Year Three

#313 Year Three

This is the second anniversary of this blog, although similar material has been running out of the fingers and sometimes the brain for far decades longer. The blog and its immediate predecessor, the weekly Bloomberg essay/column/commentary had a few rules. Amazingly, none have been violated.

1. Nothing over 600 words except the annual WestraDamus Retrodictions. Five hundred is ideal.

2. No consecutive serious pieces.

3. No first person singular.

4. No phone, no pool, no pets. (Oops. That’s from “King of the Road” by Roger Miller.)

5. Resist pressure to name drop.

6. No subject is taboo.

7. Reality is funnier than fiction.

Not easy for a career contrarian to follow.

Readership spiked when there was a link here from The Kingsland Report, which no longer exists (Jim Kingsland decided to kill that when he got a real job.)

Everyone who’s been a reporter for awhile decries that state of the art, wonders why people don’t like us and then keeps doing what we get paid to do. It’s a living. Most places, it’s not a GOOD living. But it’s a living.

MYTH #1: “The Liberal Media.” Are you kidding? This phrase was originally coined by a large Midwestern newspaper. It referred to the New York Times, NBC and CBS. What those three things had in common was they were run or owned by Jewish men.

Today’s New York Times doesn’t know what it is. CBS is in the hands of a guy who basically runs movie houses and has no politics. ABC is owned by Disney (and is there anything less liberal than that? Yes, the great social activists and fellow travelers at General Electric, which owns NBC.

CNN? Ted Turner is a liberal billionaire. But he wasn’t when he started the network.

News Corp? That’s pretty liberal. They own Fox, the New York Post, the Weekly Standard, Sky News and countless other left wing propaganda machines.

Plus, if no one’s paying any attention to these outlets, who cares what side they’re on.

Work in a major television news room for ten minutes and you’ll see that they’re lucky to get ANYTHING on, let alone something with a slant in any direction.

MYTH 2: Just that facts, ma’am.

Try to get information out of a “news source” and chances are you end up with gibberish that resemble facts in form, but not content.

Example: the people who make Tasers just came out with a decorator model stun gun for civilians. There are places you know you can buy ‘em legally. Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Arizona, probably Utah.

How about here in the wilds of Pennsylvania? Don’t know. Can’t get a straight answer out of the DA’s office or the cops.

MYTH THREE: Names make news. Nah. Not usually. Except if you’re Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, O.J. Simpson, Lindsay Lohan, Jennifer Lopez or a professional athlete on steroids.

So, we preserver into year three.

I'm Wes Richards, my opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.

(c) 2007 WJR