast; if as now appears evident Japan's interior escaped with just collapsed false ceilings that's a tribute to modern engineering.
P. S. on 3/12/2011 at 10:11 p. m. DailyMail.co.uk has uncovered what is apparently the original of that video at 3'52 here.
The United State [FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!News SIC!!!!!] is rushing coolant to a Japanese nuclear reactor whose cooling system failed after a power outage caused by Friday's massive earthquake off northeastern Japan.
Speaking at the White House Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said U.S. Air Force planes were carrying "some really important coolant" to the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Let's hope she doesn't screw this up!
P. S. at 6:02 p. m. Hillary misspoke, as is her tradition.
Speaking at the White House Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said U.S. Air Force planes were carrying "some really important coolant" to the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Let's hope she doesn't screw this up!
P. S. at 6:02 p. m. Hillary misspoke, as is her tradition.
We wonder if Vegas will ever fully recover. Nevada is in a depression, people don't need to travel thousands of miles to gamble, and conventions are outstanding wastes of time. And all those hulking boxes on The Strip add a negative vibe of their own. And Ol' Blue doesn't sing there anymore.
And I don't think the clientele helps much either.
P. S. That's a marvelous photo -- of the abandoned Echelon Place project -- but I hate watermarks! (I suspect also it's been heavily -- tweaked, but we'll leave it up anyway. The cranes have since been dismantled.)
SCOTT!!!!! thinks that by calling his employees "hard-working" he can repair the damage.
Honest to God, SCOTT!!!!!, be honest: you did it to help establish one-party control -- JUST AS SPEAKER BABS TRIED IT.
(Via NRO!!!!! GIVE me some MEN who are STOUT-hearted MEN....)
Honest to God, SCOTT!!!!!, be honest: you did it to help establish one-party control -- JUST AS SPEAKER BABS TRIED IT.
(Via NRO!!!!! GIVE me some MEN who are STOUT-hearted MEN....)
It is hard to imagine how thousands have not died in this catastrophe. Japan is most unfortunate in existing in a highly active earthquake zone and having so little of its own natural resources, but it has prospered despite it all, and will continue to prosper still. We suspect the tsunami will have little impact outside Japan.
We could not help noticing how JPOD, one of the con-SER-va-tive stalwarts whose chests expanded and muscles bulged over the partisan union-bus...er, I mean the budget-cutting courage of SCOTT, hid under his desk this morning at the thought of a nuclear meltdown. We find it highly unlikely a nation with so little of its own energy will abandon the nukes, and with our friends the Arabs in revolt mode we shouldn't abandon their prospects either.
We could not help noticing how JPOD, one of the con-SER-va-tive stalwarts whose chests expanded and muscles bulged over the partisan union-bus...er, I mean the budget-cutting courage of SCOTT, hid under his desk this morning at the thought of a nuclear meltdown. We find it highly unlikely a nation with so little of its own energy will abandon the nukes, and with our friends the Arabs in revolt mode we shouldn't abandon their prospects either.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Another apology for the FRANCHISE that is public radio:
We have built an extraordinary franchise. It didn't happen by accident. It happened because we used a very specific methodology to cultivate and build an audience. For years, in boardrooms, at conferences, with funders, we have talked about our highly educated, influential audience. We pursued David Giovannoni's methodologies. [Wasn't he the high-toned Babbitt who banished classical music and the arts from public radio to make it ALL NEWSTALK, ALL THE TIME!™?] We all participated. It was his research, his undaunted, clear strategy that we pursued to build the successful news journalism franchise we have today.
What happened as a result is that we unwittingly cultivated a core audience that is predominately white, liberal, highly educated, elite. "Super-serve the core" — that was the mantra, for many, many years. This focus has, in large part, brought us to our success today. It was never anyone's intention to exclude anyone.
But we have to accept — unapologetically — that this is the franchise we've built.
That core acts as a proxy for the people who inhabit the media biz -- and while BIGMEDIA may super-serve the core, that leaves the vast unwashed (this executive's estimate is 89 percent of the public) underserved. And it increasingly resents it. Which is why NPNTR has been brought down by successors of ALLEN FUNT.
P. S. Is there a franchise for fixing typos?
(Via Prof. Shafer)
Today the NEWS HACKS decided Muslims should not be held accountable for terrorism because of their religion. Just one problem: NPNTR is in deep doo-doo because of MUSLIMS. I guess the whole nooz world has decided to be HONORARY NPNTR FOR A DAY.
And yes, we're aware Peter King is a loudmouth, and a braggart, and a former IRA MAN. That doesn't cover him in glory. Neither does it make HONORARY NPNTR FOR A DAY DAY any more palatable.
And yes, we're aware Peter King is a loudmouth, and a braggart, and a former IRA MAN. That doesn't cover him in glory. Neither does it make HONORARY NPNTR FOR A DAY DAY any more palatable.
We somehow nearly missed this one: Thanks to an inventor named Frederick Ives we have six astounding stereoscopic color pictures of San Francisco from after the 1906 earthquake. Such pictures would be dull but these, somehow, take us into another world because we cannot imagine antediluvian America in other than monochrome; to see them somehow sets off the imagination, and yearning. That they are among the documentary evidence of the greatest cataclysm the nation ever knew only intensifies their interest. If only we could transport ourselves back to the America of 1906, the age of Teddy Roosevelt and bustles and derbies and trolley cars and the melting pot and baseball. Misplaced nostalgia comes easily viewing these astonishing images but it is hard to believe life however much more difficult -- and it was very much more difficult for many races and creeds, and for women and some children -- wasn't somehow much more exciting, and real, and dullness is an ingredient in our inspissated gloom.
Let's be plain: both political parties have malevolent aims. Speaker Babs wanted to socialize America. Scott and his bosses want to so weaken the Democrats as to set up the kind of one-party state we just had. The symbols for both parties should not be the donkey or the elephant, but the upraised middle finger of right and left hands. Is it any wonder the people feel so sour about the future?
Just from its quality reputation selling the PC biz might be the thing for HP to do.
(Via DVFORBESLISTBLOG)
(Via DVFORBESLISTBLOG)
Speaking of unneeded movees:
If Mystery Science Theater 3000 was still around, the gang would want to put this one in its sights pronto.
If Mystery Science Theater 3000 was still around, the gang would want to put this one in its sights pronto.
TRANSLATION: Puppet Master supports Muammar.
So much for the REVIVED League of Nations.
P. S. All RIGHT, it's hedging its bets.
So much for the REVIVED League of Nations.
P. S. All RIGHT, it's hedging its bets.
This morning Jo-NAHdom proves as reliable as it was back when it proclaimed SARAH!!!! God's gift to man. On these days we wish the site would devote itself full time to BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, or SOUTH PARK.
P. S. at 10:51 a. m. One of EM's typists sorta kinda admits the Speaker and the GUVNOR sorta kinda did the same thing. HE MAY BE AN SOB....
P. S. at 10:51 a. m. One of EM's typists sorta kinda admits the Speaker and the GUVNOR sorta kinda did the same thing. HE MAY BE AN SOB....
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
We don't know whether Bill Gross's move is a cry in the dark or mere posturing, but the way the Wall Street Casino's been acting we're not sure hellfire and damnation would make a difference.
TRANSLATION: When Speaker Babs rams legislation through it's wrong. When OUR governor rams legislation through it's RIGHT.
Most likely the courts will decide this, which is hardly conservative or democratic.
I'm beginning to understand why David S. Broder was for bi-partisanship all these years, regardless of his definition.
Most likely the courts will decide this, which is hardly conservative or democratic.
I'm beginning to understand why David S. Broder was for bi-partisanship all these years, regardless of his definition.
Speaking of great malefactors, the simultaneous presence of these stories says the care and feeding of the rich has become the world's chief priority, as has the making of excuses to give the likely false impression they're not enjoying it to prevent the peons from boiling over.
Let us hope BONO can whittle down His wealth!
Let us hope BONO can whittle down His wealth!
It took five men to create this triumph of the government over the economy: Dubya, who at the first sign of disaster flailed like an heir with his inheritance cut off; Hank and Tim, who showered favors on their friends; Uncle Ben, who provided the wrapping paper and the ribbon; and His Omnipotence, who eagerly grabbed the excuse he was helping the economy and got the added bonus of socializing it. Way to go, morons!
David S. Broder's death reminds us that too many newsmen have reps for reasons lost to the fog of time, that their reps enable them to stay with their employers long after they should have left, and the scorn they earn for hanging on covers up what genuinely good work they did. It paradoxically also reminds us that too few newsmen speak with any real authority anymore, authority that they can only earn with time, time most of them don't deserve to accrue, and thus their business can't speak with authority.
The aforementioned cretin shows why one mere resignation won't cure the morass of smug condescension and seething hatred that is BIGMEDIA.
Confronted with this factoid...
States slash $1.8 billion in mental health funds since 2009
...we must ask, can anyone prove it's hurt our mental health?
States slash $1.8 billion in mental health funds since 2009
...we must ask, can anyone prove it's hurt our mental health?
When YAHOO!!!!! runs that story about the very alleged setting for The Great Gatsby being demolished you KNOW the hacks pontificating over it have never even read the book. A bad news biz is more than ROGER AILES!!!!!'s fault, Jim "MURROW" Fallow.
This...cretin co-founded reality television. It is to his advantage that nobody knows who he is. We didn't know who he was before THR had to publicize him with a softball Q&A. I think it would have been better to leave well enough alone, guys.
And like the good toadying SUMNERITE he is his solution to the fact TV seems nothing but reality programs is -- turn the set off. To which we say, 1. Who can turn TELEVISION off? and 2. WHO CAN TURN AMERICA'S ADVERTISERS OFF?
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Well, so much for that true believer. Unions must reform, but did this con-SER-va-tive hero have to reform with a meat axe?
Ohio State will NOT earn the death penalty despite its football CEO having (to charitably put it) fiddled with the truth, and with the NPCPCAA. The cliché "too big to fail" applies as much to professional college sport as to banking; punishments ultimately short-circuit themselves because they seldom hit the offenders in the pocketbook, and professional college sport is run first and foremost by TELEVISION. So we will have more outraged stares, and possibly this CEO will resign, but nothing more will happen, and our corrupt insteetoots of hyer lerning will still pay for play -- even as they pay their indentured servants nothing, the true begetter of such scandals.
I have not posted much these last few days simply because there hasn't been much to post with. The seeming self-destruction of a certain drug addict is sad, but it is hard to get too sad when you will be reminded of him day after day after day, until pathos becomes annoyance morphing into thoughts of murder. Despite the overexposure I'd argue those who follow the news Webwise have been spared the worst, which has appeared on TELEVISION, another demonstration of its complete unworthiness to be our primary news source. Moreover some things can be too obvious for comment. What can we say about Libya that won't be better said in two years? The Econowiz' notion that the League of Nations is BAAAAAAAAACK!!!!! is fatuous because the international system is corrupt not merely to its roots, but to the very soil it defiles, as we will see the next time NUKEMAN eggs us on. And I am tired because after roughly 39,000 posts I wonder how much I've had that's worth saying. If professionals can wear out their welcome in three sentences what of the rank amateur blogger? I would like to keep quiet, and reserve my thoughts for the two or three times I might have something to say, but in time, no doubt, the obsession will again get the better of me.
Jim "MURROW" Fallow wants "the next New York Review of Books, Rolling Stone, NPR, or Wired" and thus makes himself as tiresome as the Lord Koppel he opens with. Our news business is getting worse, so much so it positively stinks, and it's taken more than the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL Roger Ailes to get us there. Better news will not come from one side of the spectrum, and it certainly won't come from organizations with a concerted bias; it will NOT come from COMEDIANS, however trendy Jim thinks he is by touting them; it will NOT come from bloggers, who've demonstrated their devotion to glorified lying; and it will NOT come from screaming, as SLIME is now learning to his detriment. We don't know where it will come from; and while we were about to say it might take one or two persons of wisdom and dignity to do it look what the supposed visionary Mark "FINE" Cuban has done for Dan Blather. So we don't know either; but we don't presume to know we know, like Jim "MURROW" Fallow. We only know all signs point to this business getting even worse.
This story inadvertently highlights the chasm over cities between liberals and news hacks who blind themselves to the permanent ghettoes by calling their central cores "hip", and the con-SER-va-tives who can't stand cities because they're DEMOCRAT. Plainly if this article can be believed the future is for the suburbanization of the cities, with their hip cores and dead quarantine zones for the poor surrounded by more Mallopia. Such cities will require more SUPERHIGHWAYS, which alone should make con-SER-va-tives drool. Far from being dynamic we see such so-called cities as more of the old sprawl that will make life more expensive for their denizens and getting around them more difficult.
Sunday, March 06, 2011
OOOOOOOOooooooooh, speaking of show-biz PR USAOKAY!!!!! seems to have given the Gang of 27 a day off so it could do a special investigative report hinting school test-score results may be inflated!
I am astonished! At both.
I am astonished! At both.
God, harping on this topic is like a deaf man talking to himself, but the professional cheerleaders seem to have conceded the movee biz is unsalvageable. Granted this typist honors two old bromides: that the sixtiesearlyseventies were a GOLDEN AGE, and that TV IS BETTER THAN EVER!!!!! As to the first, the "foment" that led to a GOLDEN AGE also led to the conditions that make the biz unsalvageable, primarily the ossification of its business structure, but also the ossification of its brains; the same GOLDEN AGE that created Pauline Kael's Top 10 also created LUKE SPIELBERG. As to the second, most TV is produced by the same studios that disgorge dreck. What in Hollywood's drinking water causes a project to bloom when it becomes TV? Our magical writer doesn't know, and he probably wouldn't want to, but in his three-left-footed sixteen-toed way he admits BETTER-THAN-EVER TV is a fringe thing, a cult thing, and as we've said a million times art for the thousands will never be good. He is also very careful to say "adult" films "often end up with an R rating, which puts a ceiling on their earning capacity and makes a modest budget absolutely essential." So why not make adult films with broader appeal? Why must they have R ratings? Or is that your version of Linus's security blanket? Mark Harrises will guarantee movees stink just as much as the testosterone crowd, and the fact this article has garnered seven comments in about three weeks shows its hopelessness, and its irrelevance.
(Via the usual AHTSJournal, where this resounds like the Lord's word)
(Via the usual AHTSJournal, where this resounds like the Lord's word)