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Old November 15th, 2008 #1
Alex Linder
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Default Politics Before Profits: Proof the Leftist School is Wrong

["One in a Million" by Guns and Roses - popular song never played on radio because the lyrics offend jew-bolshevik politics.]

http://vnnforum.com/showthread.php?p=879910#post879910
 
Old June 18th, 2009 #2
Alex Linder
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[WP fires one of its most popular and linked-to columnists because he's criticizing Obama, thereby going against the party line and the agenda, which are more important than profits accrued through printing popular writers.]

The Washington Post fires its best columnist. Why?

by Glenn Greenwald

(updated below - Update II - Update III)

One of the rarest commodities in the establishment media is someone who was a vehement critic of George Bush and who now, applying their principles consistently, has become a regular critic of Barack Obama -- i.e., someone who criticizes Obama from what is perceived as "the Left" rather than for being a Terrorist-Loving Socialist Muslim. It just got a lot rarer, as The Washington Post -- at least according to Politico's Patrick Gavin -- just fired WashingtonPost.com columnist, long-time Bush critic and Obama watchdog (i.e., a real journalist) Dan Froomkin.

What makes this firing so bizarre and worthy of inquiry is that, as Calderone notes, Froomkin was easily one of the most linked-to and cited Post columnists. At a time when newspapers are relying more and more on online traffic, the Post just fired the person who, in 2007, wrote 3 out of the top 10 most-trafficked columns. In publishing that data, Media Bistro used this headline: "The Post's Most Popular Opinions (Read: Froomkin)." Isn't that an odd person to choose to get rid of?

Following the bottomless path of self-pity of the standard right-wing male -- as epitomized by Pete Hoekstra's comparison of House Republicans to Iranian protesters and yet another column by Pat Buchanan decrying the systematic victimization of the white male in America -- Charles Krauthammer last night said that Obama critics on Fox News are "a lot like [Hugo Chavez'] Caracas where all the media, except one, are state run." But right-wing polemicists like Krauthammer are all over the media.

In addition to his Rupert Murdoch perch at Fox, Krauthammer remains as a regular columnist at the Post, alongside fellow right-wing Obama haters such as Bill Kristol, George Will, Jim Hoagland, Michael Gerson and Robert Kagan -- as well as a whole bevy of typical, banal establishment spokespeople who are highly supportive of whatever the permanent Washington establishment favors (David Ignatius, Fred Hiatt, Ruth Marcus, David Broder, Richard Cohen, Howie Kurtz, etc. etc.). And that's to say nothing of the regular Op-Ed appearances by typical Krauthammer-mimicking neoconservative voices such as John Bolton, Joe Lieberman, and Douglas Feith -- and the Post Editorial Page itself. "Caracas" indeed.

Notably, Froomkin just recently had a somewhat acrimonious exchange with the oh-so-oppressed Krauthammer over torture, after Froomkin criticized Krauthammer's explicit endorsement of torture and Krauthammer responded by calling Froomkin's criticisms "stupid." And now -- weeks later -- Froomkin is fired by the Post while the persecuted Krauthammer, comparing himself to endangered journalists in Venezuela, remains at the Post, along with countless others there who think and write just like he does: i.e., standard neoconservative pablum. Froomkin was previously criticized for being "highly opinionated and liberal" by Post ombudsman Deborah Howell (even as she refused to criticize blatant right-wing journalists).

All of this underscores a critical and oft-overlooked point: what one finds virtually nowhere in the establishment press are those who criticize Obama not in order to advance their tawdry right-wing agenda but because the principles that led them to criticize Bush compel similar criticism of Obama. Rachel Maddow is one of the few prominent media figures who will interview and criticize Democratic politicians "from the Left" (and it's hardly a coincidence that it was MSNBC's decision to give Maddow her own show -- rather than the endless array of right-wing talk show hosts plaguing television for years -- which prompted a tidal wave of "concern" over whether cable news was becoming "too partisan"). In general, however, those who opine from the Maddow/Froomkin perspective are a very endangered species, and it just became more endangered as the Post fires one if its most popular, talented, principled and substantive columnists.



UPDATE: I just confirmed with Froomkin that Gavin's report is true, and hope to have some comment from him once he decides what he wants to say.



UPDATE II: In a post entitled "The WaPo's Best Blogger Is Fired," Andrew Sullivan writes:

A simply astounding move by the paper - getting rid of the one blogger, Dan Froomkin, who kept it real and kept it interesting. Dan's work on torture may be one reason he is now gone. The way in which the WaPo has been coopted by the neocon right, especially in its editorial pages, is getting more and more disturbing. This purge will prompt a real revolt in the blogosphere. And it should.

The single most transparent and damaging myth in American political discourse is also one of the most unquestioned: The Liberal Media.



UPDATE III: Here is Froomkin's statement:

I’m terribly disappointed. I was told that it had been determined that my White House Watch blog wasn’t "working" anymore. But from what I could tell, it was still working very well. I also thought White House Watch was a great fit with The Washington Post brand, and what its readers reasonably expect from the Post online.

As I’ve written elsewhere, I think that the future success of our business depends on journalists enthusiastically pursuing accountability and calling it like they see it. That’s what I tried to do every day. Now I guess I'll have to try to do it someplace else.

The Post's inability to articulate a coherent, credible explanation for what it did speaks volumes. Any media outlet is foolish if it doesn't strongly consider taking advantage of the Post's conduct by hiring Froomkin.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...6/18/froomkin/
 
Old August 13th, 2013 #3
Alex Linder
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[more proof that media are not driven by profits - most cable channels are unprofitable]

Analyst: End of Bundled Cable Will Kill Over 80 Channels

by John Nolte
12 Aug 2013

With streaming television becoming more and more popular, and providers like Aereo making an end-run around cable and satellite providers, a lot of attention is being paid to the future of bundled cable. In a world of growing choices and a weak, jobless economy, how long can something last that charges customers a ton of money for dozens of channels they never watch?

Bundled cable is, in my opinion, one of the greatest hustles ever perpetuated against the American people. The worst part is how it works as a kind of affirmative-action program for left-wing programming that likely wouldn’t survive in a world where we weren't forced to pay for channels we never watch. Chief among them, CNN, and MSNBC.

As this discussion heats up, analysts and experts are fessing up that in a world without bundled cable, only 20 television networks would survive (that means that around 80 would not). Presumably, the survivors would be the twenty most-watched channels throughout the cable world. This would be terrible news for CNN, MSNBC, and HLN -- networks that usually rank in the thirties and forties.

Fox News is usually in the top 5.

Network executives -- whose bottom lines are boosted by as much as 50% from cable subscriber fees that have little to do with merit and everything to do with being able to muscle a cable provider into carrying a low-rated channel -- are, for obvious reasons, opposed to the idea of unbundling bundled cable. Some even claim that the profit loss would hurt the viewer the most because there would be less money to conduct the experimentation that produces the television shows we love so much.

Nobody is really buying that.

What really terrifies the big media conglomerates is how the end of bundled cable would financially devastate their companies and along with it the cultural stranglehold they enjoy that is propagated through artificial means. The end of bundled cable means the end of tens of billions of dollars per year earned only by forcing consumers to pay for something they don't use, and the end of dozens of channels -- like MSNBC, CNN, MTV, etc. -- that affect our culture and politics in the worst ways.

When you remove merit from television, what we are seeing now is what we get -- cultural, left-wing rot.

Something CNN and MSNBC might want to consider as the existential threat of cord-cutting looms over them (people who cancel cable television) is that one reason this might be happening is Obama's failed economy -- you know, the economy they keep telling us is acceptable--the one created by the president and the policies he champions…

If the economy actually was something close to acceptable, people wouldn't care about the size of their cable bills, which means we probably wouldn't even be having this discussion.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journal...er-80-channels

434 comments
 
Old August 15th, 2013 #4
N.B. Forrest
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex Linder View Post
[more proof that media are not driven by profits - most cable channels are unprofitable]

Analyst: End of Bundled Cable Will Kill Over 80 Channels

by John Nolte
12 Aug 2013

With streaming television becoming more and more popular, and providers like Aereo making an end-run around cable and satellite providers, a lot of attention is being paid to the future of bundled cable. In a world of growing choices and a weak, jobless economy, how long can something last that charges customers a ton of money for dozens of channels they never watch?

Bundled cable is, in my opinion, one of the greatest hustles ever perpetuated against the American people. The worst part is how it works as a kind of affirmative-action program for left-wing programming that likely wouldn’t survive in a world where we weren't forced to pay for channels we never watch. Chief among them, CNN, and MSNBC.

As this discussion heats up, analysts and experts are fessing up that in a world without bundled cable, only 20 television networks would survive (that means that around 80 would not). Presumably, the survivors would be the twenty most-watched channels throughout the cable world. This would be terrible news for CNN, MSNBC, and HLN -- networks that usually rank in the thirties and forties.

Fox News is usually in the top 5.

Network executives -- whose bottom lines are boosted by as much as 50% from cable subscriber fees that have little to do with merit and everything to do with being able to muscle a cable provider into carrying a low-rated channel -- are, for obvious reasons, opposed to the idea of unbundling bundled cable. Some even claim that the profit loss would hurt the viewer the most because there would be less money to conduct the experimentation that produces the television shows we love so much.

Nobody is really buying that.

What really terrifies the big media conglomerates is how the end of bundled cable would financially devastate their companies and along with it the cultural stranglehold they enjoy that is propagated through artificial means. The end of bundled cable means the end of tens of billions of dollars per year earned only by forcing consumers to pay for something they don't use, and the end of dozens of channels -- like MSNBC, CNN, MTV, etc. -- that affect our culture and politics in the worst ways.

When you remove merit from television, what we are seeing now is what we get -- cultural, left-wing rot.

Something CNN and MSNBC might want to consider as the existential threat of cord-cutting looms over them (people who cancel cable television) is that one reason this might be happening is Obama's failed economy -- you know, the economy they keep telling us is acceptable--the one created by the president and the policies he champions…

If the economy actually was something close to acceptable, people wouldn't care about the size of their cable bills, which means we probably wouldn't even be having this discussion.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journal...er-80-channels

434 comments
Fucking right. I should be able to pick what I want, and shitcan the rest - and, man, would the ol' shitcan be full: MSNBC, MurrayTV, the Fag Channels (Bravo, Logo, Here, ad nauseam), Current, Lifetime, the religion channels, the countless redundant channels showing the exact same shit.....
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Old August 15th, 2013 #5
Alex Linder
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Quote:
Originally Posted by N.B. Forrest View Post
Fucking right. I should be able to pick what I want, and shitcan the rest - and, man, would the ol' shitcan be full: MSNBC, MurrayTV, the Fag Channels (Bravo, Logo, Here, ad nauseam), Current, Lifetime, the religion channels, the countless redundant channels showing the exact same shit.....
Yep. Airwaves regulation is based on scarcity - which does not actually exist. The airwaves can be split infinitely, as a practical measure, the technology is there to do it. What happens is the regulators are captured by the companies they regulate since, after all, government has no expertise in anything but lying and pandering...and murdering... So it draws its regulators from industry. Which quickly becomes a revolving door, allowing connected insiders to get rich. Airwaves are same as insurance - the insurance companies support the campaigns of the politicians, their guys end up writing the laws. Forcing people to buy full-figured policies they don't want or need. Leftism is not just the minority position it is the extreme-minority position. It cannot survive unrigged games, unrigged debates, honest markets. It survives entirely out of the pocketbooks of its enemies - AND MUST. It has no other option but cheating if it wants to win. This importance of this insight cannot be overstated.
 
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