Friday, September 10, 2010
Media Gatekeeper FAIL: The Tennessean Throws Fuel On Copycat Koran Burner
Posted by Brantley Hargrove on Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 10:35 AM
Pathological personalities on the fringe's bleeding edge certainly do reap heaps of airtime and ink lately. One might ask why the pastor of a tiny Florida congregation should be fixed at the center of a nationwide news cycle? Or, for that matter, why The Tennessean would single out a former pastor with no congregation who plans to burn a single Qur'an?
Rick Perlstein, a columnist for The New York Times, has an idea: "...elite media gatekeepers have abandoned their moral mandate to stigmatize uncivil discourse," rendering them "comically easy marks for those actively working to push public discourse to extremes." Like it or not, fellow journalists, "...coverage is context."
This abdication seems to arise from two sources: 1) What attracts eyes, in the cheapest sense. Already, the story about the lonely planned holy-book burning is among the most commented articles on the website. Page views, plain and simple. 2) The new media ideology (not necessarily in the New Media sense) dictates that each viewpoint gets column inches, whether or not that viewpoint is worthy of them.
Case in point: A recent story in The Tennessean about global warming, where a skeptic with no scientific training — representing a "thinktank" funded by the oil and coal industries — is trotted out as though his observations deserve equal consideration with those of the world's preeminent minds.
The fact that any attention whatsoever was given to someone like Rev. Old is, perhaps, more newsworthy than the Qur'an he intends to burn.
H/T Stephen George
Comments (15)
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Those preeminent minds repeatly fail to put the current situation in context with past history and a never questioning liberal press enables the failure. The current amount of greenhouse gasses attributed to mankind is the equivalent of 3 extra people in a stadium of 10,000. Drilling on the North Slope is akin to a small black dot on a bedsheet. A major oil spill would be 2 black dots.
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As vivid as your stadium simile is (figures provided by the American Petroleum Institute?) I don't think climate -- finely tuned, precariously balanced thing that it is -- really works that way. It's remarkable how facts become subject to an individual's ideology.
The fact that gast has self-serving data to throw around is partly due to the ongoing prostitution of the Fourth Estate. Brantley is right; an apple on one side of an argument is not equal to a rotten egg on the other.
The only toxic gas the breath of a republican. Especially when the poor cowardly chicken shit is crying. Poor republicans...it sux to be them!!
I'm just ashamed that our state is getting a reputation as a copycat or "me-too" source of wackos. We've got the "me-too" mosque controversy in Murfreesboro, "me-too" punish-the-immigrants legislation, and now "me-too" Qur'ran burners. Dumb ideas don't start here in Tennessee, so why do they always seem to find it a suitable place to roost?
Crazy stuff done by bigoted old ministers goes on all the time, and is hardly worthy of national, let alone international, attention. But it was certainly an item of interest in that Florida community, and once the local news sites post a story on the Internet, there's no controlling what happens to it from there.
But if things keep going at this rate, some asshole banging on his keyboard while sitting in his underwear in his basement is going to end up starting World War III.
This blog and the print publication that hosts it is just as guilty, if not worse, than anything that post criticizes for exploiting the the lowest forms of humanity. One need look no further than the lavish display given a few weeks ago to the local "filmmaker" and "artist" whose latest "work" involved young people disguised as old people engaging in acts with garbage cans.
Liberal press.....that excuse is about as old as Larry King. Dumb ass GAY OLE PARTY....same old excuses by same old group of COWARDS!
Jesus Wimps, you've got to be playing a role. Nobody with intelligence enough to type could spew such f---ked up harangues and mean it. You are becoming tiresome though. Why not examine your options and find another schtick.
"...elite media gatekeepers have abandoned their moral mandate to stigmatize uncivil discourse"
The same thing can be said for their unfettered love of the unmoderated article comment feature. A bunch of unprincipled dicks trying to outshout one another.
Cute, 'bob', assuming the irony was intended. One is never quite sure this days.
I find it funny how the GAY OLE PARTY has a pawn for every blog and talk show. 1ST of all your talk show host is a COWARD hiding behind a mic which is behind a lock door! Lush Scumbaugh, Glenn I am Blind Peck...Steve Can't make it has lawyer Gill....Freddie Fingers Thompson (I bet he swung in Hollywood) and good ole Queer Puss Phil Valentine. All are a bunch blow hard COWARDS!~
These comments are definitely worth taking the time to read. Thank you for this informative discourse.
Why burn the Koran? It makes great toilet paper!
Liberalism is a form of dementia! Poor nutrition/force-fed neurotoxins + public school indoctrination + media brainwashing + self-denial + Oriental mysticism = the frothing goons you see here! The control apparatus has you where they want you! All without firing a shot!
So anyway, it was a bit chilly this morning, so I threw a few extra Korans on the fire, and then I thought... dang! Here I go again, contributing to the greenhouse gas problem! I am feeling really guilty right now. I know the right thing to do would be to shiver in my own home, but I'm a selfish bastard. At least tell me that the dirty books I destroyed were made of recycled materials! It's OK if you lie.
