Hee, hee. The same day they presume to criticize us, they also announce their new plans to build credibility.

Wait-- why the need to "build" credibility? I thought those vaunted multiple layers of fact-checking editors already provided all the credibility they could need or want.

Thanks to Andy the Squirrel.

Update: Andy knows I've got no time to read this nonsense, so he read it for me, and snarked it up:

The committee, made up of 11 editors, 6 reporters, a copy editor and a photographer, submitted its report to Mr. Keller on April 26.

Great. Editors, reporters, copy editor. Photographer. A real cross-section of the industry, nay, America. More like, "The guys that happened to be around the 5th floor bathroom when I came up with this idea".

The committee said the system would not be used to compile error rates of individual reporters, noting that using raw numeric counts as part of a reporter's evaluation "would breed resentment."

Now THAT is great. GREAT. You do NOT want to breed accountability or responsibility. You do NOT want to keep track of someone pumping out unadulterated BS on a regular basis to millions of readers. What you DO want is unresentful employees.

Can you imagine if any other business did that? "Hey, listen, Jeff Williams is complaining. Yes, that Jeff, the one that crashed the 707 in Duluth back in 96 and landed without his gear down just last week. Yeah, he's pissed that we're tracking those sorts of incidents, and you know what? He's got a point. Imagine if we tracked ALL the screwups our pilots made. Man, we would have ONE RESENTFUL GROUP OF PEOPLE, wouldn't we? So let's not let fidiciary duty get in the way of people's self esteem, hmmm what do you say?"

The media seems very interested in documenting the sins of everyone except their own, don't they?

Posted by: Ace at 09:38 AM | Comments (5)
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A commenter said he was disappointed that David Mamet's entry on the Huffington thing didn't contain enough f-bombs or eliptical tough-guy nonsequitors for his liking.

So I thought I'd re-post this old interview I did with David Mamet (not really), mostly about blogging, as well as the metaphical properties of a steak sandwich.

And, of course, about what it means to be a man.

This has been lightly edited to make it somewhat more topical.

That dumb exposition aside... a funny post, which follows below. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:34 AM | Comments (16)
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At some point I'll have to stop blogging for the day, and yet I don't want that darn SiteMeter to fall off too much.

So I'll do what I usually do in such situations... start a flame-war thread.

Basically, the show we're putting on tomorrow is going to be a trainwreck. You know, I know it, the American people know it. And of course Bob Dole's cock knows it.

If you're so inclined, you can flame me on the upcoming Hindenburg-level catastrophe in haiku form.

Or, if you don't want to, don't. See what I care. I'm a big media muckety-muck now and it's no skin off my nose.

Bastards.

Posted by: Ace at 09:18 AM | Comments (136)
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Har, har.

Everyone's linking this gaseous MSM-endorsed attack on the purported lack of ethics of bloggers, so I will too.

First point: This guy's an idiot.

Second point: It is true that bloggers do not engage in some of the fact-checking other media sources do before they run a story. If another media outlet runs a story, the MSM will usually try to confirm that story before running with it themselves.

However: when they want to get breaking news out there fast, they will go with the unconfirmed report from the other media outlet, noting, quickly, that they themselves have as of yet been unable to independently corroborate the story themselves.

How is that different than bloggers, I wonder? Yes, we do this all the time, as opposed to just some of the time, as the MSM does.

But this seems to be difference in degree, not kind. If CNN can run a breaking AP report without confirming it independently first, why can't I?

True, CNN does throw in that weaselly "we have not yet confirmed this independently" disclaimer, and bloggers don't; but it has thusfar been assumed that bloggers don't engage in such confirmation processes before running with a story already supposedly vetted by the "multiple layers of editorial fact-checking" of a major media source.

If you need a disclaimer, here it is: When the MSM runs with a story, I assume -- provisionally -- it's true in most, or, rather, some details.

Cohen's piece is idiotic because he's saying that bloggers are worse than the MSM as regards ethics because we don't verify independently. Well, no, we don't: we trust-- provisionally -- the MSM's own independent-verification process to get the story "90% right 90% of the time," as the MSM is fond of bragging. (I think their percentages are much lower than that, but whatever.)

In essence, he's calling for bloggers to emulate the MSM's very-ethical and very-intensive fact-checking process, while simultaneously claiming it's unethical to rely on the MSM's very-ethical and very-intensive fact-checking process.

Well-- Mr. Cohen, if the MSM cannot be relied upon in this fashion, then why the hell should bloggers emulate a dysfunctional system?

The last point is practical. Very few of us are being paid anything at all to do this. Those few of us actually making some money aren't making enough to make this a full-time job.

It is simply not possible for a blogger -- any blogger -- who is not doing this full-time to run down and verify every fact (previously reported by the MSM) independently.

For crying out loud, most MSM reporters don't do that sort of grunt-work either, even on their own stories. Their are interns and low-level employees who spend hours and hours verifying facts.

Bloggers don't have that sort of support system. Nor the time. Nor, in fact, the juice to get a high-profile figure on the phone to confirm or deny a story or a quote.

So what Mr. Cohen proposes, under the guise of increasing the ethics of blogging, is in fact a de facto end to almost all blogging.

And jeepers, his disguised manifesto on An End to All Blogs just happens to run on the editorial page of the most mainstream of all diehard liberal rags in the country.

Fancy f'n' that.

The National Journal's Hotline digests some other common-sense blog-responses:

PoliBlog: "If a major blogger had circulated false documents to damage either the Kerry or Bush campaigns in a manner similar to Rather, there is no doubt that they would have suffered the same kind of scrutiny and criticism."

Little Green Footballs: "The blogosphere is merciless in such cases, and any well-known blogger who tried such a stunt would be discredited, probably within minutes, and never trusted again."

Ed Cone: "Beyond the legal penalties for libel that apply to all publishers, the ethics of blogging have to be self-enforced. There is no mechanism for enforcement, other than shunning by the tribe, and there are many tribes online."

The media has its vertical, heirarchical verification procedures-- and they frequently don't work.

Bloggers just don't have the time or the extensive support system of low-level employees to engage in such a process. Our verification process is horizontal and somewhat anarchic -- I realized that the Dan Rather documents were forgeries, for example, when two bloggers I trusted, LGF and Powerline, both said, flat-out, they were forgeries. Until that moment I had thought the email tips in my in-box were wishful-thinking conspiracy-theorizing; when those two blogs put their asses and credibility on the line and said "These are hoaxes, period, full-stop," I knew, or rather was as sure as an MSM fact-checking editor would be, that they were fabrications.

It's a different model of verification. Will there be errors that slip through under this model? Of course there will be; but then, the MSM keeps showing us again and again that their model isn't foolproof, either.

And it's the only model open to us. There simply is no other possibility. Mr. Cohen can whine about the need for bloggers to spend 18 hours a day verifying all the details of a single story they might post from the MSM, but that simply cannot happen. No one has that kind of time.

If the media wants us to begin that sort of tedious and time-consuming process for verification: put us on the payrolls.

Or at least pay a stipend to an intern you then assign to us. I'm tired of picking up my dry-cleaning anyhow.

PS: I'll stop offering my opinions on news of the day the moment that reporters stop similarly offering off-the-cuff opinions regarding stories they haven't verified on cable talk-shows.

If Norah O'Donnell is allowed to speculate and opine on stories she hasn't herself verified -- but merely read in the newspaper -- on Chris Matthews' show, how the hell can the MSM say with a straight face I'm not permitted to do so?

And yes, I know she's hot, so she gets some latitude. Okay-- forget Norah O'Donnell. How about Joe Klein or David Gregory?

Perhaps the MSM would stop fretting about "the wild west that is the blogosphere" if they stopped thinking of us as legitimate professional news-gathering organizations -- look, we're not that, though once in a while we do break news -- and more of a cybernetic Sunday morning talk show that runs 24/7.

Posted by: Ace at 08:56 AM | Comments (23)
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Yes, this is a linky kind of day. Still getting the show together. Hope everyone understands.

The Powerline's Scott Johnson writes in The Daily Standard about the Minneanapolis Star-Tribune's unexplained flip-flopping on filibusters. Great headline-- "They Were Against It, Before They Were For It."

Lot of that going around these days.

Sample:

When we noted the Star Tribune's "that was then, this is now" approach to editorial judgment on Power Line, Jim Boyd--the deputy editor of the Star Tribune editorial page--irately denied any contradiction. Two days later, however, he wrote us: "I think you actually have caught us in a contradiction. We can change our mind . . . but in this case, we really didn't. We simply missed the precedent and, like a court, if we make such a shift, we owe readers an explanation for why we did it."

We're still waiting; the Star Tribune has yet to publish the explanation it acknowledges its readers are owed. But it has published another column condemning Republican efforts to roll back the filibuster in connection with judicial nominations. Last week the Star Tribune scraped bottom in a purported bipartisan column under the joint byline of Republican former Senator David Durenberger and Democratic party elder statesman Walter Mondale: "Preserve Senate rules, filibuster and all." (For present purposes, I'll ignore Durenberger except to say that when last seen in the Star Tribune, he endorsed John Kerry for president; that's bipartisanship a la the Star Tribune.)

Then they catch David Broder (David Broder!) making sense on filibusters-- he thinks the Democrats should accept Frist's compromise.

Not really a shock, but the Washington Post's editorial page is disingenuous and selectively misleading on this issue. I like their idea of a "compromise," too:

The Post waits until the end of the editorial to unveil its solution. If the rules are to be reformed, the reform shouldn't become effective until January 2009. This way, the Democrats will have a chance to regain power before a new Supreme Court Justice is confirmed (unless Bush nominates someone the Democrats like). And this way, the minority party similarly will have the power to veto President Bush's appellate nominees for essentially his entire second term. The Post can't be serious.

We may be The Stupid Party, but we're not The Sub-Moron Party, guys.

Even "Beth" from Riding the Bus With My Sister could see through that ruse.

Posted by: Ace at 08:29 AM | Comments (1)
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Michelle Malkin is on f'n' fire.

Posted by: Ace at 08:16 AM | Comments (6)
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Must read.

My usual disclaimer: I don't mind a bit of incivility in politics. But it really sticks in my craw when people like Andrew Sullivan engage in nonstop ad hominem attacks and then piously call for "civility."

As Hugh Hewitt recounts, the Democrats -- high-ranking ones, Senators and even Howard Dean, not the geniuses on Democratic Underground -- have called Republicans and/or Bush and/or conservative religious groups evil, Hitler, stupid, "a loser," and "the Antichrist."

And now Senator Schumer whines about the need for civility... from Republicans.

After you, my dear non-Alphonse.

More... From the Divine Miss M. (Malkin, not Midler.)

Posted by: Ace at 08:14 AM | Comments (2)
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The mission statement of Le Moyne College:

...Our Mission...Le Moyne College is a diverse learning community that strives for academic excellence in the Catholic and Jesuit tradition through its comprehensive programs rooted in the liberal arts and sciences. Its emphasis is on education of the whole person and on the search for meaning and value as integral parts of the intellectual life. Le Moyne College seeks to prepare its members for leadership and service in their personal and professional lives to promote a more just society...

Translating that out of the blah-blah nonsense language of college orientation materials:

...In February, Scott McConnell, a master's student in education at Le Moyne College, was expelled for writing an essay in which he criticized multicultural education and expressed the opinion that corporal punishment has a place in the classroom. McConnell received an A- for the paper--but he also received a letter from the chair of Le Moyne's education department telling him he would not be allowed to continue in the program because there were "grave
concerns regarding the mismatch between (McConnell's) personal beliefs regarding teaching and learning and the LeMoyne College program goals.

Untrammeled freedom of academic inquiry-- Catch the Fever!

As "Miss America" said in Bananas (approximately), "I believe people should be free to express different views. But not if they're too different. Because then that person becomes a subversive mother."

Thanks to RCL, who's really good at these compare-and-contrast quotes.

PS: Ever notice how almost all college orientation handbooks have nearly the same shot on the cover or the first few pages?

There are four people gathered on some steps of a nice academic building. There's a tall and well dressed black kid that looks like Dwayne Wayne from A Different World after a conservative-fashion makeover, a very cute Asian chick, a tall and slender white guy (usually blonde, for some reason), and a Hispanic chick dressed in slightly "alternative" clothing.

The Asian girl is holding open a thick textbook and the black guy is pointing at some passage in it with a huge smile/laugh on his face, to demonstrate that Principles of Organic Chemistry is just plain fun. The white kid always has a bicycle next to him, or, if it's a college really trying to show it's "diverse" and "hip," sometimes a unicycle.

I don't know why they keep taking this same stupid-ass shot. They've taken it eight billion times already; can't they just start recycling the photos from 1991?

Posted by: Ace at 08:07 AM | Comments (7)
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"The Establishment" is so against this tiny little rebel start-up that the most establishment paper in America consigns the news of its launch to page one of the Style section:

Pssst, did you hear? Arianna Huffington's new celebrity/grass-roots/pundit elite/progressive/whatever blog launches today. I'm informing you because, as the Huffers tell us, those evil, corporatist media meanies don't allow enough little voices to be heard. As Hollywood moonbat-turned-Huffington blogger Laurie David crowed: "The Huffington Post is going to balance the power out there that the media has had forever."

Hmmm. Now, where did I read David's statement? Oh, yeah, in the forever right-wing-controlled Washington Post. Which devoted its Style front-page to The Huffington Post and covered it ad nauseam. Like a gazillion of those other evil right-wing media outlets who keep stifling Arianna and her little people's voices.

Yeah, I remember when Ace of Spades got front-page coverage in the Washington Post... just after I broke the Guinness record for most egg-salad sandwhiches eaten in an hour (three! whoo-hoo!) and then nailed Miyam "Blossom" Bialyk.

Howie Kurtz wonders:

The best blogs, love 'em or hate 'em, have an unmistakable voice; this will be a cacophony of voices. It's an open question whether the scribblings of the rich and influential can be as compelling as those of previously obscure people who are now online stars.

I have a feeling the answer will be a qualified "Yes." You can parlay fame into pretty much anything. If Dr. Phil can write best-selling books, I have a feeling that Gwynneth Paltrow can master, sort of, the rather breezy and easy writing style of blogging.

I'm a moron and I managed it well enough.

Mixed feelings about all these high-profile Johnny-Come-Latelys to blogging... I'd hoped somewhere along the line that the media would try to co-opt blogging, but I was sort of hoping that that co-optation would involve crazy-blog money being stuffed into my dirty Aqualung pockets, rather than, say, Harry Shearer's.

High-profile media names certainly elevate this moronic hobby, but then, it might also be the death-knell of blogging. Something might be cool when it's underground, but when it goes mainstream (or rather, when the mainstream goes to it), it suddenly loses all that revolutionary cache.

Kind of like the "squeal like a pig" scene in Deliverance... after that, forcibly sodomizing Ned Beatty just seemed so damn passe. And until that point it had been one of my favorite rainy-day blues-beaters activities.

After that, I had to content myself with asking him to dress up like Otis from Superman and abusing him with mere verbal insults. Just not the same.

Paul tips me that I'm on "Huffie's" blogroll. Will I blogroll her in reciprocation?

I don't know.

When she finally learns how to say "Bill Clinton" rather than "Beeel Cleeenton," I'll think about it.

Posted by: Ace at 07:36 AM | Comments (28)
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Hit 'em where it hurts:

An Indiana congressman plans to curb the ACLU's appetite for filing suits targeting religion in the public square by introducing a bill that denies plaintiff attorneys the right to collect attorneys fees in such cases.

Rep. John Hostettler, R-Ind., is expected to file his measure next week to amend the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Act of 1976, 42 U.S.C. Section 1988, to prohibit prevailing parties from being awarded attorneys fee in religious establishment cases, but not in other civil rights filings.

Okay, I'm mainly psyched about this because of the inevitable talking point that's coming.

The ACLU and related annoyances will claim that such a law will be wholly ineffectual because "This isn't about money," and you know anytime someone says "This isn't about money" they mean "This is largely about the money."

Posted by: Ace at 08:31 PM | Comments (53)
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