“Like the malignant ski hill that rises up and squashes beloved thespian royalty?”

“Not that after 30+ years in this business that I know anything about newspapers. I mean, after all, I do not think that the most important news story in the state of Connecticut would be the agitprop theater of federally financed lefties (ACORN takes grants) protesting executive salaries.”
It is when you’re a media financed lefty.
(More here on ACORN’s AIG protest bust – and the 20 media vans trailing it.)

In other news, heavy rain has been forecast for the Tulsa region over the weekend.

*
h/t Justacanuck

“Why did CNN employ someone like this for at least the last two years? “

More, including transcripts, on Nidal Rafa at Honest Reporting.

The death of the P.I. and its “life in death” on the Web is only the second in a trend that will grow. And as the other papers fail into the Web we will hear, again and again, about the Internet, about Craigslist, about The Drudge Report, and a hundred other reasons these papers are dead. What we will never hear is that their editorial policies and news slanting were part and parcel of their demise. We will never hear about the willed insults, slights, and snubbing of fully half of their potential circulation pool. Journalists and editors write a lot about “taking personal responsibility” when it comes to others. You never hear them write that about themselves. There’s no mea culpa among liberal newspaper journalists these days. There’s only “The Internet ate my newspaper.”

h/t

Canada’s smartest columnist.

The problem with newspapers…

…(and I’m a former newspaper editor and publisher) is that you folks think we can’t detect when your news columns are being used to foist your agenda on us.
We’re much smarter than you think we are, and that you think we’re dumb merely reveals your arrogance. So, while we are not necessarily cheering your demise, we’re snickering because you’re getting what’s coming to you.
We see you bashing conservatives, while liberals committing similar sins go un-commented upon. We’re not stupid. We know that you are the “deciders” about what’s news and what’s swept under the rug. You tell us often enough.
So, we’ve moved on. Opinions are a dime a dozen. I can find myriad voices online to feed me my opinion back to me. If you think I’m going to pay money for yours, you’re sadly mistaken. Your just one voice amongst thousands of them out there. Why should I pay good money for your opinion?
You also forgot that half your advertisers are conservatives who have decided maybe they don’t want to fund your little Democrat Party Propoganda sheet any longer, and so they’ve found other more creative ways to spend their ad budgets.
If you tell people to f*ck off enough times, they eventually will, taking their ad revenue with them.
Good luck in your retirement. I suspect that if it took you this long to finally detect the desire amongst your few remaining subscribers for “just the facts” that it’s far too late to save you.

“I wonder what Mr and Mrs America will make of it tomorrow morning, reading for the very first time how the “Outspoken Former Ambassador” (as the AP’s headline has it) was scuttled by a controversy their newspaper saw fit not to utter a word about.“

Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Claire Rock, journalism major – “Bloggers no replacement for the pros”
David Shuster, award-winning journalist for MSNBC – “@karlrove Karl, you are always welcome to come on 1600 and defend yourself…”

“…this week in boardrooms across the industry, media executives are meeting with media experts to hash out yet another strategy, and yet more innovations to address their falling fortunes, every last one of them invested in the unshakable belief that the internet is burying them because it’s faster – as though the only difference between shit and sunshine is the speed at which they travel.”*

Finally, signs that someone out there gets it.
h/t Damian.

Always have a back-up plan…

The Hearst Corporation, the P-I’s owner, plans to sell the newspaper if no buyer steps forward.

h/t Robert B.

From Newsweek “science writer” Sharon Begley, whose medical background appears to begin and end with a bunch of awards from other journalists and a B.A. from Yale University – “Why Doctors Hate Science: Scaremongers warn that ‘effectiveness research’ threatens the lives of Americans”

Thank God doctors in the United States are free to treat patients as they deem best, free from interference by faceless bureaucrats. If bureaucrats were in charge, physicians might have to prescribe the newest hypertension drugs as a first-line therapy, do MRIs to diagnose back pain and give regular Pap tests to women who have had total hysterectomies. Oh, wait—they do. All these medical practices are common, despite rigorous studies showing how useless or wrongheaded they are. Definitive studies over many years have shown that old-line diuretics are safer and equally effective for high blood pressure compared with newer drugs, for instance, and that MRIs for back pain lead to unnecessary surgery. And those Pap tests? Total hysterectomy removes the uterus and cervix. A Pap test screens for cervical cancer. No cervix, no cancer. Yet a 2004 study found that some 10 million women lacking a cervix were still getting Pap tests.

Well, thank God doctors in the United States don’t take their marching orders from journalists – yet. Among the real live doctor responses in the comments…

Her snarky comment “no post-hysterectomy pap smears needed because pap smears are for cervical cancer and there’s no more cervix, duh!” is only true for women who have had hysterectomies for benign problems. For women who had hysterectomies because of a prior malignancy, her advice could prove fatal–because ‘fatal’ is what an undetected recurrence of an invasive cancer in the vaginal cuff would likely be. Similarly her assertion that “diuretics should be first line anti-hypertensive therapy” ignores mucho evidence that diuretics (and beta-blockers) come with significant problems, including a vastly increased risk of triggering diabetes; in light of such evidence, many of the recommendations of JNC 7 are now being reexamined. In short, diuretics are absolutely appropriate therapy for many patients. For others, they’re not so great, and even down right dangerous in some case.

Of course, the purpose of the article has little to do with either science or the practice of medicine – the money quote:

It’s hard not to scream when you see how many physicians, pharmaceutical companies, medical-device makers and, lately, hysterical conservatives seem to hate science, or at best ignore it. These days the science that inspires fear and loathing is “comparative-effectiveness research” (CER), which is receiving $1 billion under the stimulus bill President Obama signed.

Taking the doctor out of treatment… is there nothing that Obama – and his allies in media – can’t do?
Related suggestions – Science 101 for journalists
Via email –

The following is the (scientific) guidelines from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada:
Screening can be discontinued in women who have undergone total hysterectomy for benign causes with no history of cervical dysplasia or human papillomavirus (C-III). Women who have undergone subtotal hysterectomy (with an intact cervix) should continue screening according to the guidelines. – Cancer Care Ontario Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynecology Canada
Please post this in your main post. As well I would advise that this woman be charged with practising and providing medical advice without a medical license. You can write that it comes from me. I have a real medical license to practice in Ontario.
Dr. Caillin Langmann MD PhD
McMaster University Div. Emergency Medicine

NYT: – “After the Election, Fox News Widens Lead”
CNN: “How to get Michelle Obama’s toned arms”

Advice for CTV.
You don’t kill a snake by cutting off the tail.

Newspaper convention canceled amid industry woes

Globe and Mail;

The CBC is heading toward a new fiscal year with little clarity about its funding from Ottawa, even as it suffers a projected 2008-2009 shortfall in ad revenue of up to $65-million.
This financial uncertainty increases the possibility of job cuts and changes to its services and programming, which CBC senior management says it is having to consider in order to ride out the current crisis hitting the entire media industry. “We are still working away at finalizing plans. Nothing has yet been determined,” CBC President Hubert Lacroix said in a memo to staff yesterday.

More – that stingy little Flaherty guy says they already get lots of money. Mutters something under his breath about biting the hand.
In related developments, a Winnipeg Free Press poll with the potential to go horribly wrong (scroll down main page and look to left) .

Standing before a nation on an economic precipice, President Barack Obama aimed to balance candor with can-do Tuesday night in his first address to a joint session of Congress. Millions more anxious Americans were tuning in on TV.

In a related display of journalistic transparency, the Associated Press’s Jennifer Loven and Ron Fournier hint at next week’s winning lottery numbers.
h/t Gord Tulk

Go ahead. Cancel your subscription. They’ll take your money anyway.