Steele was right: his power is not based on politics, it's based on entertainment. Great entertainers like Winchell and Limbaugh manage to simplify politics, to find ways of making it "us against them," to find ways to dramatize, to demonize, to villainize, to narrativize.
"The headline that you will never hear is 'The market was down 110 points, a random fluctuation in a very complex system,' " said Eric Schurenberg, the former managing editor of Money magazine who is busy building -- get this -- a financial Web site for CBS. "No one has ever known what was going to happen, but there is this temptation to act like you did. But that fantasy has been exploded."
To engage their audience, business journalists need to act like things are changing all the time. As it turned out, what didn't change much was the fundamental lessons: have a diversified portfolio, don't buy more house than you can afford, don't take on more debt than you can support, or trade on the margin.
-- David Carr
Continue reading "In coverage of recession, few rays of hope" »
CNBC just did a BREAKING NEWS banner with Wagoner's quote:
"We wish economic conditions were better, but they're not".
-- Joe Weisenthal @ 9:32
...
Joe Weisenthal@9:54: Some guy on CNBC just said "The government will fold" and I thought he meant collapse. But he just meant fold, and give in to big auto.
An advantage in generating appealing factoids:
The Obama campaign spent more than $57,000 at the Four Seasons in Amman, Jordan, during the candidate's overseas trip in July, although a spokesman said that much of that was for rooms for the traveling press corps and that the campaign would be reimbursed by the news organizations. The campaign spent about $60,000 on the staging for Mr. Obama's speech in Berlin on that trip. Then there is the $140,000 that the campaign has spent at companies that make American flags, apparently mostly for campaign events, compared with just $7,000 spent by the McCain campaign.
The definition of middle class is in flux. Many try to quantify and specify it in income terms.
Here's Charles Gibson of ABC (Via Paul Krugman): suggested that $200,000 a year was a middle-class income.
Funnier than Michael Palin.
FinancialTimes' ftalphaville. Instant trends, market moves, as seen from the City outside the USA.
Aspen Idea Festival gathers the idea merchants: journalists, entrepreneurs,
and academics who talk about ideas more than about people, and about
people more than about things.
One of this country's greatest achievements is its separation
of legality from morality, so that individuals can hold themselves
to a higher standard, as they see it, without forcing it on
everyone else.
-- Slate's William Saletan sets the bar higher than the NYT's 'ethicist'.
"When you are crying foul in a presidential campaign, it usually
means you are losing."
-- Mr. Chris Lehane, the Democratic operative, pronounced himself
delighted that the McCain campaign was feeling victimized.
Matt Y plays prodigy and future arbitror of Washington.
The Politico tracks Washington-centric partisan politics,
by ex-Washington Post staffers at Capitol Leader.
Tech President covers the race for US President, 2008.
CBS in NYC: wcbs TV in New York City: news, topstories,
with non-hideous website design.
Not a fight between left and right, a fight about
how politics should be conducted. On the one
hand are the ...
Update: for the 'How to argue...' file
How to introduce evidence you don't have:
So these days, for example, one hears that Lieberman is a
| true believers | quasi-independents |
| fundamentalists | heterodox politicians |
| party discipline | distrust ideological purity |
| passion | rebel against movement groupthink |
| purity | bipartisanship |
| orthodoxy | John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton |
| clear choices | Joe Lieberman |
Brussels Journal tracks crime in Europe and faults the Beeb.
What to think of loudobbs.com, home of financial reporter Lou Dobbs.
LoudObbs ? LouDobbs.
Why not Lou_dobbs.com or Lou-Dobbs.com ?
Like to watch the business commentators, especially during tax filing season.
For the moment, to put it nicely, the same thing has happened to the
Liberals in Canada, as has happened to other long-serving single-party
regimes elsewhere in the world. Technology has caught up with their
ability to manage information; and a sheltered population is losing
its fear. The more the ruling party tries to scare them, with
heavy-handed old-media campaigns, the worse things get --
for the ruling party.
Continue reading "Liberal one party Canada 0 vs Blogosphere 1" »
Until I draw my last breath, I will pour my heart and soul into the
cause of protecting our children from the dangers of smoking.
-- Al Gore, 1996.
Today we are fighting in Iraq for the right to smoke.
Continue reading "Al Gore's heart and soul, protecting our children from the dangers of smoking" »
New Yorker bio of person of the month Judith Miller, in the circle
of Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Valerie Palme, Joseph Wilson, Karl Rove
and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
"Unfortunately a lot of fine young people were gotten for perjury
during Watergate."
-Al Haig
Nouriel Roubini's first rate economics blog offers an
essay of macroeconomic commentary about weekly.
Quick off the mark with commentary on new Fed Chairman
nominee on Ben Bernanke.
Previously: Roubini Global Economics.
Formerly one of the MSM popular press's better technology writers,
bayosphere's Dan Gillmor didn't stay solo for long.
The Web is a festering cesspool of lunacy and emotion: Free Republic,
Daily Kos, Little Green Footballs, Atrios, Instapundit, on and on
and on. Facts only enter the picture when they're favorable.
Emotion rules. There is no common ground, nor a desire for any.
-- Greg Knauss
busybusybusy is a great leftish summary the
day's talking heads' punditry.
Word in the Washington bureau is that John Tierney, a veteran
journalist who worked for the Washington Star, is in position to write
a column from Washington. A reporter for most of his career, he has
written a regional column about New York. He is no doctrinaire
conservative, perhaps a libertarian, but he has taken muckraking
positions on many issues.
New York Times top 25 articles. 'Top' is measured by most mailed,
not most viewed.