Media Matters: Media pick up where they left off 8 years ago

[bridgit]

'To anyone who lived through the media feeding frenzy of the 1990s, during which the nation's leading news organizations spent the better part of a decade destroying their own credibility by relentlessly hyping a series of non-scandals, the past few days, in which the media have tried to shoehorn Barack Obama into the Rod Blagojevich scandal, have been sickeningly familiar.

Whenever reporters think -- or want you to think -- they've uncovered a presidential scandal, they waste little time in comparing it to previous controversies. Yesterday, CNN's Rick Sanchez tried desperately to get the phrase "Blagogate" to stick -- the latest in a long and overwhelmingly annoying post-Watergate pattern of ham-handed efforts to hype a scandal by appending the suffix "-gate" to the end of a word.

Sanchez's efforts to create a catchphrase aside, the criminal complaint filed against Blagojevich this week isn't the Watergate of the 21st century -- though it shows signs that it may become this decade's Whitewater.'

http://mediamatters.org/items/200812120015?f=h_top

[CitizenPatriot]

1. I woke up last night wondering

why Palin isn't being attacked for supporting Ted Stevens, in fact, having her career started by him. There's a real relationship there, but the media gives it a pass and instead tries to stick stuff on the guy the country just elected in a landslide -- ignoring the very real financial crisis we are in and trying to distract us all with their shiny naming games.

Thanks, but no thanks. They should be ashamed. soon they will be irrelevant.

[bridgit]

3. Ink by the barrel, paper by the ton; sometimes that's all our 'free press' is...

They are their own little cult of personality, it's their being paid by the column inch imo that keeps them reporting too many right angles of all the wrong things

[Metric System]

2. It's funny, last night whlle watching CNN I kept thinking to myself, this innuendo seems awfully

familiar.

[CrispyQ]

4. The Hunting of the President

The Hunting of the President II:
Witch Hunt Revisited

Now playing at all MSM theaters.



http://www.thehuntingofthepresident.com/

[Overseas]

5. Until we break up the right wing media monopolies

we'll be right back there with the five conglomerates pushing against the new administration.

Here's a link to the media consolidation chart: http://www.corporations.org/media/

[Thrill]

6. I saw Politico had a picture of Rham and Jarrett with the title 'The Players'

Are you fucking kidding me?

[bridgit]

8. Sadly no, republicans are like feral cats that think they need to spray every door in town...

before, after, and during their unwelcome stay

[firedupdem]

11. Politico has turned to shit! n/t

[Captain Hilts]

7. VERY true. nt

[pansypoo53219]

9. NIOKIYAD

nothing is ok if you are democrat.

[bridgit]

10. Thank you for breaking that down, I thought it was another race in Alaska for a minute...

that I hadn't yet heard of :) but yeah: NIOKIYAD :(

[JustAnotherGen]

12. I read that as well

And it is eerily familiar - isn't it?

[Cha]

13. Yes, they picked up in the

Democratic Primary and the General Election.

They took an 8 year breather as they were busy beating the drums for War ON Iraq and making sure bushits were cozy.

I hate the fascist media and we can do something about them too.

[bridgit]

20. yup...

[EFerrari]

14. And right on time, as we knew they would.

Those of us who write or post somewhere or who have networks need to be, right now, ready to push back.

[bridgit]

19. No doubt time to offer resistance

[Zomby Woof]

15. I am loath to quote General Sherman

But he was good for an apt quote about the press of his day:

"If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast."

[bridgit]

18. Now that is what I call 'turning a phrase'!

:kick:

[jillan]

16. We all need to do our part to stay on top of their asses.

[Alexander]

17. 8 years ago, or 8 seconds ago?

They didn't stop reporting non-scandals when it came to Gore, Dean, Kerry or Obama.

[bridgit]

21. It does, it seems like only yesterday

:(