COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

All those layers of fact-checkers at work again!

Labels: CNN, Countercolumn News Ticker, journalism

...and not ONCE mention abortion!!!

Labels: Abortion, health care, journalism, Media, Obama, Senator Ben Nelson

This one with a South Florida connection: A Navy commander has filed a complaint with the Miami Herald over reporter Carol Rosenberg's offensive and degrading behavior and questioning.



Full complaint here.

I don't know if he would have much standing, since they don't have the same employers. And I don't like the precedent of government officials suing newspapers for allowing their reporters to create a hostile work environment. Still, if she is interfering with the AP photographer's work, and publicly inferring that the Navy officer is gay - knowing that if the reputation stuck, he would lose his career, Rosenberg comes extremely close to committing a couple of torts.

If these reports are true - and there are apparently lots of witnesses, Rosenberg is sullying the Miami Herald brand. Her reporting is not to be trusted. She seems to have come unglued. She should be fired. It's not like there aren't good, underemployed journalists out there to replace her with.

Way to cultivate your sources, moron!

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: culture, journalism, law, Miami Herald, Navy, Sex, stupid, The media

Cedarford, a racist, bigoted, Jew-hating jerk who comments on Althouse, nails the recent escape of a NYT reporter from Taliban captivity:

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall during the NYTimes hostage negotiation for their reporter.

"Look, we gave you info on the Afghan Predator program, America tapping into SPRINT to find Islamoid financiers. We regularly give page 1 to any "wedding party atrocity" you alledge. We helped kill hundreds of American soldiers by working hard to inflame Muslims with endless stories of Abu Ghraib, GITMO torture, Haditha, Koran desecration..Details on jammer devices the military was trying against IEDs. Endless advocacy of terrorist's precious rights and civil liberties."

"Frankly, you Taliban and Al Qaeda owe us! Release our guy!"

Labels: Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, journalism, New York Times, War on Terror

So asks Megan McArdle.

I'll tell you why. Because, by and large, our financial media sucks.

Here's my comment, crossposted from her blog.

Tanta. She was doing the heavy lifting for our intellectually bankrupt financial press when it counted. Too bad all of you guys were too busy playing stenographer for your sources to notice when it could have counted.

But financial journalism as a whole is pretty useless.

They flopped on the S&L scandal until it was too late.
They whored themselves out hawking Internet stocks and funds at the worst possible time. Check out The Fortune Tellers for details.

They elevate chronic money-losers like Jim Cramer and idiotic concepts like Mad Money. Ed Slott should have Cramer's show. But he won't.

They promote self-promoting mental midgets like Suze Orman, who couldn't plan her way to Starbucks for a cup of coffee, rather than real planners.

They sat approvingly on the sidelines while Dave Ramsey insisted growth stock mutual funds average a return of 12% per year while leading hapless investors out of their guaranteed contracts, whole life insurance, fixed annuities, bonds, and EIAs like the the Pied Piper leading children to oblivion, and fell all over themselves quoting how much good he's done, when taking his advice was devastating to families in 1999 and devastating in 2007-2008, and never once called him on it.

You pay lip service to 'buy and hold' investing, but every cover on the big-circ glossies screams '10 mutual funds to buy now'

Your covers feature flights to safety AFTER the market crashes, and feature aggressive investments AFTER large rises in the market.

The financial media is the reason real-life, real-world investors only realize less than a quarter of actual market gains (I'm citing DALBAR here.).

Elaine Garzarelli makes one lucky call in 1987, and you idiots are still calling her for market predictions, 22 years later. How did that work out last time, when Smart Money called her? In their December 2007 issue, She recommended Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch and predicted Dow 16,000.

I guarantee you she'll still be getting calls from drooling reporters 5 years from now, if she's still working, and hasn't been shot by a client.

Smart money regards the financial media as a contrary indicator. The media is always the second dumbest guy at the poker table. The only dumber guy at the poker table is the guy who reads them.

They're asleep at the switch, by and large, while our pension crisis continues to build. They're asleep at the switch even now, while unrealistic GMIB riders threaten to cut the legs out from under major, major insurance companies, while there isn't close to enough capital in reserve at state insurance funds to make up the shortfall.

The financial media doesn't deserve Pulitizers. It deserves a kick in the nuts by an outraged public.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: bloggers, economy, finance, journalism, McCardle, Media, public relations, The media

Hilarity ensues.

Soules served his first two tours as an active member of the U.S. Army. Now he'll report as an inactive member of the Pennsylvania National Army Reserves, he said, something he didn't expected to have to do.

The reporter is Kate Ramunni, who of course was let down by layers and layers of professional editors.

I suggest you start with Tom Baden, editor, at 203-330-6325. Ask if he has any veterans on staff. If not, why not?

Hat tip: A reader, with my thanks.

Labels: journalism, Media, soldiers' issues, stupid

The Los Angeles Times is the latest newspaper to undergo a round of layoffs.

I've been there. I was one of the last six people standing after a round of layoffs that displaced more than 50 people at Mutual Funds Magazine between 2000 and late 2002. It's stressful, sure. But most of us came through it ok, and we even have better hours (except for Barbara, who went to work at Time Magazine)

Nevertheless, reporters are entitled to do some bitching at the mismanagement of their newspaper. And it's not entirely because their liberal paper has cost them a lot of subscribers. Honestly, I don't think that's a huge problem for the Times. (You can fix that by starting up a more conservative paper and working out cross-selling deals for advertising to both populations).

No. What really led to the layoffs at the LA Times is information like this:

the average Los Angeles Times journalist produced “51 pages” per year, while the average journalist in Baltimore or at the company’s Hartford Courant produced “300 pages” per year.

51 pages a year? For a full-time reporter who complains about his insane hours?

That's not very impressive.

I know reporters do a lot more than just crank out copy. Enterprise stories and deep investigative pieces will drive down your page per reporter rate, because these stories take so long to put together, research, and report. (On the other hand, the alt weeklies do it all the time!)

You also have to consider that the LA Times will keep a reporter in quiet places that don't see a lot of coverage. Like Iraq for example.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: journalism, Los Angeles Times, Media

Angry Journalist #3616:

I’m angry because I got a job in Bangkok and I’m already married. And even if I wasn’t married, I spent too much time in Singapore and Indonesia being angry that I’ve surpassed my lifetime capacity to drown it all in beer and cheap women.

Dude. Teach me. Teach me to be like you.

Splash, out,

Jason

(P.S., Ace? Is that you?)

Labels: Humor, journalism

Kiyoshi Martinez has great advice for college grads and 20-somethings.

Labels: advice, journalism