A Whore by any other Name…
Quick question: Just what is the difference between what the Colombian femmes de noché did for our Secret Service agents and their military support team and what the mainstream media is doing for their anointed leader, Barack Obama? Actually I have more respect for women who lay back and allow their bodies to be used for the carnal pleasure of strangers than I do for journalists who lay back and allow their educational and professional credentials to be debased and defiled by a political candidate and his party.
Both are whores.
But, as is so often true in this world, there are whores and then there are whores. Those who sell their bodies tend to do so because they have few other skills with which to earn a living. Media whores are a totally different thing. They don’t have to worry about basic sustenance of themselves and their families as do so many of the working ladies. Through their learned skills they can make their way in society. Why they then tend so debase themselves remains a mystery.
It is an entirely different thing that is for sale here. The ladies in Colombia were selling their sexuality and perhaps some of their self-respect. How much self-respect a woman gives up in the profession of prostitution has much to do with the culture in which she lives. From the up-front and in our faces flamboyancy of the ladies in question, I would guess that in Colombia, the stigma is not great, an attitude entirely different from that of our own culture where selling one’s body is just one small step above the most disgraceful behavior in which one can engage:
Selling your journalistic soul.
There is no group in America more openly engaged in overt prostitution than our mainstream media. And don’t be too quick to say, “Wait a minute, real whores do it for money.” Well so do the media whores. If they are successful in promoting their lefty candidate, then their perceived worth therefore increases. When they fall on the losing side, then their incessant hammering of the victor throughout his term of office endears them to the losing demographic until such time as they can throw their weight behind the election of one of their own. Make no mistake about it, they are for sale, wholly, totally completely for sale. Brian Williams might as well be perched on a barstool in a down-at-the-seams, Manhattan bistro with even bigger blow-dried hair and plenty of leg showing. Sliding way down-scale, Ed Schultz would be right at home under a streetlamp in Detroit. Examples could go on for paragraphs but you get the idea.
So the irony is we have media whores screaming about the immorality and irresponsibility of sexual whores and those who employ the services of those whores. For my money, The Democrats should patriate one of those Colombian prostitutes and make her their candidate for president. She couldn’t possibly be a sleazier sell-out than the loser they and their media hustlers are fronting now.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Media
The media are truly whores…except it’s generally in pursuit of profit and sensationalism, not candidates.
I will refer you to Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “The Press,” for their motivation. It is power, the ability to make and break people and events, that drives them.
Power often corrupts. So does influence.
Pursuit of profit? Then NBC and MSNBC are doing it wrong, as is the NYT.
Pursuit of sensationalism? I can go along with that.
Not candidates? Then 2008 and Obama didn’t exist?
Yeah, let’s get rid of the press!!!!! Except for Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, of course. Then the world would be perfect because we can count on teachers, preachers and elected officials to tell us the truth.
I’ll never forget/forgive CNN’s prostituting themselves for ratings (money) when they showed MGG *******’s dead body being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.
LostBoys: do you really expect the current press (AKA mainstream media) to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth – sans spin, distortion, or political bias?
Hondo, nope, but I don’t trust anyone else to either. As a newspaper editor (and retired Marine-DD214, etc. available upon request)the drumbeat here at TAH against journalists is boring. Some phony trickfucks the VA, Order of the Purple Heart and his local American Legion and that’s cool, but if a reporter writes a story about a bogus hometown hero, he’s an idiot.
I was expecting more out of Poetrooper than recycled Rush Limbaugh.
LostBoys: Suggest you read this site more closely before opening mouth and inserting foot, Keemosabe. Jonn’s got a hardon 24/7/365 for military phonies who perpetrate their fraud on the VA, Order of the Purple Heart, VSOs, or the public in general. And he’s got one for the VA because they don’t bother to verify phony claimants worth a damn, especially when it comes to claims for combat-related PTSD and POW status. A guy or gal makes false claims to any of those organizations, or publicly claims decorations/status falsely, and Jonn will come after them.
He comes down on the press regarding lack of due diligence all the time. He also calls out the press when – in his opinion – they publish crap that’s obviously slanted. This is his site, so the last time I checked that’s his right. Something about freedom of speech and press, I think.
I don’t recall having seen Jonn go after the Order of the Purple Heart or the American Legion for not using due diligence, but I haven’t read every article and comment on this site either. And I do recall him going after the VFW when VFW-Pac endorsed candidates he considered anti-military. He’s ornery when it comes to things like that as well as military phonies.
In short: if you don’t like his site, don’t come here and read it. Whether you do or not makes no difference to me. Regarding your presence, I’ll exercise my free speech rights and say: DILIGAF?
“Selling your journalistic soul.”
Whoa.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa.
Look, if you’re going to make that assumption you’re going to have to provide some evidence that journalists have souls.
Hondo, obviously you do give a fuck or your panties wouldn’t be in such a twist. I don’t need a lecture about what this site is about, I’ve been here a long time. Maybe if you paid more attention, you’d know that I busted this guy http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=14484 myself over two years ago. The beauty of the 1st Amendment is that people are free to print crap, like the OP, and others are free to call it as much.
Hondo, obviously you do give an f, or your panties wouldn’t be in such a twist. I don’t need a lecture about what this site is about, I’ve been here a long time. Maybe if you paid more attention, you’d know that I busted this guy http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=14484 myself over two years ago. The beauty of the 1st Amendment is that people are free to print crap, like the OP, and others are free to call it as much.
Dittos is all I can say Hondo, and maybe, do your research. I busted this guy http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=14484 over two years ago, so save the lecture for someone else.
This is one (of many reasons) I don’t buy a “news”paper or magazine. Why support them and encourage their bad habits and behaviour?
I’d rather pay for the services of a lady of the night. At least then it would be a mutual trade, and I would get SOME pleasure out of the trade.
LostBoys,
As a newspaper editor, are you not absolutely disgusted as the journalistic malpractice (not confined to military phonies) that is standard operating procedure for so many news outlets that are widely considered to be “mainstream” and “distinguished”?
If you’re mad when the news media in general takes a bad rap, are you not even more angry with the past few generations of people in your profession who have created the current state of journalism?
If not, why?
That should have been “disgusted with the journalistic malpractice”.
“Femmes de noché”? 🙄
Best stick to Igpay Atinlay.
I thought Poettroopers comparison was spot on. He didn’t say shit about Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh. He made it pretty clear to me: the press that pimps themselves out is no better then the whores that they are jumping up and down about down in Columbia. It’s hypocritical and a disgusting display, something that can’t be mentioned enough. His post also mentioned nothing about getting rid of the press,just that as it stands currently, it’s garbage. Whats wrong with being dissapointed when they suck and wanting better from them?
LostBoys: So, I assume the byline on the original article – which has aged off the paper’s server and search service, by the way – was “LostBoys”? Or that you used to post here as 1stCavRVN11B? Forgive me, but unless that’s the case it’s kinda hard to know that was you over 2 1/2 years after the fact. I’m not omniscient.
You have my thanks for helping take down a phony. But spare me the holier-than-thou “My former profession is above criticism and so are my journalist brethren” BS. The mainstream media is – in my opinion, and that of many others – grossly biased and woefully incompetent these days. I’m personally glad that there are folks like the late Andrew Breitbart and the like pointing out the obvious falsehoods and slanted BS coming from that sector which would otherwise go unchallenged.
And yeah – Jonn is in that category too. Sounds to me like you are still sensitive over the fact that you were formerly one of the challenged.
Dr. Phil and PTSD. Sorry SOB recycling Vietnam Vet crap.
Let us also not forget that neither Beck or Limbaugh make any claim at being non partisan. They do what they do to make money and they don’t pretend otherwise. So comparing them to the main stream media is a straw man argument at best. The press on the other hand claims to be impartial and yet constantly slant their arguments in favor of the left.
Sorry for the multiple posts, they were blocked for ~10 minutes. The reason I mention Beck and Limbaugh is because the OP is, as I said, just recycling the same crap. I’ve been called a goddamned Republican and sonofabitch Democrat over the same editorial, it’s largely in the eye of beholder.
PowerPoint Ranger, ever wonder why there are so many papers named the Podunk Republican or Ditchweed Democrat? Until WWII, papers, including mine which has been in business for 150 years, were flagrantly and openly biased. Personally, I didn’t print one local elected official’s name in my paper, not once, until I caught him breaking the law, and then he got a banner headline. Biased? I guess, but I knew he was rotten when he won the primary and it was only a matter of time until he stepped on his dick. Making those decisions is why editors get paid the big bucks, and yes they are, and have historically been, biased.
Some people watch Fox, some watch MSNBC, very few watch both. We seek messages that affirm our beliefs and scorn those that don’t. The only common ground is that both sides hate some reporter somewhere.
I solicited input from one of leaders on this site when I was putting together a class for a press association convention on writing on the military, specifically, detecting frauds. I got a stupid, one sentence reply. That’s when I figured that here the press was nothing more than a pinata; something you bring to a party then beat the shit out of with a stick.
For the record, LostBoys, you weren’t blocked. I don’t block anyone. The spam filter saw the links and thought you were posting spam. I read through every spam message and fish the legitimate comments out and well, spammers are the only ones on this board who think I’m a genius and don’t mind telling me. If I could get them to click the ads, I’d get rid of the rest of you.
LostBoys: if you came across in that anything like the smug, self-important ass you’re coming across as now, I can see why you got the answer you did. And I’d guess most regular readers of this site can as well.
Further: if that answer happened to be something like, “Send a FOIA request to NPRC”, well, while terse that was not a “stupid” reply. Short of finding multiple eyewitnesses to each of the individual’s claims, that’s probably the best way to do validate someone’s claims of military decorations and/or service. And given even mediocre Internet research skills, it’s not hard to figure out how write one or where to send it.
@21 – Then I presume you would agree that using leftwing commentators consistently in an argument promoting the theory of media bias would be counter-productive?
@22 – ” The only common ground is that both sides hate some reporter somewhere.”
There is truth to this. Attempting to measure media bias as an individual, is most often within the framework of perception bias and confirmation bias. There are some well founded instances of media bias, but I believe most claims to be used to support lazy arguments.
The US news media is following the Crossfire model in nearly all of their reporting, but they somehow come off more like the Weekly World News.
Hey Russ… Your post tickled me in places I didn’t know still could BE tickled.
Oh yeah, consider this your REAL welcome to TAH brother.
CI, no because most of the left wing commentators firmly believe they are the press and will swear up and and down that they are impartial.
CI: while perception of journalistic bias is subjective, good data does exist regarding the political leanings of journalists themselves. And that data indicates that journalists are indeed skewed markedly to the left WRT the rest of American society, and have tended to overwhelmingly favor Democratic candidates for at least the last 48 years.
http://www.journalism.org/node/2304
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/09/media-professionals-and-journalists-donate.html
http://archive.mrc.org/biasbasics/biasbasics3.asp
It is eminently reasonable to assert that this difference in political leanings gives rise to a pronounced bias in published material within the field. Indeed, IMO it would be virtually impossible to ensure that it did not, given the shallow, feelings-based, “fluff” nature of much of what passes for journalism today.
@26 – No disrespect intended, but what you believe they believe…doesn’t really sway me. The reason I asked is because almost every argument I see about the ubiquity of leftwing bias in the US news media includes the list of usual suspects on the left side of evening commentary programming…but uniformly fail to even mention the counterparts on the right.
YMMV.
@Hondo – I don’t disagree that there are studies purporting what you state, the problem is that there are also studies purporting the opposite.
Much also depends on the methodology used, and the arguments to deconstruct a given methodology. I would not however use mediums dedicated to promoting one argument or another. You include an MRC link…so you would give equal weight to one by FAIR?
If the media were more biased [institutionally] than inept, I would both expect them to be better at it…..and expect a measurable impact on the electorate.
@Hondo – I forgot to add also that I’m actually more concerned with the political leanings of news directors and VPs of programming than I am the mouthpiece. Also forgot to add the one link I have handy: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=media-bias-presidential-election
I have been amused by statements from some on the right about media bias, such as Rich Bonds [fmr GOP Chairman] and Bill Kristol.
I was reading this and just knew I was going to see a lot of CI in the comments (that’s not meant as a swipe). I would say in response to your first point in #24, I have been watching MSNBC or seen videos of people like Chris Matthews and Martin Bashir claiming they aren’t partisan or biased.
Given the number of journalists who, otherwise lacking expertise outside of the media, received very nice well-paying Government jobs, the ‘whore’ label is appropriate.
Under Bush, any journalist who worked for the government was known as a traitor, and on the occasion of Tony Snow’s death, cursed for being a traitor.
So, whores, and footsoldiers.
@Adam – Not taken as a swipe…I have some core subjects that I find fascinating, whether I have a firm opinion on them, or I just want to hear diverse assessments.
Your point on Matthews and Bashir is well taken…though Mathews at least is on during the opinion/commentary programming time-frame, shared with it’s competitors. I haven’t heard Megyn Kelly state her non-partisanship either…but since I’m subjected to her lovely face everyday [.mil facility with Fox on every TV]….I don’t consider her to be unbiased either.
Lost Boys-sorry to disappoint you but if I may say so, for an editor, you don’t appear to read too closely. You seem to be confusing my writings with someone else’s. Am I lambasting the left-wing media? Bet your ass I am and if you expected otherwise from me then you haven’t read my previous writings on the topic. And it’s only fair to warn you, the tone isn’t likely to change anytime soon.
What is dismaying is that a career Marine could put in his twenty or more and not be aware that the mainstream media jackals are no friends of the Corps or the rest of our military.
Further, I do not condemn the entire press and media, only the one’s who have sold out so completely as for their versions of “news” to be totally unreliable. I do not confuse “news” with “opinion.” You editors and your columnists are as free as you ever were to publish your opinions. My heartburn is when you try to disguise it as news.
Are you by chance editor of the Johnstown, PA, Tribune-Democrat, Murtha’s hometown paper?
Must agree. I am not so much offended that these humans who call themselves journalists are as subject as the rest of us to the bias we each have as I am disgusted with their denial of having bias.
Yes, we can hope that those who report the news would do so with as little bias as is humanly possible, but probably not gonna happen any time soon. I would much rather listen to someone who has enough self-awareness to accept their own bias. Without doing so there is no chance of their ever making an effort to present more than their own slant on things.
I have to agree with Poetrooper. The majority of the MSM, especially the print media, is in the tank for the left.
The only complaint that I have with his article is that comparing those journalists he refers to as whores is terribly unfair to actual whores. Streetwalkers, girls of the night, hookers, whatever, at least work for their living.
Journalists, more and more, simply sit at a desk and recycle AP or Reuters wire feeds. The only time you see actual real reporting is in the local news (mostly) or if some journalist decides he’d like to compete for a Pulitzer.
Editors and other opinion hacks are mostly writing the stuff their pimps tell them to write.
If that pisses anyone off, then perhaps they need to look in a mirror.
The only papers I bring home anymore are the free ones, and that’s only if I want to read the classifieds, or need wrapping for items I’m shipping.
some watch MSNBC, very few watch both.
Judging by the ratings, I’d say very few indeed watch MSNBC. Care to take a stab as to why, Lost?
And before you go pinging on FNC, consider that while they lean to the right of the other networks, that by no means makes them the “right-wingers” from which all conservatives get their marching orders. For every Hannity there’s a Bob Beckel, for every Brit Hume there’s a Juan Williams, and so on.
Go on O’Donnell, Dog Killer Schultz, Maddow, or Sharpton, and count how many conservative guests they allow on their sets. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Tim–don’t forget to start fires in winter. I’ve got a foot-high stack that I crumble up and stick under the kindling when starting a fire. Hell of a lot cheaper than those fire logs or starter sticks at WalMart.
Bravo Poetrooper,
As a “recovering journalist,” retired from the biz 8-9 years ago, I can tell you with no qualifications you are spot f*cking on …
Cheers …
CI, I’m not trying to sway you, nor am I defending any rightwing news source you care mention. Anymore I rarely watch any of the news programs nor do I read the printed news. None of which changes the fact that Beck and Limbaugh are not the press and don’t pretend to be.
@41 – Nor am I trying to sway you……..merely pointing out something I see often….including the opening piece.
What’s up SPARKY, you fucking faggot? I just wanted to let you know that I’m lighting up a fat blunt in your honor, on today, the greatest of all days. 4/20 BLAZE UP!!!
@CI naming heretofore unnamed “studies” that purport the opposite of 3 named studies is basically a non-response, and so is the “some people say this, some people say that” approach you seem to be using.
It’s clear from a cursory assessment of the titans of the traditional newsprint (the NYT, SF Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Boston Globe, WaPo et al) that liberals rule that particular domain. Looking at newsmagazines, we have Time, U.S. News, Newsweek, The New Yorker…vs the Weekly Standard? Come the hell on dude. Libs have that locked up as well.
TV we have ONE obviously conservative channel vs CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS…granted that one channel gets more viewers than the next three combined, but you wouldn’t know it from the print media or a survey of academia and their reading/citing habits.
Just about the only area conservatives hold down is talk radio. Everyone knows Limbaugh, not so much the dismal failure Air America. Other than that it’s pretty obvious which way the journos lean.
Before this young’un up above dives in to give me a bunch’a shit about my usage of the term “qualifications,” I’ll go ahead and admit to being an old bastard and having used a somewhat hackneyed application of the term. Perhaps for his modern-day J101 sensibility I should have used “without reservation” … or “with no reservations” … Because I can already envision his oh-so-qualified candy ass telling me here in writing (but not to my face …. ever) “thank you for pointing out your lack of ‘qualifications,'” etc. … As should be plain to everyone, these douchenozzles always love being “ironic.” It’s that attitude that pretty much drove me from the newsroom. Why bust your ass for peanuts when you can lean back and have grapes fed to you?
Oh great……….
@37 I forgot about AP and Reuters.
You guys must be fucking higher than I am. This LostBoys character is claiming to be a retired Marine, but his old handle was 1stCavRVN11B. Yeah, dickheads, the 1st CAV is an Army unit and the 11B is an Army MOS. Do your due diligence you dumb motherfuckers.
Yeah, numbnuts, LostBoys is NOT 1stCavRVN11B. You picked the wrong one that time. I happen to know 1stCavRVN11B. Go crawl back under your rock, DeWald.
@Yoshi – The studies are out there…..I’m at my daughters soccer game….so I’m not going to spar links on my phone. Intellectual honesty goes a long way….you know that there are studies and polls for every platoon on this subject……just as you know that what constitutes “obviously biased” resides mainly in the mind of the reciever.
Carry on with carping over your perception of bias…..even if true…it doesn’t appear to have any measurable effect on the electorate. So what’s the point?
@49 There’s a pretty simple way to interpret bias towards one side or the other, it’s how many favorable stories they print for one side or the other. Now, of course you could say something about the subjectivity of “favorable”…then I’d have to ask how you could possibly misinterpret the blatant shilling going on in, for example, Time’s disgrace of a polar bear-ice floe cover. At that point you’re just putting your head in the sand.
You want evidence of the media’s influence on the electorate? Here’s a big piece: Obama’s 2008 PRIMARY win. People forget the Clinton machine was considered unbeatable in the primary. Well, when you have the media implying people like Geraldine Ferraro are racist, turns out it isn’t. Here’s another piece: the 2008 general election results.
Only difference this time around is the media won’t be able to spin real unemployment north of 20%.
I just have to laugh when people imply well-known outfits are “center” just because they’ve been around for awhile. Hell, even some supposedly “Republican” news sources are actually Democratic. Case in point: The Daily Beast. Right there you have a magazine that made a big deal out of picking up a columnist that not only makes her living off criticizing Republicans, but unapologetically voted for JOHN. KERRY. in 2004.
JOHN. KERRY.