Tim Blair

Interpretive help for the NYT-naive:

"[O]thers worry the criticism could eventually have a chilling effect."

Really means:

"We're worried these internet bastards are going to hold our feet to the fire every single time we tell a whopper."

He quotes one journalist saying that since they get attacked by both sides, that "puts them in the middle". However, the only concrete examples he mentions (the missing explosives and Rathergate) refer to left wing bias. Can he give us any specific examples of the "right wing bias" that journalists are supposedly getting hit for? I suppose everyone with a strong opinion or cause feels that the media don't sufficiently support their view, but how about some real evidence? It's just a tactic, like the way the media-savvy Palestinians criticize the BBC for being too pro Israel, thus allowing the BBC to respond to any charges of anti Israel bias: "See, both sides complain, so we must be getting it right!"

" Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts."
-Sen. Moynihan

I have to agree with ilana. Saying you're right because you get complaints from both sides makes no sense, because the reverse, that you must be wrong because both sides complain, could be equally as true. It bothers me that instead of trying to reassure people that they're trying to be fair and non-partisan the main stream media keeps issuing these editorials and statements trying to justify their political slants on the news.

And we should read his chiched and billious bromides why? What a wimp and limp writer. The rude awakening has arrived and we see them not as a fourth estate but as a fifth column.

Imagine? Dumb people (around the globe) who can actually use one of them thar computer thangs have the nerve to 'pounce' when the MSM lies, distorts or leaves things OUT (like facts). I never was for all that book learnin' them thar journalists get, no way, no how. Seems to me the only thing that's changed is that NOW we can call them on their B.S. - before - we had to either believe it or not watch.

"We were just minding our own business, lying and making shit up, when these people who were ambushing us, just waiting for us to lie and make shit up, caught us. It was mean. My puppy cried."

People!!! Don't you know that every time you mock and deride a pro-news journalist, God kills a kitten?!?!?!!???

It's like trying to deal with a bad first grader, they get busted, and they try and shift the blame. "Mommy, it wasn't my fault, the teacher's lying!"

People!!! Don't you know that every time you mock and deride a pro-news journalist, God kills a kitten?!?!?!!???

Uh... sorry about the kittens. I guess I need to stop watching network news.

Are we bloggers chilling ... or thrilling? Why can't we be both?

The chiller-thrillers strike again!

Another: The Zeros vs. the Ones

eloquently Fisked at PC Magazine's Resident Luddite.

Not unlike the situation here in Oz with our taxpayer funded Absolutely Biased Corporation, still reeling from Howard's shellacking of the fraud Latham, frantically broadcasting every pro Kerry and anti Bush story it can lay it's slimy hands on.
Ever noticed the tone of the ABC's John Shovelan? Upbeat and enthusiastic when reporting on Kerry, slow measured, even sombre when Bush is the subject.
And we're forced to fund these bastards! What's worse, we seem to willingly put up with it!

How can journalists cave to a particular point of view when they are objectively impartial? There's nothing to cave, is there?

And there doesn't appear to be any evidence that these journalists use the internet--it's readily apparent that fact checking and background research are lacking (even editorialists reading their own newspages). How would these journalists know about the internet writers (who reach hundreds of thousands of people a day?)?

Mr. Brokaw likens the reaction on the internet to a political jihad. Maybe Brokaw should ask "Why do they hate us?" and initiate a search for the root causes of this jihad. Perhaps there's a story behind the internet writer who issued the fatwa. Maybe Brokaw could organize an international summit, inviting these internet insurgents to the table so as to better understand their demands. Surely through negotiation Tom can find a peaceful solution to the intractable violence that has engulfed the media world.

It's not so much lying in the bushes as it washed up on our beach.

"I think there were people just lying in the Internet bushes"

Yah, but Im only there to getting laid sucker!

"I think there were people just lying in the Internet bushes, waiting to strike

Now that's funny. I mean, he was using that to defend 60 Minutes. That was one of their specialties in the early days.

You should have seen them go after Audi. They literally jumped out from behind bushes to interview Audi execs and nearly destroyed that company in the US based on extremely shoddy reporting. .
That's the last time I watched that crap show. I've called it 'Yellow journalism at its finest' ever since.

Journalists covering the campaign (...) insist the efforts [of bloggers] have not swayed them in any significant way

Well, no shit Sherlock. They're still as biased as ever. The obvious and (to ordinary people) disturbing corollary that lots more people are aware of it now seems to elude them, though.

Well, lefties have always had trouble with judging history correctly and making meaningful inferences about the future, so I hope they enjoy the unexpected (by them) thrill of seeing their newspapers' bottom lines fall out from under them, and themselves joining the unemployment line.

Good news: Strong decline in circulation of the despicably partisan LA Times.

The legacy media are sinking.

Completely OT

Jeremy, unfortunately Parents these days believe their kids over the teacher. My wife teaches Grade 1 and a minority of the parents are unfuckingbelievable.

The pain and agony that Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw must be facing. They receive 7 figure salaries, they have a million dollar expense budgets to travel by private jet, stay at the best hotels, eat a the best restaurants and wear the nicest clothes. All this is a tax deductible expense to their corporations; therefore 40% of their lifestyle is subsidized by the American taxpayer.

And now, on top of all this, the bloggers expect them to tell the truth and explain their lying. How can they endure this pain!

Imagine that. In Rutenberg's world, free speech has a "chilling effect". Diminished mental capacity, I'd say.

"That horrible cry! It's them: the bloggers!" "T-they're just o-out there, waiting for us!"

'"I think there were people just lying in the Internet bushes,'

I think there were people at CBS just lying....