Digby found a television news guy actually checking facts —
For those of you who can’t play the video, here’s the transcript.
Libby Spencer at The Impolitic cites another recent example of a journalist checking facts, and speculates we are at the beginning of a trend. That’s way premature, I say. But the biggest reason I started blogging was the way right-wing goons could get on television and tell any lies they wanted, and the so-called moderators would sit there silently and not even raise an eyebrow. So it’s always good to see these little glimmers of factuality break through the fog..
I like how the wing-nut asshat tries to conflate the “refusal” with banning Irish immigrants? Where does that come from? This whole Jones Act bullshit started predictably over at FAUX, they just love demonizing unions over there. I wonder what all their union camera and production folks think about that?
I can’t believe the repubs care one whit about the Jones Act. It’s just a facade on which they can hang a conspiracy theory, and with which they can bash the Obama administration. Facts don’t matter, and certainly, their base will never hear the facts.
As uncledad says, it’s all about union bashing.
It is a beginning, I’ve noticed the rare attempt.
Looks like trying to be a journalist on TV means struggling to holler “bullshit” on a crowded screen. At some point you might have to surrender to the showbiz.
Anyway, Dan Rather is still at it.
Little glimmers of hope
The glimmer of hope is offset, I think, by CNN’s firing of that reporter for tweeting that she admired a Hamas member who had just died. Forget that he’s pretty much universally admired by serious people for a lot of good reasons. Admiring an A-RAB terrorist is never acceptable to the right and she had to pay the price. We got a dig in, and will hopefully get more, but they still control the debate to too large a degree.
You should read the NY Post (no, really, you shouldn’t), FOX News in print.
I only buy it on Sundays because of the sports section – they still have some good writers there.
The rest of the paper isn’t fit to wrap fish in, unless the fish comes from the Gulf, and is already tainted and dead.
They have union bashing articles every week (which probably means every day). About how bad they are, about how overpaid a few people are, about the underpriced benefits and overpriced pensions. Yes, HORROR’S! People getting a living wage and retirement! How evil is that, they seem to ask in every article, editorial, and Op-ed?
I guess it’s smart to demonize the lucky ones who work for unions from their point of view. It seems to sell papers – and you should read the letters to the editors, just for sheer lemming idiocy. What I don’t understand, is why the readers buy into this, outside of jealousy for the lucky ones. Who WOULDN’T want to work for a decent wage and have a fair retirement package?
When you demonize the few workers who are actually fairly treated, make them seem like entitled wealthy people, and, at the same time becry the burdon of taxes on the millionaires and billionaires, it seem counter-intuitive. Yet, people buy this steaming pile of shit as if it was gold-flaked ice-cream, with a blood diamond center, on a hot summer day.
The end is truly nigh, when working people are demonized for working in union jobs, and the wealthy are lionized for being superior to the rest of us merely because they popped out of a fortunate vagina.
The rest of us can’t buy a hit, and those rich assholes born on third base, they’re standing there smirking, thinking they hit a fucking triple. I want to beat that smile off their faces. I really, really, do!
I really just can’t take it anymore. I really can’t…
Sorry, I was a bit off message.
Uhm, please call me when instances like this happen every day and AREN’T NEWS!
When everyone does their job and actually questions the lying bastards every day, I’ll have some hope. Until then, if news reporters don’t speak truth to power and the liars that represent them, it ain’t news, it’s entertainment paid for by the salaried rich liars of the powerful.
And that ain’t news. That’s propaganda…
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The main reason I started commenting is the same, Barbara.
It seemed like half of the population was ready to be raptured to heaven or fight jihadists, both of which I thought absurd.
Now we have out of control oil spilling, aTrillion dollar war, an economy in peril, and lying bastards on several fronts, its about time for a heapin’ helpin’ of truth.
(and sunlight)
Yes the commentary on CNBC is really smart. They can be talking about stuff that will fly over your heads at times. Y’all should probably watch it a bit more, understanding the mechanics of business and the economy would improve the dialogue here.
I am taking a management class right now, they are teaching us that in the future, job stability is not to be expected. Decline of unions, and such. See, business has infiltrated colleges and are trying to kill the unions off already.. There’s nothing you can do, muhaha.
dissident, are you Alex P.Keaton?
There seems to be a new crop of young Republicans with all the answers every decade.This typically spawns hatred “business types”. The unwashed masses then get a bit pissed off and organize. Once the unwashed masses discover, yet again, they have been “punked” with bullshit, religion, and faux patriotism, things will turn ugly.
So much for understanding Mechanical stuff….
So, dissident, you seem to be saying that the willful creation of an underemployed peasant class without the resources to consume business’s products is a GOOD thing in the world’s largest consumer economy? If this is what’s considered to be “improved dialog,” I’ll pass, thank you.
dissident,
After you finish your management class, where they’re teaching you ‘that job stability is not to be expected,’ might I suggest you take a philosophy or
PoliSci class where you might learn that that’s not really a great idea for any society?
Or maybe even an economics class, so that stuff at CNBC ‘doesn’t go over your head as much.’ The professor may even be able to dent a skull as thick as yours, when he/she points out that without ‘consumers,’ there’s no need for ‘producers.’ And that all consumers are themselves producers, and all producers are consumers.
So, dissident, if you think you’re going to be some rich Uber-producer, just remember, you still need us poor little old consumers. And, hey, I’ll even throw this in for free, ’cause it seems your management class may be missing something called ‘common fucking sense:’ The more a ‘consumer ‘ makes, the more of the shit that YOU ‘produce’ they can buy. And the less…
Capeesh?
This was today’s teachable moment, dissident. Whether you choose to learn from it is up to you.
My money’d be on this ‘flying over your head.’
As a matter of fact, you know what would ‘improve the dialogue’ here? You leaving. That’ll also raise the cumulative IQ of this site.
Yes the commentary on CNBC is really smart.
Yes, I remember how CNBC touted subprimes and derivatives up until those investments crashed our economy. They sure do understand business!
“Exhibit A” is so right, sadly.
“Yes the commentary on CNBC is really smart. They can be talking about stuff that will fly over your heads at times. Y’all should probably watch it a bit more, understanding the mechanics of business and the economy would improve the dialogue here”
You can’t be serious, CNBC is for the most part a bunch of underemployed wall street wanna-bees yapping incessantly about why the markets are up or down at that instant. They are generally a bunch of flat tax Steve Forbes clones that spew right-wing talking points continuously. I think Maha described this instance as just what it was “a random act of journalism”, it is certainly not typical of the tripe that usually passes for analysis on CNBC.
uncledad, obviously you don’t watch CNBC. Judging by your irrational derangement to it, you probably wouldn’t ever understand them anyway. For others, check out Jim Cramer’s August 2007 call when others thought everything was Mary Poppins. This is not the kind of prescient insight you would find on CNN.
Yes, the demise of job stability is sad, but employees are also expected flexibility, family time, etc. Sign of the times. People will always be employed. At least, those that stay informed do.
Yes, we’re all aware of Jim Cramer’s track record as an oracle. It’s obvious to us by now that you never learned to pay attention to the real world and think for yourself, and you are in no position to insult the regular commenters. We really don’t need someone here who is just going to parrot the same party lines we can read at any rightie website. You just got yourself banned.
College student taking management class now thinks he knows it all. Common delusion!
“For others, check out Jim Cramer’s August 2007 call when others thought everything was Mary Poppins”
Yes Jim Cramer he of boo-yaa fame, again you must be fucking joking, have you ever watched his show? He is nothing more than a loudmouth with a cheap silver box containing twenty or so large red buttons, buy buy buy, sell, sell, sell, what a fucking joke. I watch about 30 seconds of CNBC at a time, in fact that is about all I can stand of most cable programming. It was all created for mental midgets such as yourself, good luck with that business degree I predict you’re actually taking some remedial basic studies and are flunking most of them, good-bye twit!
KRAMER!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!! I think he confused the word ‘dissident’ with ‘imbecile.’
We’ll see what this imbecile thinks IF he graduates and tries to join the work force.
He’s got a long way to go to get informed, let alone ‘stay informed.’
Bye, fool…
I wouldn’t be using Kramer to buttress my argument. When Jon Stewart gave him a public thrashing Kramer put his tail between his legs,his head down and publicly conceded that he was a shyster. Kramer’s intellectual value has been reduced to pure entertainment…Like a contestant on the Gong show.
Wow. Worst self-defense ever.
It’s obvious to us by now that you never learned to pay attention to the real world and think for yourself….
Bingo. This seems to be a common characteristic of the recent economic-issues trolls. Their comments indicate a clear lack of actual life and workplace experience, and either ignorance or denial of everything that happened before January 2009 (when, it almost seems, some of them were born).
It could be they are using the Jones act to try to tear down Unions…. or what I thought when I read it was somebody has ships registered to other countries and wants to get in on the BP money that will be used for the mess.
I started to laugh at dissident even before he chose to use Jim Cramer as an example of the excellence of CNBC. Imagine having to take a management class to teach you that “in the future” job stability is not to be expected!
As if it hasn’t been 20 years or more since social scientists, job counselors and others started talking about “multiple careers”, the shift to the service economy, and the “entrepreneurial workforce”. As if it hasn’t been a decade since the bust of the Internet boom disproved the idea that only greasy blue-collar workers had to worry about jobs going overseas, companies folding, and finding yourself with worthless skills in a changing market. (The driver on my city bus the other morning revealed himself to be a college educated engineer who never found work after that dislocation.)
I suppose I can forgive youthful ignorance, but it does make me cranky that somewhere out there a school is charging money for a class peddling such decades-old information as wisdom to kids too wet-behind-the-ears to know the difference. What else is in their curriculum, that “in the future” something called ‘electronic mail’ will change the way we do business, perhaps becoming as common as the fax machine? Or worse , that cutting taxes actually raises government revenues? God save us.
If that’s what passes for education in dissident’s neighborhood, no wonder he thinks CNBC is chock full o’ brilliance.
How true, Biggerbox…….
Sometime in the next few years there will be heard a giant SMACK and we will all nod and rejoice in the fact that “dissident” has been slapped hard in the face by reality. BTW, his name is an excellent example of irony. He is such a follower of the conservative anti-labor chatterers. From what is he dissenting? And he shows up here? With his first-semester backwater community college insight?I commence to doubt his bona fides at this point.