I’m not the only one in the Blogosphere that regularly bags on the LATimes for inept, biased reporting on their news pages. If you read this blog regularly, you probably wonder why I haven’t canceled my subscription. Actually, that’s a good question that deserves a good answer. Sorry, this is as good an answer as I can give.

I learned many of my reading skills by reading the newspaper, specifically the Tulsa World early morning edition, which was the one delivered to out-of-town subscribers. We lived in Collinsville, which was about 25 miles northeast of Tulsa, and the World was delivered to us each day, showing up in our mailbox, out where our driveway met Highway 169. I looked forward to trotting out there and getting the paper each AM, except of course, when it was below freezing, raining cats & dogs, or when freezing rain had everything super-slippery and sealed shut with a vengeance.

I remember the struggles of Nancy & Sluggo, the irony of Pogo, the fun of Lil’ Abner. Why yes, I discovered reading via the comics pages. That I eventually transitioned into reading the encyclopedia Britannica was more due to boredom than not liking the funny pages anymore. I don’t read them now, but that is more to do with them being in actuality an extension of the Opinion pages rather than something fun to read. I mean, if Gary Trudeau and Berkeley Breathed really think that they have that much of importance to say politically, they should step up and draw editorial cartoons, instead of hiding behind a supposed “entertainment” factor as syndicated cartoonists for the “Funny Pages”. That kids end up reading this stuff really ticks me off!

But if that was the LATimes only sin, I could live with that. You see, I just love the smell of ink on newsprint, the feel of a newspaper in my hands, the time to linger over a cup of coffee on a good story . . . wait a minute, where’s that good story?

Today, the Times continues taking shots at the U.S. efforts, along with the interim Iraqi government, to crush and control the insurgents. They get a little excited contemplating the Bush administration finally trying to work with the EU, as evidenced by the current European tour of Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Can’t they just understand that one of the big reasons Western Europe is warming up to the Bush administration is that Bush won the ‘04 election and also that he not only kicked the Taliban and Saddam’s A**, but the elections in Iraq were held as scheduled just last month.

But I digress. Headline: “Syria Maintains Grip on Power in Lebanon”. Yeah, for a minute! Headline: “Presidential Also-Ran Shows No Signs of Fading Away”. Can’t Teresa find John something to do in a ketchup factory or something? Geez! Like Mister “I spent Christmas ‘68 in Cambodia” Kerry could make it through the primary season next time. Any candidate worth his, or her, salt would just call up the Swift Boat Vets, get a few choice quotes, and have a field day with old “I’m reporting for duty” Kerry. Give me a break. Hey, John, your 15 minutes of fame were over in the ’70’s, and you used up all the extensions allowed on this side of the great divide! Go away! Please!

Headline: “Friend Taped Discussion With Then-Gov Bush” Let’s see, reporting and quoting from illegally taped conversation with a state governor. How many broken laws is that? My, my! Bush is defending gays. So what’s up? Ah ……… in an off hand way, he seems to be admitting using marijuana. Someone in their fifties that has tried weed. Boy, there’s a shocker for ya! Can we stand any more excitement today? This here newspaper’s on fire!

And finally, on page 12 of the Calendar section, David Shaw rips the Blogosphere in his Media Matters column, “The blog squad can add another notch to its belt”, wherein he presents to the LATimes readership an MSM distortion of the Eason Jordan affair. In Shaw’s world, Eason Jordan was a victim of a one-time trip-of-the-tongue, quickly withdrawn, and totally overreacted to. Guess the guy doesn’t know about Google, or MSN Search, or Yahoo!, or he might have easily discovered that Jordan made statements as recently as November that were very similar to those made at Davos last month.

To Shaw, bloggers are the bloodthirsty hoard, stalking their next kill. As part of the blogswarm about Eason Jordan, I don’t think that the center-right bloggers were trying to deep-six the guy per se, but we did want the Davos tape to be released. That this was withheld for the lamest of reasons, and Jordan subsequently having resigned, pretty much says it all. Shaw either doesn’t, or doesn’t want to, “get it”.

Hugh Hewitt reacts to this column today on his blog, even though he was supposed to be taking a few deserved days off from blogging:

The amusing conceit about “grown-ups” crying as the childish bloggers rampage is the best admission yet that Shaw, like many in old media, knows the game is over and will settle for bottles of bitterness packaged as pride instead of competitiveness. The suits at The Tribune Company that owns this dog of a paper may want to ask themselves if insulting the new media in a hack piece that ignores or misses key facts is the way to shore up this bleeding property.

Couldn’t say it better myself . . . really I couldn’t. Now, why do I keep reading this rag? (db)

This entry was posted on Monday, February 21st, 2005 at 12:44 am and is filed under Focus On Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.  |   Print This Post  |   Email This Post

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