A word again about blogging – it’s nature and importance.
Blogs are forums for expressions of feelings, attitudes, and sometimes ideas. They are a personal outlet. They are criticized for not being fact-checked or accurate. They are criticized for excess emotionalism and dis-inhibition. Most of what goes on in blogs disappears the next day as bloggers and commenters move on to the next topic, unaffected by the last.
It’s pointless, so why do it? (It’s fun.)
Blogs are looked down upon by newspaper employees, journalists and editors. The closest comparison to blogging in their sphere is the editorial page. Consider the following:
- Access to the editorial page is severely limited. The left hand column is reserved for expression of feelings, attitudes, and sometimes ideas by the editorial board. That board is comprised of people who take themselves very seriously. They debate among themselves, fact check, write in well-crafted sentences, and usually get it wrong. They are instinctively aware of the opinions of the publisher.
- Op-eds appear to the right of the editorials. Opinion editors select from a host of national columnists, trying to strike a balance between their perception of liberal and conservative. In practice, they normally select several extreme right wingers, who are allowed to pee anywhere, a few percevied “moderates,” who are rarely read, and one “liberal,” someone housebroken and boring (Is Ellen Goodman still working?). Leftists need not apply, as there is no place for lefties on the editorial page. They were once relegated to the “alternative” media, but even that is drying up now with the Internet.
- Letters to the editor are the only reader outlet, and are severely curtailed, often chopped, by the editor. Those that offer a leftist perspective are usually not printed. Most can be disregarded, as the first sentence tells the reader what follows, usually programmed “conservative” or “liberal” regurgitation. Criticism of the newspaper is allowed, even encouraged, but only within the certain boundaries – did the newspaper fairly present “both” sides? Those “two” sides are liberal and conservative, but never leftist.
Newspapers are institutionally restrained from reporting news. Consider the following:
- Newspapers are owned by corporations that are owned by wealthy stockholders, and so must represent the views of the oligarchy. The owners of the newspaper do not have time to run day-to-day affairs, and so have to appoint a person to protect the oligarchs from the rabble. That person is known as the “publisher.” That slot is the most powerful position in the local newspaper establishment.
- The publisher is well-paid, and tied to the local power structure, including the wealthiest residents and most powerful business owners and managers. The publisher protects those people. But the publisher does not have the time to micro-manage the newspaper, and so appoints the editor, again the most submissive person in the building.
- The editor is the publisher’s mini-me, riding herd on the journalists (who have already been culled to remove curious or rebellious persons, as mentioned before).
- Most editors assert that there is a “wall” between advertising and news. Like the one between Mexico and the US, that’s a perception device. There is no real wall.
- The big advertisers can kill a story, but usually don’t have to, as the editor, who intuitively knows the mind of the publisher, will do so without a word being said. Worse than that, down-line journalists know not to pursue certain stories, without a word being said. Everybody knows everybody’s mind in those buildings.
Blogging is a free forum. Often bloggers rely on newspapers for fodder, and repeat newspaper stories as if they are factual, even true, but not understanding that nothing makes it to print in a newspaper without first going through filters put in place by owners, the publisher, and mini-me. But bloggers also range far afield, and can cite foreign news sources. Those sources are also filtered, just like American sources, but for their own local and national interests, and not American interests. So news about the United States is often better found in those foreign sources. Blogging is better served by bringing foreign sources to readers, as most Americans are Americentric.
Blogging is a wild, emotional ride, full of insults and stupidity, littered with links to inanity and prejudice. Blogging can be run like a newspaper, which is called “discussions.” Or it can be run like a blog – “trolling.” Both can be fun, boring, even tedious.
Newspapers are boring by their nature and ownership. They are not allowed to investigate or write about important people, their owners. For straight news, I prefer blogs, as there are no journalists, mini-me’s, or publishers riding fence line and keeping news out. And they are not intimidated by publishers, advertisers or owners.
Newspapers are financially challenged by the Internet. Many have gone down, more will follow. Except for the loss of a permanent record of family-written obituaries and local sports, there is nothing in a newspaper that can’t easily be slotted somewhere else. The problem newspapers face is failure of the capitalist “enclosure” model, or the ability to put a fence around the pasture and charge horses to come in and eat. The pasture is now so big that the horses refuse to pay to go in that little fenced area. Newspapers are struggling right now to come up with a new business model, but not to bring us better news in a new format. Rather, they need to reach us with their ads, and so far, it’s not going well. The best they have done are pop-ups, which were quickly overcome, and pre-rolls, which only piss people off.
Too bad. But then, advertising is the Debbie Downer of journalism, as those who pay the bills run the show. Blogging usually has no advertisers.
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*If I were a dedicated and skilled writer, I would spend a whole lot more time on this piece, which will disappear tomorrow. I would model it on Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary, defining “blogger,” “journalist,” “editor,”, “publisher,” “troll” etc, in a short, pithy, humorous sentence. Readers are invited to try.
Piece of Mindful 
Here’s the numbers.
http://stateofthemedia.org/2012/newspapers-building-digital-revenues-proves-painfully-slow/newspapers-by-the-numbers/
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I have to give you a big “Don’t care” on that one, as reaching people with ads is something I do not care about. If an advertising-based entity goes away, something better will emerge. After all, the infrastructure is there. The idea that news must be sponsored by advertising is absurd.
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Pre-1991 Pravda didn’t have ads.
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My point is that private advertisers cannot be relied on as an honest source of news. Your response? I really don’t give a rat’s ass about how other countries run their news arms.
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My point is with advertisers a news presenter has many different influences.
Monopolies, not so much.
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The only influences are the big advertisers, but more than that, ownership by oligarchical forces, who also happen to
won tehown the defense contractors and wander in and out of government as they please.I assume you only watch FOX, but if you were to travel around the dial from CNN to ABC to New York Times to LA Times to NPR, you only get one line. You imagine they are different, but that is perception management, the power of suggestion at work. They are all identical.
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If companies couldn’t deduct 100% of advertising expenditures on Schedule C there’d probably be a whole lot less of it.
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I gave up on the GF Spitoon looong ago, probably going on two years now. Why? Well, after about six solid months of reading without ONE actual news story, I asked myself just why I was paying good money for shit? So I did it. I called and cancelled. Then I called the editor and explained to him just why I was cancelling. And you know what? I haven’t missed it one bit! I was getting SO bad that it was a relief NOT to get it any longer. Believe it or not, I can actually LIVE without being insulted on daily basis, and PAYING for it no less! Every time the Tea Party farted, the Spitoon was there to cover it! It got downright discouraging!
Also, when they demoted Eric Newhouse, that was the end of any REAL editorials. They haven’t written one since. At least Eric did some courageous eds on the mining issues. Moseman is gone now too. Gary was a good editor and very intelligent man, but he played the corporate game and took no chances. Guess that he liked his job just a wee bit too much.
And I used to write to the Spitoon all the time. I even had a few guest editorials. But their restrictions and editing became too onerous. I finally stopped writing altogether. Newhouse was great He would print whatever I wrote without any editing at all. The last letter I wrote was edited to the point where it was unrecognizable! And this is spite of the fact that I met ALL of their requirements to the tee. That was the final straw for me.
Then blogs came along. The first one I discovered was the one in Missoula years ago. It was a fantastic blog with some really great writers. We were pretty much allowed a free for all. I wish I could still contact some of those writers. They were the best I’ve ever encountered. But alas, I think the blog became too popular and controversial, and the righties kept getting their asses kicked, so it was closed down. A great loss.
Then I found other state blogs. I was promptly kicked off most of them. And then along came Cowgirl!, a true format for free speech if there ever WERE one! And we see what happens when free speech is allowed to reign. And that is that the righties simply get there asses kicked every time they appear!, as they always do! And the other thing about the blog is that yes, it IS fun! And popular! And it is because it’s true free speech! Free speech does NOT include liable, just good clean attacks on bullshit! And it works.
Put me in that column of one who will NOT miss the newspapers, for they long ago stopped serving their purpose. NOW, they are a real DISservice! And for that, they must die.
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I suspect that if you go back to McCarthy or early Vietnam, or especially Korea, that you’ll find that newspapers have always been toeing the line for the military. And the reason I think is simple to visualize – imagine a triangle, each point representing a power center – government, the military, and the corporations. We imagine the government is on top, which is why we think elections are so important. They feed the illusion that we are in charge, because we elect our officials. But they are just actors.
But merely flip the triangle, put the corporations on top, and it is more realistic. They own the government, and control the military. And then consider that the oligarchy owns the corporations that own the media, and you realize that they function exactly as they are meant to function – as a voice of the oligarchs. They have to pretend otherwise, but that is the essential nature of their business. They are not there to report news. They are there to protect the powerful from the rabble. You cannot ask an organization owned by one group to serve the interests of an opposition group.
Public opinion is also a power center, but unless it is organized (unions being the primary tool), it is marginalized. The public is herded into one or another of the two parties, and once that is done, their balls are cut off. The parties appeal to different personality types, but in terms of policies, grassroots opinion in either is of no consequence. (I’ll bet that if you asked reporters for any newspaper where the labor temple is in their town, they would not know.)
I suggest you get away from party politics, dumb Republicans and smart Democrats and all of that to get a clearer view. I was listening to TOTN yesterday, and wanted to shoot my radio, my usual reaction to NPR. A caller said of OWS that they had it wrong, that they needed to work through party politics to be effective. That is so typical of people, even “thoughtful” ones – one gigantic whoosh! sound. NPR listeners especially, as I observe, are snobbish.
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Actually, our country was stolen from us. Our coups have been deep coups, so well covered up that folks simply shrug and accept the CIA line. The Bush Crime Family has been right in there with your so-called oligarchs. Yes, they breach no dissent of any kind. So, hard to say for sure what will break their hold. The OLD commies, wobblis, unionistas knew what to do! But they’re all dead now. I don’t hold out much hope, for our country is too far gone, populated by voting fatassed, Walmart-shopping, FOX news loving, ignernt, cowardly, flag-waving, christofascist retards! AND THEY BREED! ENDLESSLY! WITHOUT STOPPING! Who’s gonna care for all that retard offspring?? I dunno. I dunno. But HEY, third world here we come!
Yippeeeeeee!
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http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/04/05/rfk-assassination-legal-case-update/
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Just read this AM.
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Remember the Maine. Tarpley, who I have some respect for as a historian, thinks that the first coup [Post Industrial Revolution] was not JFK, but rather McKinley. But the thirties and the depression sank a lot of fortunes, and there was a period of retrenchment. After WWII they began to exert power again – Ike was sheepish and cowardly in taking a shot at the MIC only on leaving office. But the power structure that grew throughout the war did not cede any power after the war, so that fascism merely switched sides of the Atlantic.
Indeed, JFK was a coup, but it seems that it continually needs booster shots, as in removing Nixon, shooting Reagan (Not too many people question that, but imagine that security is so bad that a guy is hiding in an alley and is able to shoot the president of a powerful industrial state. That doesn’t work even in Panama. It so happens, according to Tarpley, that a presidential succession drill was on that day, so the SS might have been tipped in advance that there would be a practice drill, and then it was flipped live. Cui bono? A Bush.)
Anyway, the point is that presidents are under constant reminder that their power is limited and that they are expendable. With the last two, Bush and Obama, it appears that they are OK with that. They are mere actors, one playing a dumb guy, which Republicans tend to like, and the the other a scholar, as Democrats imagine themselves the smarter of the two parties. (I don’t know what Clinton did to cause the Monica affair, as he seemed a compliant tool throughout, but by timing it would appear that he was under pressure to invade Iraq, but couldn’t do it due to lack of public support. 9/11 fixed that.)
There is nothing new under the sun, things did not change fifty years ago. It’s always been this way, with an occasional period of enlightenment after they have shot off both feet.
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your “discussion” with Jack was interesting. your “trolling” at the cowgirl is boring. you don’t care how it comes off, obviously, because from your subjective perspective, it “doesn’t matter” and you are just having “fun”.
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Aye carumba! Both are fun.
What do you want from me? An admission of guilt? For what? It doesn’t matter what we do. It’s a small world, it has no impact on politics or public opinion. If you are not having fun, quit. Go do something else. Hold a sign on a corner, call a talk show.
I’ve seen maybe twenty bloggers just from Montana come and go, four from your site alone. They sometimes put up drawn out self-serving good byes when they quit. (At least they don’t say they want to spend more time with their families.) It can only mean they expected one thing and got another. I don’t know what they expected – to be famous? To score knockouts on ideological opponents? That does not happen.
I enjoy it. It’s fun. Never a day does by when I don’t want to write something. I love it when guys come by and grab me by the horns. I never know when I start a piece where it will end up. I never know that someone won’t trounce me. But I am one of those who must write to think. I cannot otherwise organize my thoughts, such as they are. But it never stops being fun. Why else do it?
Blogs exists for different reasons. Yours and (I like to think) mine are thoughtful and invite thoughtful response. So too was ECW. But Cowgirl is something else altogether – it a Democratic Party op site, the purpose of which appears to be to reinforce party solidarity. It exists completely aside from public or party policy. The writer(s) are not actively involved in discussions. When the participants leave, they feel validated. That’s all it’s for.
I go there and mess up with them. I’ve never had anyone deal with me on an idea-based level there. Is that important? Or is messing with them? Or does it matter? Who gets hurt? Why so solemn? Fart in church now and then, why dontcha.
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Here’s another hard-hitting editorial from the GF Spitoon, the kind we’ve come to expect. It’s quite relevant to the topic at hand. I know that Ecke is capable of writing a good editorial, but one must bury those talents to suck at the corporate tit! That’s gotta be a tough way to live. I couldn’t do it. It AIN’T courage they’re suckin’ outta Mother Corpo Teat!
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20130414/OPINION/304140016/Let-s-see-we-commies-fascists-
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Wow. Dead-on example. Thanks.,
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Larry – could not resist – laid a bully comment on him to wish him a happy Monday. These hack journalists who think it’s all about perceived right and left (when it is all shades of right) and that there is even a middle – are impenetrable, and they don’t know it because they are impenetrable. And smug.
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Now that was quality trolling there. I mean that in a good way.
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I agree. It was a very good comment. The Spitoon site is inhabited by the biggest dumbasses around. I used to enjoy the hell outta poking them! Until the Spitoon banned me….twice! After that, I never went back.
Perhaps you seen this, Mark. Quite interesting in that the guy’s father was involved.
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Thanks, Larry. The blood trail on JFK is littered with so many corpses I’ve long lost track. When he said the name Mary, I immediately thought “Mary Sherman,” a cancer researcher in New Orleans who was burned alive. She was caught up, innocently, in weaponization of cancer. This is a different Mary. I’ve read about her, long ago.
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you have no way of actually determining what sort of impact you might have on the people who stumble across your words. let me give you a hypothetical example: a young person who has grown up in an abusive family environment comes across the post I put up today and reads the interview with the poet. the young person finds this book of poems that the poet wrote about living with an alcoholic mother and realizes there are other methods of processing abuse that aren’t self-destructive. maybe you don’t think that matters in the grand scheme of things. I’ve said before I think you’re wrong.
my poetry thing, which is sometimes self-serving when it’s my own stuff, is ultimately about my strong belief that poetry is essential and, currently, culturally marginalized. I’m going to do what I can to change that, and that includes sharing poems from poets most people probably haven’t heard of.
a delightful benefit, like I said, was being able to bring in the poet to my appreciation of his work, and to get an enthusiastic response.
these types of connections are not nothing, IMHO.
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I am not in the least troubled by how you choose to use this medium. I hope you achieve your objectives. I don’t begrudge anyone their pleasures, and if poetry pleases you, good. I know that it is an area where I cannot truck, and like playing the violin, that it takes talent and practice. Enjoy the road you’re on.
People do change over time – look at acceptance of marijuana and gays. There is cultural progress. Minds and attitudes change.
But I don’t care about those kind of soft issues, or at least care to write about them. I stay away from what I consider too fluffy for my makeup. I like intrigue, war and peace, delusion and illusions, perception management, behavior control, and the activities of dark humans – psychopaths, who tend to gravitate to power. In those areas, I can surprise some people or invite battle. It’s fun. But I don’t think minds change much in those areas – in fact, people become more firm in their beliefs once someone says they are being played. I’m not clever. But I do want to know what is really going on.
Anyway, if you’re still at it a year from now cranking it out, then you are getting a psychic reward. I hope it is so. Not too many people, on the writing side anyway, do.
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don’t underestimate poetry or your abilities, Mark. that is precisely the mentality that has been allowed to fester for far too long in regards to poetry in this country.
and who says poetry can’t be about war and delusions and perception management and psychopaths? this poem for example.
the book-lenght poem I’ve been working of for the last few years is very much interested in the workings of the deep state. getting there through poetry has some advantages. you can use different approaches, for example, like incorporating the notion of a twilight language.
it’s worth considering.
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My oldest brother was a poet, but he was also reading Thomas Merton in eighth grade, and I could not relate to him. I do not for a second diminish poetry or poets in any way. I have read Ginsberg – it just does not move my spirit like Chomsky, for instance, with his stripped down recital of cold reality. But when it comes to poetry, I experience it better via a third party, as with your April 7 blog entry. I’ve written up down and around sociopaths, and that guy freeze-dried it. And hearing poetry is better for me as well.
Don’t misunderstand – I take you seriously and I am glad you bring a different dimension to blogging. And poetry and poets are a serious part of literature, as they use symbolic language to convey important truth. At least in part. Sometimes they just experiment with words and sounds, sometimes just for fun. And they reduce complex matters to a few sentences. in case you have not noticed, I’m not good at that.
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Lizard, I pity you. I feel sorry for you. For you see, the poet feels too much! It’s a terrible way to go through life, for you see what others don’t. You see existences stripped bare of pretense, to the essence itself. Smart people were blessed with a brain, the poet was blessed with a soul! And that’s a terrible way to go through life, amigo. You feel too much. You are different. You carry the universe with you as you walk through daily existence. Hell, EVERTHING is a poem! A pretty girl, a sweet young child, a Montana sunset, and a tragic headline! EVERYTHING is poetry, amigo! And you can’t understand why everyone doesn’t see it! Only the poet sees it. And that is lonely existence.
You see, if the eyes are the window of the soul, then poetry is the language of the soul. When life overtakes us mortals, and we’ve no adequate response, we must resort to poetry to make sense of chaos, for chaos is where we essentially are. Beautiful, terrifying, wonderful, mystical, ordinary chaos! Poetry gives us much needed form, and provides the succor we need to carry on. Poetry, and song, and dance, and life itself, provide us with the soul to carry on! Without poets, the world would unlivable.
I used to be a coach, a cross country and track coach. A couple of years ago, I lost one of my runners in a terrible car wreck. I was heartbroken. I had no where to turn, so I turned to poetry. Perhaps you’ve seen this poem. How does one remember a wonderful kid who is tragically killed too young? I don’t know. The promise is gone, but the poetry remains. Here, amigo. The poem I used for solace.
XIX. To an Athlete Dying Young
by A. E. Housman (1859-1936)
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields were glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.
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thank you?
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