New media methods!!!

What a bunch of hypocritical snake oil salesmen.

New techniques?

It’s called RESEARCH you doughnuts, what Robert Stacy McCain calls shoe-leather. You start out with no pre conceived ideas for that will colour your judgement. You spend hours, days, weeks interviewing people, looking up documents, cross checking sources, getting a “feel” for the story.

You go forensic.

Then you spend time fitting all the pieces together to see if it makes sense.

Then you run it past your grizzled, cynical editor who regards anybody under 35 as a wet behind the ears naïve teenage airhead.

In other words you become an anteater, shoving your snout deep into the earth until you uncover a few tasty morsels.
But that takes time, money, experience and no hidden agenda.

That’s journalism.

What all these NYT/WaPo/Guardian/Mother Jones hacks did was to act like lemmings, heading towards what they thought was the sword in the stone that would finally slay the Palin dragon.

Instead they fell off the cliff and lost all credibility.

That’s journolism.

One letter makes a big difference.

And they wonder why so many Americans are reading the UK Daily Mail…

Having read DB’s post at Biased BBC and the frenetic overture to the Palin e mails saga trumpeted on the BBC website a few days ago

Critics say the e-mails may damage Palin’s presidential chances

I thought I would check out the Beeb’s reaction to the general consensus in the US media that the much vaunted NYT/WaPo “investigation” had spectacularly backfired.

Even plodding Politico hack Molly Ball at Politico (probably through gritted teeth) had to admit

She was hands-on and averse to partisan politics. She championed openness in government and had normal relations with the media. She was a little starstruck by her interactions with national politicians but unafraid to do battle with the chief executives of the world’s largest oil companies.

though, being Molly, she had to inject a some squirts of bitchiness a few lines later.

Her colleague Andy Barr, no admirer of Palin, was more generous, as was CNN’s Drew Griffin. In the Daily Telegraph, after the usual set of ill informed bleats from the master of cut and paste “journalism” Alex Spillius, Toby Harnden took Molly Ball’s words and juggled them around to give a semblance of originality.

Even blogging nonentity Ryan Streeter at ConservativeHomeUSA (thought by many to be financed by Lord Ashcroft) who thinks Palin’s role in the GOP should be to strut her stuff as a pretty cheerleader twirling her baton for Superwonk Paul Ryan thought the e mail colonoscopy had proved a damp squib (though, par for the course, he was more mealy mouthed than even Molly Ball.

But from the BBC – zilch, zero, a big fat nothing……I wonder why?

Fortunately, Cornell’s Professor Jacobson, managed to capture the video….

cross posted at Biased BBC

Kathleen Parker dumps on C4P over Romney as flip-flopper.

The mere mention of a human role (vs., presumably, a divine plan) was enough to bestir the guardians of scientific inquiry at Conservatives4Palin, who averred that Romney is “simpatico” with Obama and that he “totally bought into the man-made global warming hoax.”

Construe it as a badge of honour.

Plus a heart warming bonus – Parker finds C4P irritating.

That is even better news because a lot of people have been finding Parker as annoying as nettlerash, not just since September 2008 but also when, angered by the sweaty multitudes of the Tea Party she launched her own Arugula Party.

What she hasn’t grasped, of course, is that nobody is saying that politicians should never alter their stance on a particular issue. In many ways an admission that their mind has been changed by a persuasive argument reflects well upon a person’s honesty and integrity.

However suspicions are aroused if the motive for the change of mind is more to please a constituency than a genuine conversion. When, as in Romney’s case, these shifts of position become legion then the mantle of flip floppery surely becomes deserved.

Or, as Auric Goldfinger once told James bond

‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action’.”

cross posted at C4P

Recently an English journalist was puzzled as to why a leading politician (“someone of his intelligence and understanding of economics…”) had got something wrong.

The writer was making the same mistake as so many others do. Memorising every line of your Economics 101 textbook is not “understanding economics”.

How many politicians have ever had a real job? How many have had to meet a payroll, earn a profit, satisfy a customer, struggle with regulation, or tell decent, hard-working people face-to-face that they must be made redundant? How many of them have actually had to live with the consequences of their own actions?

It is both hilarious and scary that most of the politicians, academics and media hacks who lecture and hector us about how governments must use taxpayers money to stimulate the economy have never manufactured a bloody thing in their lives. These people couldn’t screw in a light bulb, much less produce something of value: yet they’d direct us in how to do both.

Very few politicians in the western world over the last few decades have had the slightest grasp of “economics”. They did, however, have a good understanding of how to stay popular by making promises that could never be kept. That remains their primary talent.

adapted from Gary Williams via here

Now this is interesting.

Remember what I said?

I wouldn’t put too much store by this bit of mischief making from lefty hack Nicholas Watt at the UK Guardian

It would appear that the reasons go deeper than Thatcher’s frail health. Her allies believe that Palin is a frivolous figure who is unworthy of an audience with the Iron Lady. This is what one ally tells me:
“Lady Thatcher will not be seeing Sarah Palin. That would be belittling for Margaret. Sarah Palin is nuts.”

Well, one lady was so aggrieved she wrote to the Thatcher Foundation.

Gateway Pundit has the reply.

A taster

Read the rest here. A classic put down of a lefty hack – a textbook example of how to (metaphorically, of course) slide a rapier into a mountebank’s kidneys with elegance and finesse ….

Wow – the Archbishop of Canterbury keeps his beard but discards his sandals for Doc Martens and gives Cameron a good kicking.

Naturally the BBC has an orgasm.

The tone and strength of language used in Dr Williams’ attack on the coalition has taken ministers by surprise.
Accusing the government of being committed to “radical, long-term policies for which no-one voted” is an overtly political statement and one Downing Street has quickly rebuffed.
But they can’t ignore the broad sweep of criticism or questioning of their mandate to govern.

Thus warbled Jo Coburn, alleged to be BBC Political Correspondent.

Well, Jo, one effective strategy might well be to ignore it. After all Williams has form on this and his attachment to the Guardian/BBC zeitgeist is as established a fact as Polly Toynbee’s property portfolio in Tuscany. Nobody outside the NW1/Oxbridge media/academic elite gives a fig for what he thinks. He is head of a religious structure that is as empty a husk as the official cult of Rome in the early years of the first millennium. If you want fervour and commitment you go to the evangelicals or other faiths. Williams and his ilk have done more to secularise our culture than any humanist league of bores – so why give him any more oxygen?

The other option, however, is to rip into him tooth and claw, ignoring any screeches from the great and the good. Like Prince Charles Williams believes he has a pass to step up and pontificate from a richly endowed soapbox and hector and lecture us without fear of response except from elements of the tabloid press. Maybe it’s time those soapboxes were kicked away from under their feet.

Tim Montgomerie has already entered the fray with a blistering exposure of the Archbishop’s hypocrisy over social issues. What irritates me is the prelate’s claim that he articulates the concerns of Mr & Mrs Public.

At the very least, there is an understandable anxiety about what democracy means in such a context,” he said.
In a wide-ranging attack, he accused the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition of creating “anxiety and anger” in the country by introducing reforms without sufficient debate.
………
“Government badly needs to hear just how much plain fear there is around questions such as these at present,” he said.

What he means, of course, is the “anxiety and anger and fear” being expressed by the cartels and special interest groups that feed at the trough currently overflowing with taxpayer’s money, particularly in the field of education, the law, health and social services.

If he really wished to articulate the fears of the silent majority in this country, the people who try to obey the law, pay their own way without incurring massive debt and accept the fact that they have responsibilities as well as rights he would be following a different path by

Asking why it is that so much of our daily life is now decided by faceless, unaccountable bureaucrats from Brussels

Voicing the concerns of the poorest elements in our society worried by the apparent inability of successive governments to confront the issue of unrestricted immigration.

Condemning those who use taxpayer’s money without regard to transparency, fiscal rectitude and effective and meaningful outcomes.
But then he wouldn’t get the great and good seal of approval from James Naughtie, Simon Jenkins and Polly Toynbee – and that would never do…..

I wouldn’t put too much store by this bit of mischief making from lefty hack Nicholas Watt at the UK Guardian

It would appear that the reasons go deeper than Thatcher’s frail health. Her allies believe that Palin is a frivolous figure who is unworthy of an audience with the Iron Lady. This is what one ally tells me:
“Lady Thatcher will not be seeing Sarah Palin. That would be belittling for Margaret. Sarah Palin is nuts.”

Exhibit A: The Guardianistas have always loathed Thatcher so beware of an item which implies left wing praise for anything said in her name

Exhibit B: Their positions on US politics will always reflect the latest brain numbing outpourings of liberal/left WaPo hack E. J. Dionne

Exhibit C: Ergo their attitude towards Palin will mirror those of Daily Kos mountebank Markos Moulitsas – in other words imagine trying to get any sense from an earwig on speed

Exhibit D: Note that the anonymous “source” is alleged to be an “ally” of Thatcher – journalese for a friend of the cousin of the man who services her dentist’s lawnmower

Exhibit E:No professional staffer of Lady Thatcher’s would employ the word “nuts” but you will frequently hear it at Guardian get togethers while the coke is being pushed along the glass table top

Exhibit F:Lady Thatcher is so frail she might not be able to receive any visitor with whom she is unfamiliar therefore the cunning Mr Watt can always perform his nudge nudge wink wink routine and claim he knows the real reason and by the way he happens to know that Buckingham Palace is up for sale and would you like to buy, discount for cash…

Then, of course, we might ask which ally sent this invitation to Palin a few months ago?

In other words this little Guardian anecdote is probably about as truthful as Weiner’s first press conference.

Alex Spillius must have “do a monthly hit piece on Sarah Palin” written into his UK Daily Telegraph contract

Supporters of Sarah Palin have attempted to edit the Wikipedia page on Paul Revere, the War of Independence hero, after glaring historical errors the White House hopeful made during her tour to Boston last week.

Indeed he implies that it might have even been one of her aides who tried to tamper with Wikipedia.

The oddest thing about this piece, though, is not the fact that Spillius fell into the Palin Trap by relying on Longfellow rather than doing a bit of research (actually he probably didn’t even go to his poetry book, just took his usual cue from the US media) but his characterisation of the bus tour. You would never guess that even CNN was admitting that Palin scored a home run with this project or that the latest poll was putting her as joint front runner for the GOP nomination. Spillius paints it as a feeble attempt scuppered by her own “ignorance”

Do you know what annoys me the most? Not that this guy writes a hit piece on Palin’s “gaffe” which backfires on him.

Can a leopard change it’s spots?

Can a weasel change it’s teeth?

Of course not.

It’s the fact that he gets paid large dollops of gelt for doing it.

Pass the sick bag, Alice….

Top American conservative blogger Ryan Streeter, quoting Peter Wehner and Kimberley Strassel, demands that Sarah Palin immediately announce that she will not be entering the primary race for the GOP nomination. She must do this, he says, so that an electable conservative can take on and beat Obama in 2012.

The election is only 17 months away and the polls are clear, according to Streeter. 37% of Republicans and GOP leaning independents go negative on Palin.

These 37% are not inside-the-beltway types but drawn from the voting populace across the country. And surely they get their Palin not through some lamestream media outlet, but most likely through Fox News and many of the same web sites as Palin’s supporters.

Jonathan Jones reaches a similar conclusion for his UK readers.

These people clearly have an inside track into the minds of US voters. They are also telling us that polls taken in the summer of the year before a presidential election are a foolproof predictor of the final outcome.

They are the experts, very close to the brightest and best of the political, academic and media elite, so they must be right.

After all, see what was happening in June 2007.

The 26 polls taken in May and June show yet a different picture. Giuliani still leads, but with only 26 percent; McCain, with 17 percent, is barely ahead of Thompson, at 15 percent, and trails Thompson in polls taken since Memorial Day. Romney stays at 10 percent
……………………………………………….
Democrats are more confident this year, with some reason. Polls show that voters prefer a generic Democrat to a generic Republican by solid margins. And Democrats seem pretty settled in their preferences for candidates. Hillary Clinton averaged 34 percent in December-January polls, 36 percent in February, 34 percent in April and 35 percent in May-June.
Barack Obama, at 18 percent in December-January, rose to 23 percent in February-March, then flatlined — 25 percent in April, 24 percent in May-June. John Edwards was at 12 percent in December-January, 13 percent in February-March, 16 percent in April and 13 percent in May-June.

Whoops……

An odd thing is happening in the UK media and I doubt it’s anything to do with Killer Cucumbers. After nearly three years of dismissing Sarah Palin as airhead homophobic racist religious bigot with a brain the size of a pea and the political savvy of a semi literate ant she is suddenly being treated as a human being with a claim to be considered as a serious operator in the lead up to the 2012 election.

Websites like The UK Spectator Coffee House and ConservativeHomeUSA (run by former Bush staffer Ryan Streeter and thought to be financed by UK multi millionaire Lord Ashcroft) are no longer equating her with Britney Spears.

But the proverbial biscuit must be taken by the flagship of the liberal left, The Guardian, where Richard Adams manages to write a full length article on her sans snark or snigger – indeed it could well have come from the pen of Dan Riehl or Robert Stacy McCain who, though not Palinistas, have always treated her with respect and defended her against weasels and mountebanks.

With the bus tour and hagiographical documentary, I think at this point we can assume Palin is going to run for the Republican nomination, unless tourists at Gettysburg start pelting her with tomatoes (unlikely) or her bus runs over a cute kitten named Mr Mittens live on Fox News (improbable).
I’ve said it before: Palin would be crazy not to run for the Republican nomination. Just look at the rest of the field. Since evangelicals’ sweetheart Mike Huckabee declined to run, the path is clear for Palin on the Tea Party/Christian wing. The three identikit Republican ex-governors running – Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty and Jon Huntsman – squabble among themselves and split the centre-moderate-establishment vote. Palin crushes them all in South Carolina, the traditional Republican bellwether. Game over?
That scenario was sketched out for me by a Virginia Republican who is tepidly backing Romney – “Because there’s no one else.” He, like a lot of Republicans, is still waiting for a knight on a white horse to sweep into the race, Rick Perry of Texas being the most common name given to the knight, although Jeb Bush is also wistfully mentioned. The trouble is, time is running out and knights are in short supply.

Who the hell cares what a bunch of pansy Brits think (as one C4P reader once wrote about a post I did centuries ago on Palin and the UK media)

My thoughts exactly when reading US comments on our own election last year.

But our UK hacks never waste shoe-leather on researching the American political scene themselves. They take their cue from their US counterparts in New York and Washington and the gossip at Tina Brown’s media elite bunfights – and the message coming out from the salons is it’s time to treat Sarah Palin seriously.

Welcome to the club, guys, better late than never, as Wyatt Earp said to the Clanton brothers at the OK Corral….