Truthiness
Mar 15th, 2006 at 7:08 am by Susie
Aravosis with a lengthy and entertaining rant on “journamalism” at the Washington Post:
So, seriously, where did the Washington Post get the facts to justify the very first line of its front page story about Senator Feingold? Nowhere, that’s where.
They just made it up.
Because that’s what journalism has become. A place where you hide the truth, lest you scoop your own book (Woodward) or invite the ire of the Bush administration (New York Times). It’s a place for sloppy people to make a good amount of money telling the rest of us what to think, even though they themselves stopped thinking long ago.
I really don’t mean to knock all traditional journalists. I’ve worked as one myself. But I find myself at an increasing loss for words every time I read one of these bizarre right-wing slanted stories coming from the Washington Post and the New York Times. Stories that simply aren’t based in fact, but appeal to your sense of what you’d think was true. As Stephen Colbert says, they’re stories with “truthiness” - meaning, they’re not true, but they sound true, and that’s what really matters.
The Washington Post and the New York Times, and the rest of the traditional media that emulates them, need to stop thinking like GOP clones and start thinking like the independent journalists they once were and still can be.
It is a crafty sentence, I don’t think it is any different then the kind of spin reporters have always used. I don’t know if they are “sloppy” or “lazy”, as the statement is somewhat correct just lacking certain detail, the kind of detail the writer could care less to represent.
Yes, John in DC is correct, they are leaving out the balance of the rest of the disgruntled Americans that would like to see censure of the president… and that is the point. Now we can call them sloppy and lazy when they don’t try to be “crafty” in their spin… ( there was some “truthiness” to the sentence, passed the standards test)other then that, to me the WPO article is typical newsday schlock, the kind of stuff I used to get upset about 25 years ago. But somebody needs to stay on them, and it appears it is John in DC., yes todays journalism has a long way to go, it always has.
Like Kit Seelye and Ceci Connolly, re-writing “that was the one that started it all” to read “I was the one who started it all,” so that they could hit Gore over the head with yet another invented “serial exaggeration.”
And then protesting that the resulting (small, late-covered and hastily dropped by their own papers, and well-buried at that) unhappiness expressed by the few readers who somehow found out (not in the paper) that the actual quote was not as printed was a tempest in a teapot because …
“It was just one little word.”
Somewhat correct, just lacking certain detail. That’s the Professional Journalist’s signature.
Dear God - please, if you can’t bring back Joe, at least fucken bring back Reporters.
Kind regards,
Dog, etc.
searching for home
For months the Democrats have resisted calls from their liberal base to more aggressively challenge President Bush.
Calls from their “liberal base?” Really? Where did you get that from? Seriously. I want facts. How did the Washington Post determine that it was the “liberal base” of the Democratic party that has been the driving force calling for Dems to challenge President Bush?
Where did they get that from? From reading Daily KOS, AmericaBlog, Suburban Guerrilla, and a host of similar places, that’s where! Of all the absurd things to challenge, why challenge the one that’s true?
For a far more justified criticism of another piece in the WaPo, see this analysis of Dana Milbank’s latest piece.