May 04, 2008

In light of the mainstream media's continued refusal to cover the issues that confront America, I give you this classic moment

America gets the media it deserves.

I guess it deserves sh*t right now.

I don't get the chance to watch a lot of CNN/Fox/MSNBC anymore, but what I do catch is frankly garbage. It's all about "the race" and not about the issues that matter. Unless there's a missing white girl, then even "the race" gets second billing. The last straw was the sickening and sad Democratic "debate" performance by Gibson and Stephanopoulos.

I've gotta figure there are a good number of intelligent, informed Americans who would appreciate a news channel that actually covered news. Or TV programming that wasn't total and absolute crap (reality TV, housing porn, etc).

I think blogs have taken off like they have, and newspapers and TV are dying, simply because Americans are looking for honest, quality information and debate. What's in blogs can find its way to TV and the MSM programming if someone in the biz is smart enough to make the jump.

America deserves better. And without the Fourth Estate on guard, as we've seen the past few years (Iraq, housing bubble) we're f*cked.

46 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hear, hear!

Anonymous said...

Kerry on msnbc

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/30/kerry-rips-msnbc-on-wrigh_n_99491.html

Anonymous said...

These hacks never saw it comin'!!

Tucker Carlson is sooooooo out of his fuc!@#ing league it isnt even funny!!

Brilliant job John, as usual.

You made absolute FOOLS out of these dim bulbs.

Anonymous said...

FLASH:
HPers think "informed" means getting news from hard left, conspiracy theorists' blogs, full of admitted "conjecture and speculation".

In other news:
HPers get painted into ever smaller corner of wild-eyed paranoia, prepare for self imolation.

Anonymous said...

BBC rocks.
All other news is entertainment. Makes me sick to even flip thru Fox and CNN.
We have failed as a country.

Anonymous said...

I started to love Stewart. Good piece. Thanks.

B747

Following Long Tail Treasure said...

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE add (at least) Digg to your blog...I want more and more people to read it and pay attention to this stuff. I think this bullshit is nuts. Maybe adding www.socialmarker.com?? Thanks and keep the great stuff coming.

Anonymous said...

That's why I tune in to

Infowars

rather than the fluff that you hear on Fox/MSNBC/ABC/CNN.

Sure some of the stuff pushes the envelope of believability but there's an amazing amount of info backed up by official sources that goes completely unmentioned in the mainstream media. I'm talking government corruption, rarely discussed government programs and the global power elite.

Anonymous said...

Like last week NBC's Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC interviewing Carly Fiorina and introducing her as "the Republican National Committee Victory Chairwoman and a strong supporter, top economic advisor to John McCain and obviously a businesswoman of great reputation and experience."

And we all know who Andrea Mitchell's husband is. Likes attract likes.

Anonymous said...

Democracy Now! is probably the best news I've seen anywhere. The best.

There are a few others, such as link tv...

Paul E. Math said...

Tough to watch these dicks try to defend the indefensible.

It is a great shame that one of the cornerstones of a democratic system, the free press, has been reduced to being nothing more than the instrument of political polarization.

Even NPR spends far more time discussing the campaigns than they do the issues themselves.

This is why Ron Paul's ideas receive little attention from the MSM - because the race is not about ideas and issues, it's about who is going to win.

I was pretty impressed to see Jon Stewart hold his own against 2 partisan hacks who bicker for a living.

Anonymous said...

FLASH:
HPers think "informed" means getting news from hard left, conspiracy theorists' blogs, full of admitted "conjecture and speculation".

In other news:
HPers get painted into ever smaller corner of wild-eyed paranoia, prepare for self imolation.


Yeah, nice try douchebagger. Keep drinking your right-wing radio, Fox News, CNN Kool-Aid government-corporate propaganda while we actually try thinking for ourselves and examining the world at a deeper level than lapel pins, america haters, stock market pumpers, islamo-fascist-extremist terrorist threats to the Western world and global warming propaganda.

Anonymous said...

It's a shame one has to go to the UK for real economic press and information on the war.

Personally, I like the Guardian, Telegraph, and Financial Times.

How did American papers turn into such wimps? That said, the San Francisco Chronicles isn't too bad. Their Surreal Estate column is very good.

Seems to me, newspapers stopped caring about the time Mike Royko died.

Anonymous said...

the media does what it does and it is all by design. nothing happens by chance. it is all a well conceived plan to bring down america. and it is working. shall we go quietly into the night?

blogger said...

I just caught an hour long special "mortgage meltdown" on cnn international tonight - I hope some of you saw this in the US - it was EXCELLENT television, with some of our heroes interviewed.

The only problem? It was done after the crash. Oh, how valuable that type of reporting would have been in 2005. It frankly would have saved lives.

But nice to see CNN do some good reoporting. I bet the ratings sucked though, compared to two people yelling at each other for an hour.

Anonymous said...

Lost his bow tie after that; didn't he?

Top shelf critique of themselves: a comic didn't do their jobs for them.

blogger said...

If any of you want good financial reporting, I recommend subscribing to The Economist and also The Financial Times. They've both done an amazing job covering the housing bubble and crash and credit meltdown.

Meanwhile TIME and Newsweek still haven't put the housing crash on their covers, or given it hardly any mention.

Anonymous said...

Keep up. It's a worldwide preference for sweet, palatable lies. With preferences like that who needs censorship anymore?

Anonymous said...

stewart is just some guy who is used to make people laugh at things that aren't really funny. this too is by design. it is a subtle brainwashing technique, whereby the anger that is present in the american masses is deflected somewhat, when we are made to laugh at things that are extremely serious. the same people who stewart works for pay him to do this. does he know this. i suspect he does. it is his job to do this. so many of the talking heads know what their missions are and they do them for money. this goes on in radio and television. for any further information on this, go look up tavistock institute in england which was started by freud. then you can see how they have used television and radio and newspapers to program the masses for the last hundred years of so. all one has to do is ask oneself this question. do things ever get better or do they get worse, no matter who is elected and who is in office?

Anonymous said...

Tucker's career tanked after this.He did a little stint on PBS after this because the Bush Administration forced a hack in the Chairmanship of that station in order to try his pretend rhetoric that he was fair & balanced. Soon, both Tucker and the other hack, Ken Tomlinson were thrown out as trying to debunk one of the only stations that tries to report honest news left in America. It was a great sight to behold when they left.

Anyway, from the hate-monger Republican claiming HPer's are felling more isolated. I have experienced quite the opposite. I have family members and coworkers who are starting to suffer and ask me for my sources because what I have been predicting since 2004 is coming true. Many of these people are hard core Republicans but say Bush was a huge mistake. I wish I could video tape these moments but at the same time my heart goes out to them for their struggles.

Anonymous said...

I thought that you would love the corrupt MSM, since there's nothing but Hillary Clinton bashing, 24/7, in all channels + LA Times + New York Times + BusinessWeek + Washington Post, etc. Meanwhile, the corrupt MSM bends over to Obama daily, like he's a saint, the new Messiah, the perfect man.

The same corrupt MSM that pushed Bush and the Iraq War down your throats, are now trying to brainwash you with the Messiah Obama. As soon as anything major comes out against Obama, you notice the the corrupt MSM (i.e., Keith Olbermann, Anderson Cooper, Tim Russert, LA Times, New York Times, etc) in desperation to do the Obama clean up to brainwash voters, while bashing Hillary Clinton. If you really pay attention to what goes on, you notice this pattern.

Do like I do. If the corrupt MSM is pushing Obama and McCain down your throats 24/7, you vote to the opposite candidate, which is Hillary.

You people need to get your power back and send a message to these crooks. You do the same thing with the House and Senate elections by voting every incumbent out, no matter which party they belong to.

Anonymous said...

It's funny to me that the same Ron Paul voters who got screwed by the corrupt MSM, are not capable of giving a payback by voting to the candidate the corrupt MSM dislikes most, which is Hillary Clinton.

Hey Ron Paul voters, it's payback time. If the corrupt MSM wants Obama and McCain so much, you join the Clinton voters and give the corrupt MSM the finger. You saw what Anderson Cooper did to Ron Paul during the GOP debate in the Reagan library, you've seen how the rest of the networks have treated Ron Paul. It's payback time. Vote for Hillary!

Anonymous said...

Jon Stewart was smoked out since, obviously, if he didn't ask softballed questions, politicians wouldn't come on his show.

my father was right: "O F F, turn the TV O F F."

Anonymous said...


Tucker Carlson is sooooooo out of his fuc!@#ing league it isnt even funny!!


Tucker Carlson is a political commentator, not a financial/economic reporter. That's like expecting Paul Begala to blow the whistle on the housing bubble.

Most of these media dopes never took an economics or finance course in their life. What do you expect from the dumbing down of the masses?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous Glenna said...

Tucker's career tanked after this.He did a little stint on PBS after this because the Bush Administration forced a hack in the Chairmanship of that station in order to try his pretend rhetoric that he was fair & balanced. Soon, both Tucker and the other hack, Ken Tomlinson were thrown out as trying to debunk one of the only stations that tries to report honest news left in America. It was a great sight to behold when they left.

Anyway, from the hate-monger Republican claiming HPer's are felling more isolated. I have experienced quite the opposite. I have family members and coworkers who are starting to suffer and ask me for my sources because what I have been predicting since 2004 is coming true. Many of these people are hard core Republicans but say Bush was a huge mistake. I wish I could video tape these moments but at the same time my heart goes out to them for their struggles.

May 04, 2008 9:26 PM<<<

his career tanked when he spoke up for ron paul. imagine that. i guess he thought that there was a free media where one cold actually make choices for political candidates based upon one's own ideas on the subject, despite what your bosses say...? well gues what. when he took that position, his days were numbered on national media. i promise you, you will never hear from him again in any capacity. his days in media are finished. and why? because he dared to make a stand for a good man.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous tvoff said...

Jon Stewart was smoked out since, obviously, if he didn't ask softballed questions, politicians wouldn't come on his show.

my father was right: "O F F, turn the TV O F F."

May 04, 2008 10:06 PM<<

what did people around the united states do before television and radio? they read books to pass the off hours. now fast forward to today. reading is down and so is critical thinking. you wonder why a army stays in iraq for 6 years now, with no end in sight, without going into mutiny? there is something wrong with them. this is why they like a volunteer army. easier to control. they do what they are told and die doing it and don't seem to know or care why they do what they do. they just do it. many people in america are like that now. it is because of television and radio and the constant drumbeat of propaganda flowing from them. then you also consider the communistic programs they have installed in our schools now where johnny graduates and knows nothing of importance. this is the new reality. some have made it through, but not many. when the rebellion starts, it will take two generations to right what has been done. shall we get started or shall we do like the prior generations have done? lay it off on the next crew that comes through...? its up to us to solve these problems and the time is now while we still can. they say freedom is not free. the founding fathers knew all of this. they feared for our futures and for good reason. we now see what they feared is coming to pass.

Anonymous said...

Barney Frank (D-Mass) to the rescue of the bankers again:

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A bill meant to help homeowners caught up in the spreading mortgage crisis received committee approval Thursday after Democrats fended off numerous Republican challenges to the bill.

The bill would authorize the Federal Housing Administration to guarantee up to $300 billion in new mortgages offered by government-approved private lenders.

The House Financial Services Committee passed the bill on a vote of 42 to 21. The full House is expected to take up the measure next week, committee aides said.

The committee estimates the program could help 1.5 million homeowners who are having difficulty paying their mortgages.

Committee chairman Rep. Barney Frank, the main author of the bill, says the millions of individuals who might face foreclosure because of the expanding credit crisis deserve help, even if they made a mistake by borrowing beyond their means.

"There are people who made loans that should not have been made; there are some people that were wrong to take the loans out, some wrong to make the loans. If nothing happens and all those loans go under foreclosure, the economy suffers," he said.

Republican amendments defeated. On Wednesday, the Democratic members of the House Financial Services Committee defeated several GOP amendments to the proposal, which would have excluded people with bad credit, limited the program to low- and middle-income borrowers and eliminated a requirement that lenders accept losses. They were all defeated on mostly party-line votes.

The Bush administration also "strongly opposes" the legislation, calling the bill a "bailout." The administration expressed its objections in a letter send last week to Franks.

Anonymous said...

What a bore Jon Stewart is.

Its amazing to me what people think is clever or funny these days.

His material isn't funny, his timing isn't good, and I suppose people think taking shots at easy targets is amusing.

Yawn.... next

Anonymous said...

Speaking of ANDREA MITCHELL--

I am having a really hard time watching her report the news of the day, knowing that HER HUBBY is so damn responsible for the economic collapse that we are facing!!

The network needs to cut her loose. Everytime I see her face, I think of her corrupt hubby...

Anonymous said...

John Stewart is a GOD amongst men. Absolutely NAILS the corruption and issues we are facing every single episode of the Daily Show.

Would highly recommend watching it to HP'ers!! You will laugh your azzz off. (and boy, can we ever use a laugh nowdays)---

Chris said...

Hey Ron Paul voters, it's payback time. If the corrupt MSM wants Obama and McCain so much, you join the Clinton voters and give the corrupt MSM the finger. You saw what Anderson Cooper did to Ron Paul during the GOP debate in the Reagan library, you've seen how the rest of the networks have treated Ron Paul. It's payback time. Vote for Hillary!
________________________________


^LOL

This is a joke right?

Anonymous said...

Blogs such as yours have opened my eyes up to reality in a way that I would have never known had I not been a regular visitor. I think a lot of regular folks who read this blog (like me) feel like they are much more well informed, and in many ways an expert on housing, because of the things that they have learned here.

The funny thing is I prefer to get my substantive news from the many blogs I visit and when I want to hear about Britneys latest screw up I go and visit a mainstream media site like cnn.

Anonymous said...

Good clip.

The audience got it!

Question is, how does that audience reaction feed in to the polls?

Not a lot. The mysterious distortion of centralised democracy.

Anonymous said...

Tucker and Ken look like towel boys in a gay bathouse.

Stewart stomped on their balls and all they did was whine, as yuppies are apt to do.

Bitch Slap a Yuppie today.

Anonymous said...

"And we all know who Andrea Mitchell's husband is. Likes attract likes."

More like shit attracts flies...

Anonymous said...

Stewart/Colbert 08!

Chris said...

I love the "logic" of the typical anonymous poster saying that Hillary Clinton is the "rebel" candidate because the MSM apparently hate her, and as a "rebel", Ron Paul supporters should vote for her.

Anon, the media didn't say that Hillary Clinton did a bang-up job in Bosnia while dodging sniper fire. Hillary did. It came out of her own mouth. Several times. Not from a crazy pastor like Obama had. It came from her.

I think you're also confusing hate with Obama having the lead. Yes, Obama has the lead. As much as all of you Clinton supporters want to say it's anybody's race, it's not. Obama has the lead in both the popular vote, total delegates, and elected superdelegates. The unelected superdelegates are in Hillary's favor but she's slipping on those.

If you really watched unbiased election coverage and did your homework on how the delegates are counted in state primaries, you would know that I have as much of a chance at winning the Democratic nomination as Hillary does. Seriously though, you really need to deal with it. And to say that Ron Paul supporters should vote for Hillary is pretty damn stupid and does not reflect well on your competence.

Anonymous said...

It's funny to me that the same Ron Paul voters who got screwed by the corrupt MSM, are not capable of giving a payback by voting to the candidate the corrupt MSM dislikes most, which is Hillary Clinton.

Hey Ron Paul voters, it's payback time. If the corrupt MSM wants Obama and McCain so much, you join the Clinton voters and give the corrupt MSM the finger. You saw what Anderson Cooper did to Ron Paul during the GOP debate in the Reagan library, you've seen how the rest of the networks have treated Ron Paul. It's payback time. Vote for Hillary!


You Hillary supporters really are as stupid as I always thought you were.

1) You claim that Hillary is the poor Democrat candidate that is being unfairly treated by the media. What the hell was all that Rev. Wright bullshit we've been hearing for the last three weeks??!!! And this is the evil bitch that thinks "obliterating" Iran is a sensible option for dealing with Iran. Yeah, annihilate an entire population for the aggression of their government. That would be like Iran nuking the entire North American continent for the US invasion of Iraq.

2) Ron Paul supporters vote on principles not for some personality or simply to get back at the media. Keep the petty ass politics for you and your moronic liberals.

Anonymous said...

They did nothing to refute Stewart's claim that they are poor journalists hurting America. This is such a sweeping condemnation that it's falsehood should be trivial to demonstrate. Instead: "no I'm not - you are!"

In short, affirmation by denial.

And acting smarmy to boot.

Anonymous said...

Tucker was RIGHT!

John Stewart kisses up to politicos shamelessly and it is extremely destructive to our democracy. Any time a talk show host allows a politician to sell how "cool" they are (which is why Stewart is able to get any guest he wants) instead of explaining how they would balance the budget then that host is a part of the problem.

Stewart is a hypocrite just like the rest of them. Except Stewart is worse because he's a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Anonymous said...

Awww poor Qweefie. He's upset that the big bad media is nolonger in love with Obama.

Calling out Obama for having an insane, paranoid, anti-American pastor as well as being pals with terrorists is not ignoring the issues. You know very well had the situation been reversed and it was McCain's pastor you'd all be up in arms about it.

Anonymous said...

Anon, the media didn't say that Hillary Clinton did a bang-up job in Bosnia while dodging sniper fire. Hillary did. It came out of her own mouth. Several times. Not from a crazy pastor like Obama had. It came from her.

Chris,
Don't get all worked up over the Hillary poster. These are paid workers for her campaign and infiltrating comments is just part of her "viral" strategy. Just take a peek around other blogs, you'll notice this a lot lately.

Anonymous said...

Is Tucker really that dense? Wow, MSM sucks BIG TIME.

Anonymous said...

Glenna said...

....Anyway, from the hate-monger Republican claiming HPer's are felling more isolated. I have experienced quite the opposite. I have family members and coworkers who are starting to suffer and ask me for my sources because what I have been predicting since 2004 is coming true.
===========================

Same here Glenna, and I'm nobody, who just happened onto this blog before making the biggest mistake of my life, and tried to pass on the info.

Friends, family, co-workers, none would listen.

Now they WANT to listen, but it's too late. I'm no financial expert, just a guy who got lucky. It's depressing to have to tell people "your doomed," but in a nice way!

Anonymous said...

ACCOUNTABILITY.

Modern media is accountable to the person paying the money.

And since modern media gets nearly all (newspapers get 80% of revenue from corporate advertisers, TV news gets 100%) of it's revenue from corporate advertisers, they call the shots.

You're important, just not in the way you think.

You (your eyeballs anyway) are the product the advertisers are buying, and the media is the way they get them.

Your need for honest reporting is secondary (at best) to the needs of the real customers, the ones who are paying.

That's why any "news" website that has advertising is corrupt, just a copy of the mainstream media business model. And it can't survive on-line when people have a choice between news sites that are supported by the readers (and thus ACCOUNTABLE to them) and not corporations.

The only way news companies can compete on-line is to create an uneven playing field, which is what they want to do (see Internet Parity).

Refuse to buy overpriced said...

C-SPAN is invaluable, and public television still has pretty good news.