The journalist who wrote those words is interviewed – by radio talk host and blogger, Hugh Hewitt.
Hugh Hewitt: We go back to what you said just before the break, that the quality of commentary and analysis is better in mainstream media than it is in new media. Are you familiar with the work of Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post?
Joseph Rago: Yes, I am.
HH: Do you think it’s serious?
JR: No, I don’t.
HH: Are you familiar with the economic analysis of Paul Krugman at the New York Times?
JR: I am.
HH: Do you think it’s serious?
JR: And you know, you can run through…
HH: I’m going to (laughing)
JR: You can tick off Maureen Dowd and you can tick off all sorts of people at the New York Times…
HH: I think we’ll agree that David Brooks does a good job, right?
JR: Sure.
HH: And Nicholas Kristoff does great reporting from Sudan when he’s there, right?
JR: Right.
HH: But do you think E.J. Dionne is a serious analysis of American politics?
JR: I don’t always agree with him, but I would say yes, he’s serious.
HH: Okay, how about anyone at the Los Angeles Times? Name me anyone at all out there who is serious.
JR: Max Boot.
HH: Max is not…he writes a syndicated column. He writes a column that gets picked up there, but I mean a staff columnist.
JR: I can’t think of one.
HH: There aren’t any. In fact, they’re the worst major newspaper in America for a reason that they’ve worked hard to empty themselves of all discernible talent. If you live in California, then, Joe, are you better served by reading and getting your news from the internet and the blogosphere than by taking the L.A. Times?
I read the whole transcript. joe is a snotty Dartmouth grad who, at the tender age of 23, knows everythinh.
HH just takes him apart, as usual, and he makes a case, once again, that the pulp fiction set at all the major [and minor] dailies are just nobodies with an axes to grind, and they pass it off as informed opinion.
The WSJ had no business the shite the guy wrote!
Both the LA Times and the NY Times remind me of the old joke about the Reader’s Digest(with apologies to Reader’s Digest, IMO a decent magazine), which I’ll modify:
Q. How do you keep a LA resident or New Yorker uninformed?
A. Hide his copy of the Times.
Q. How do you keep him MISinformed?
A. Find it for him.
He represents ‘the establishment’ that up until now was accountable to no one…now they are getting defensive…soon to be redundant.
This year alone:
‘fauxtography’, ‘green helmet’, and the truth about our soldiers in A’stan…just to name a few.
Blog on, Kate!!
Hugh Hewitt is a great interviewer. Reading some transcripts you see what real interviewing should be. He holds people accountable for what they say/write, unravels it, and let’s people take themselves down.
All too often this is what we do not see out there in the MSM.
enough
What the print-type proponents don’t understand about the internet and its blogs is that it operates in a completely different manner. It’s a different structure.
Print is linear; information moves one way, from the authoritative author to the non-expert reader, or, more accurately, readers (plural). That’s why you are reading it; an acknowledgment of your ignorance. This ignorance applies to both facts and analysis. Print sets up a hierachical structure of an individual author(ity) and a mass readership of non-authority.
Knowledge, or the basic belief system in a print society, is meant to be accepted almost by faith. You believe in the validity and reliability of the authority. You ‘look up’ to them in this linear system.
The current MSM author(ities) are feeling ‘unworshipped’ as the internet information system takes over. Why?
The internet/blogs are non-linear. Information moves in every direction. There are no singular authorities. None. Instead, there are both authorities, of many disciplines and areas of expertise, as well as the uninformed and ignorant. They interact together.
The internet is not to be understood as ONE blog, or ONE information site or ONE author. The internet doesn’t operate within this singularity of voice. It operates as ALL blogs, information sites, authors. That’s its structure. A vast entwined network of data content, data analysis, constantly updated, constantly re-evaluated.
Knowledge is rapidly developed as these many voices interact, correct invalid data, update analysis, provide more comprehensive data and analysis. The linear print system cannot develop knowledge as rapidly, as expansively and with as much validity and reliability, as the internet system.
Again, the print system is focused around faith, around the expressions of Authorities. The internet system is focused around Information, which is rapidly developed, validated, analysed and constantly updated. Incredible.
The print system focuses around the existence of a few privileged Authorities (as individuals); the rest are the peasant mass of Readers.
The Internet system focuses around all who input, as Individuals, BUT, these individuals never operate alone, but within that collective Network of dynamic information generation.
Two different systems. No equivalence. For the sake of information development – which one is better, ie, provides more validity and reliability and more content? The Internet.
OT? .. but, thought it was worth copying…-
AWARD WINNING JOURNALIST SUSPECTED OF PLAGIARISM
The publisher of P.E.I.’s Graphic newspapers is investigating one of his most well-known columnists for suspected plagiarism. (national newswatch)
I prefer to take the time to be my own collector and info-filter.
All too often those who are getting paid to do it are either straining out nutrients or letting crap through….at the very least they are too prone to toss in their own additives.
The beauty of the web is that I can source and research hundreds of sources if I’m inclined to.
The dead tree and absorbent for pet piss hucksters are doomed!
There are a lot of bad newspapers (the Sun chain springs to mind) and a lot of bad blogs (I won’t mention any names). There are a few good newspapers and a few good blogs. And there are a lot more blogs than newspapers. Someone who is really interested in knowing and thinking about things will read all kinds of sources – including books! But this blogosphere messianism is not only pretentious but ridiculous.
Rago, by his profession, is an “editor”…that means he truncates or omits news…and essentially decides what does or doesn’t get to print.
I find the MSM zealotry of people like Rago to be the ty[e of megalomanic ubris of a monopolist who is resentful of someone even getting the crumbs he leaves…un-F’n’-believable!!
Given that editors like him denied the existance of things like Builderberg and CFR’s North American currency/political union agendas for decades and now that these things are common knowledge thanks to the alternate media, I’d say MSM “editors” have left tons of news “crumbs” for an alternate media to run with…they just resent the fact that “pajama” media can cary the ball as well if not better than they do…particularly when it comes to fact checking and investigative reporting.
Today’s media suffers fron ownership concentration and Ownership political pandering…not surprisingly the MSM of the past 20 years has been conspicuously ininterested in snooping out government scandal.
From my obsevasion, this makes the MSM uncurious of status quo failings and actually resistant to reporting anything scandalous or negative against the staus quo.
In Canada I find it incredulous that prior to Harper the last 4 PMs and 3 Ontario Premiers worked for or had direct links to a major Quebec based business magnate Paul Desmarais ( Powercor) but less than 10% of Canadians know this…it is the best kept secret in Canada.
Can you imagine what Americans would say if the last 4 Presidents and 3 governors of NY were all ex Haliburton execs??
Anerica’s MSM is lethargic and uncurious but Canada’s MSM is downright deaf dumb and blind.
ET ,
Very nicely put .
Left one thought out .
Televised news is as linear as print , therefore is as vulnerable to the same forces that are eroding the MSM’s tenuous hold on what is news , and what is information.
I made the mistake of reading his turgid prose. Apparently we’re lucky to have him. Personally I think he’s a pompous little boy who probably makes the editor’s coffee.
To a significant extent, the blogosphere is populated by hostile “mobs”, each grouped around a set of blogs that reinforce the defining beliefs of the “mob”. Not only “mob psychology” but “mob thinking” prevails.
Don’t get me wrong. I think the internet is a very good thing and I can’t imagine life without it but it’s an ambiguous phenomenon.
Ever hear the phrase “the Cathedral and the Bazaar”? It’s common use is to contrast proprietary with open source software. There may be a parallel with proprietary “expert” news sources, vs blogs…
Bill D. Cat – Right, television is as linear as print.
Exile – the problem I have with your comments is that you don’t provide any reasons for your conclusions. What are the reasons for your conclusions in both your posts?
In my view, the internet and the print/TV media aren’t comparable; they are structured differently and therefore operate differently. Their only similarity is that they deal with ‘information’.
By the way, it is an error to separate blogs from the Internet; a blog is an articulation of data and analysis that operates within a networked information system. You can’t separate the blog from that network, since the structure of both (non-linear complex adaptive systems) are the same.
Equally, you can’t separate the journalist from the print media system, or the news reporter from the TV media system.
He ate the kid for supper. Excellent lesson on how experience with wisdom beats enthusiasm & youth to dog meat.
Excellent post Kate.
Anyone else find it interesting that this guy is an editor at age 23? You’d think that job would require some gravitas or at least, I don’t know, some experience maybe?
I agree with Exile — and ET. The internet requires a new way of looking at the media. And it is better.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t mob-driven, as exile points out. It’s just a mob with tracking devices and counters and an electronic trail that can be followed.
I’ve always preferred “idiot” to “imbecile”, easier to spell, and not necessary to explain to the younger generation.
I’d change my moniker to “idiotimbecile”, but it took me so long to learn to spell my name, and I need the energy for watching Monster trucks and Tractor pull on the Teevee.
btw, shouldn’t the title be, “Editor/Censor”?