Bullshit Walks: Pajamas Media to put itself out of its bloody misery

[BurtWorm]

:rofl:

From the Village Voice:


http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/02/pajamas_media_r.php




Pajamas Media, a consortium of mostly rightbloggers, was founded in 2005. Its "eventual goal," reported National Review at the time, was "to replace the established media sources with a network of what call 'citizen-journalists.'" They felt good about their chances; after all, said Simon, referring to Johnson, "You're sitting four feet away from the guy who ended Dan Rather's career." (If you don't remember who Dan Rather is, you can read the Wikipedia entry.)

Pajamas Media has retained a hard-on for the "MSM," its fans' preferred acronym for professional media outlets. In November Pajamas correspondent Kenneth Anderson told readers what was wrong with the online operations of the hated MSM flagship, the New York Times. Anderson said the Times facilitated "online cocooning of its smugly elite audience by 'journalists' whose task is not to spend time digging out new, expensive, and quite possibly important facts, but instead to create, care, stroke, tend, and feed little online forums where they interact with readers and create little communities of the like-minded."

Anderson did not seem to realize that his description far more accurately applies to Pajamas Media. While the Times continues to share actual news with its online readers, Pajamas mostly eschews this -- except for adventures like the fanciful "reporting" of Joe the Plumber in Israel -- in favor of citizen opinion journalism via a number of affiliated blogs, who were cut in for a piece of the revenues via the Pajamas network.

Maybe "revenues" isn't the right word, as rumor had it that most of the money was still coming from investors. Nonetheless Pajamas personnel continued to portray themselves as the future, and MSM journalism as a fading relic. One correspondent traced the MSM's decline to Monica Lewinsky, leaving America "convinced they sold their soul to a devil with a blue dress on." Others gallantly offered to replace the MSM in foreign reporting: "PJM reaches millions of people and they sent a video camera to me in Afghanistan."

But as with all things, eventually money talked and bullshit walked. Last week Simon told Pajamas affiliates that "we have decided to wind down the Pajamas Media Blogger and advertising network effective March 31, 2009," and thereafter they would be free to hustle up ads as best they could.

The responses have been instructive and hilarious....

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

1. But they had Joe the Plumber! What more could you want from a news source? nt

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

2. they were circling the drain and then came the plumber

and "woosh!" gone with so much other excrement.

[Marr]

3. 'most of the money still coming from investors'.

In other words, they've always been another right-wing propaganda organ, financed by wealthy fascists-- just like all of the right-wing media.

[BurtWorm]

4. Another Republican Ponzi scheme.

:eyes:

[JohnnyRingo]

5. I have a right wing friend whom I bout with through emails

He's insisted that the "media" is leading us to Communism.

Not just make believe socialism either, he thinks NBC, ABC, and CNN are actively trying to overthrow the government and replace it with a form of Communism. I have to point out, this guy is a fellow retiree from Delphi management with a college degree.

I had to explain to him that he was talking about General Electric, Disney, and Time Warner, and they're unlikely to embrace such a concept. He replied that I'm "naive".

I guess now he'll have to limit his sources to the AM radio since he refuses to watch "news shows". He feels the man on the radio is at least unbiased and without an agenda.

I point out again, he has a college degree. (I called a mutual friend to confirm this because I've found some of his other statements even more incredible).

[dysfunctional press]

6. a "college degree" doesn't mean a damn thing, intellect-wise.

i'm gonna guess that just about every republican in congress has one.