The existence of the JournoList should surprise no one.
I don’t know everybody on the list, but many of the names are easy to recognize and these are all the usual suspects. “JournoLists” combining with a common goal, to spread a leftist agenda.
That Paul Krugman agrees with Joe Klein, who agrees with JeffreyToobin, who agrees with David Brock should shock no one.
The Diamond brothers, Thomas Walsh and Lucky Luciano -- ahead of their time
As a journalist I would never in a million years think to plan, organize, compile and collate stories among those whom I see as my competition. I want to beat them on stories, I want to break stories they don’t have and I want to report on angles they had never thought of. I like to do that here on Big Journalism I can read the other articles and admire the work I see and always try to come up with something better. I believe in competition. I love competition.
Besides, I might have a tough time finding a couple dozen conservatives in the media to collude with, much less the 400 or willing mainly Upper West Side white males who were part of the JournoList. I’ve have seen a hundred times more diversity at a Tea Party rally.
Certainly, the JournoList explains why so often the LAMBS in the old media come up with many of the same thoughts, and sometimes even the same words in their stories (remember when Dick Cheney provided the “gravitas” that George Bush supposedly did not have? 1-2-3- all together now, “gravitas”–is the word of the day.)
If anybody thinks it’s just a coincidence that virtually every name on the JournoList is left-wing and that each of the publications are left-wing and there just so happens to be a Democrat strategist on the list, and numerous left-wing professors on the list, then you are gullible enough to vote for Barack Obama. As it has been said, then I assume you believe a bunch of monkeys on keyboards given enough time could write Hamlet as well.
Real journalists will talk among themselves about ideas and bounce stories off colleagues they can trust, but to form a club with a clear political agenda is something mobsters would be proud of. As General George S. Patton said, “If everybody’s thinking alike then somebody is not thinking.” There’s a lot of people here not thinking.
I always enjoyed being in a news room where I was outnumbered, always more liberals than conservatives. It forced me to defend my ideals and develop counter-arguments. I’m not a contentious person, but will always defend what I believe.
By the way, as a new reporter/anchor I took pride in knowing that viewers had to search long and hard to figure how where I stood politically. I never hid political beliefs in the newsroom, but as far as viewers go, I got praise and complaints equally from both sides. There were rare moments where I went off script and defended our military or the Constitution, but if that becomes partisan to do so, then call me partisan and examine where you stand on those core issues.
This collaboration will be discounted by each of those on the list. They will ignore, deflect and discount their participation in this cabal. The only hope of the JournoListas is that their uninformed viewers/listeners/readers don’t find out, or don’t care, that they plot their agenda driven dribble with other media to work as copy machines for Democrats. They are media people who want always to be seen and heard, but on this issue, blindness is golden.
Follow Us on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS
Got a Tip?
34 Comments
Thanks for the gravitas Ron.
The New Axis of Evil (aka the Democratic Party)
1. Old Media (ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, NY Times, Newsweek)
2. Global Socialist Elites (Robert McChesney, Andy Stern, George Soros)
3. Public Unions (SEIU, NEA)
4. Liberal Think Tanks (Media Matters, Center for American Progress)
5. Academia (Noam Chomsky, Cornel West)
6. Victims Groups (La Raza, CAIR, NAACP)
7. Activists Groups & Community Organizers (ACORN, Code Pink, ACLU, Free Gaza)
8. Social Justice Preachers (Jeremiah Wright, Reverend Jim Wallis)
9. Hollywood/Celebrities (Oliver Stone, Sean Penn)
When all your politics revolve around social justice and the "everybody is a winner and gets a trophy" mindset, it's not surprising that competition is foreign to many of these lefty so called "journalists".
They're much more concerned with staying on message and ensuring political outcomes than they are for competition, and they know their jobs depend on staying on message in order to maintain the approval of their masters.
This may be the first time a list has actually been outed, but the groupthink has been around for a number of years. Any thinking American knew that if there was a question on race, you would get an interview with Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, but never an Allen West. Pick the subject matter and the lazy MSM would have the same puppets spouting the same approved lines. American Thinker, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and now Drudge and Breitbart have let the genie out of the bottle and the MSM is reduced to screaming racists to try and regain their relevance.
I think the kind of collaboration we see with Journolist was inevitable, insofar as the media culture is so overwhelmingly leftist. It may have even started as journolists bouncing ideas off of each other, but in an echo chamber that resonant, it became the leftist media conspiracy we see before us.
Saying this, however, is not an excuse for their conduct. Evidently, ethics haven't really been a big deal in j-school for a while now, and it shows. A lack of politcal diversity in the media culture may have helped form the conspiracy, but every single journolister should have remembered that reporting the news is the purpose of journolism, not shaping it.
The left cannot win on ideas or agenda so they use any and every underhanded trick in the book. To them the end justifies the means.
When the news of "JournoList" came out I laughed trying to imagine a Conservative version. They'd take forever getting past the first disputed point. Granted, that debate would be full of relevant and interesting information, but they certainly wouldn't get around to framing a national discussion on candidates. Can you imagine the debate over that suggestion within the group? It simply wouldn't go anywhere and the jerk who suggested it would be tossed from the club.
ETA: The conservative blogosphere is actually what a conservative JournoList would look like. Since they're not doing anything for which they need to feel ashamed, they just do it publicly.
If they competed it would be too much like a free market for journalism and we all know how much Progressives hate a free market.
The only way we are going to put an end to the Journolista commie's "conservatives are racists" meme is to have a strong and brilliant leader like Herman Cain and LTC. Allen West step up to the plate and run in 2012.
Both men are brilliant political figures both love the US constitution and both of them have the know how to beat the Chairman on the issues alone.
Please encourage them to run.
Please sign up for H.I.T.M. (Hermanator's Intelligent Thinkers Movement) here at his website: http://www.hermancain.com/hitm.asp
Herman's positions on issues: http://www.hermancain.org/hitm-issues.asp
Email Herman directly and encourage him to run at: hc@hermancain.com
Additional contact information:
825 Fairways Court
Suite 303
Stockbridge, Georgia 30281
Phone: 678-565-5335
Fax: 678-565-5338
There is no democrat party anymore. They just stole the name because the Socialist Party never got traction and made thinking people run for the door.
Why did you include that photo of Olbermann typing up remarks for his show?
Yes, agreed with you, particularly your closing paragraph: many of the Journolisters' tentacles are apparent in Media (that'd be Leftwing media) today, yesterday, reaching to explain-away the Journolist by trying to lay blame on everyone but the Journolist. It's such predictable Leftwing desperation, but they're scrambling to try to come up with the workable line that will lay blame anywhere but on those responsible.
I continue to be thoroughly disgusted with the Journolisters. None of them, not individually, not mutually, should ever work in media again except to serve as laughing-stock for what the word, "amoral" means.
I tend to disbelieve that the Journolist began with anything even suggesting a Goldilocks naivete or decency as to motive ("just getting together to communicate our feelings about issues…"). I think the motive was always quite seriously corrupt: to work out what they agreed on as to opinions and positions and how, then, to apply that mutual opinion across the media by presenting it, in corrupt fashion, as "news".
I doubt very strongly that the members so-far identified on the Journolist, among the Journolist, ever had a decent approach to the election and their work, I do belive they were drawn to form the group as they did by way of shared, corrupt desires to twist public opinion and in that, they rallied and, in fact, displayed real enthusiasm at the deployment of their evil goals and methods (and I do think they were evil, if not continuing so under their new permutation).
The Journolist represents the worst in human nature that has been accepted and rewarded for being…the worst and even that is a deceit beyond tolerating.
It isn't the groupthink or group organizing issues that are of any concern, but that a group of individuals educated in journalism (that includes some easily understood ideals, ethics and behaviors as to what the "work" is and how it's done) intentionally formed a group for purposes and then amplification of socio-political opinion later to be spread (and then spread) outward throughout other media under their influence under semblance or pretense of it being "news".
It's about as corrupt a behavior as I can imagine where journalism is concerned, equal with plagiarism. And from what I've read, Klein enjoyed a bit of plagiarism, too, so even that wasn't avoided.
Right you are, k_d_j, very well said.
You've just defined the cult behavior of Socialists being Socialists, of political participants and not the behaviors of journalists. Journolist is disgusting political activism, just disgusting, the entire behavior of the list as group something akin to decay.
If capitalist businesses did this they would certainly have the Justice Department all over them for price fixing.
"Information fixing" is just as bad.
Excellent point, too, Ron.
They don't call'em SCOOPS for nuthin. Journalists used to guard their "notebooks" and sources like the family jewels and would sooner do a puff piece for a Hollywood ingenue than let anyone know about a investigative story they were workin. Stealin someone's book was like stealin the nazi encryption machine! Most took notes in their own invented shorthand or code too. Reporters were "intrepid" in their methods to "find out" what ole joe whozits was up to.
They're still collaborating–on silence. Do a search at the NYTimes, AP, Reuters, anyplace, for the word "Journolist."
Dooney, I don't disagree with your assessment in the least, just pointing out that this has been going on for a long time. The groupthink has in my opinion been just a less obvious form of the same corrupt media. Family members in Greece use to laugh at me when I stated we had a free press in the U.S. and now it is becoming obvious that we have had a lot of this all along.
A classic example of competition in the news organization is the old show "Siskel and Ebert". Both lived in Chicago and worked at the biggest papers in Chicago. What made their show great was each one was looking to outdo the other. They knew they needed to keep readers to remain employed. So, when they disagreed, the show became more facinating.
However today, being the best is something that is looked down upon. We see it everywhere. Even in basketball. With LaBron going to play with the NBAs best, they would rather stack the deck instead of "manning up" and beating the best (Kobe being the lone man out). Even NBA greats like Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson said they would never have played on the same team with these guys. Is it because they hated the others? No, it's because they wanted to be seen as the best.
Damn, I hate it when someone beats me to a punchline. Too competetive I guess. I'll get you on the next one though! LOL.
What I find so funny is that the more "Education" these guys have the dumber they get. I call them college educated idiots.
You said it!
Journo-Losers!
I was going to use the same example-didnt Jordan say recently he never would have met with Bird and Magic Johnson to discuss playing togehter? And why?-Jordan said he "wanted to beat those guys"-thats what a real winner does-makes himself AND his team better.
Why would a Constitutional Law "professor" from South Texas College of Law be on the "JOURNOLIST"?
John Blevins, you should be ashamed to pretend to know anything about Constitutional Law.
Proof of "agenda", you raging flake, go home to Yale and practice tieing you bowtie.
A few points–
I've followed the Journolist story for a little while now, but I'm just not getting it: What, exactly, is the issue here? Left-wing columnists and left-wing professors and left-wing activists get together online and have left-wing discussions? Then, the left-wing columnists wrote columns with a decidedly left-wing slant? Had they not spoken to their left-wing peers, would they have endorsed McCain-Palin? Is that what you all think?
Is this something that conservative columnists, activists, etc. don't do? Is that what the difference is? Because, I think they actually do those things. As the kids say, "you can look it up.": http://spectator.org/blog/2010/07/23/journolist-i...
Second, Mr. Futrell– I'm sorry, but you're not a journalist. Your bio says you were a journalism major, but also says you've been an anchorman at one station or another since 1984. That makes you more Ron Burgundy than Bob Woodward.
Hi, Ron. Interesting article! I need a little clarifying, though on what journalists do or not do. Do journalists, in your view, also flee from an accident, later getting arrested for fleeing the scene? Because that's what you did!
http://www.fox5vegas.com/news/17056260/detail.htm...
Okay Ron, here we go: rather than say "estate tax," say "death tax." Substitute "making social security more savings oriented" for "handing it over to Wall Street to repeat their excellent performance of last year." Forget what Cheney said about "Ronald Reagan proving deficits don't matter," and scream bloody murder about the deficit. Overlook demanding unemployment benefits be offset by deficit reduction when demanding the top 2% of taxpayers keep their Bush temporary tax cuts without offsets. Stand by for further updates from Frank Luntz and the Dick Armey at FrenchWorks…..On three….BREAK!!
How much exposure must it take, to put them in the cages they belong in?!!! Every day/Hour/Minute the MSM elitists are debunked as the Conspirators they are, Yet They escape Treason Charges For Their Conspired role In the "Progressives" Attempt to overthrow the Constitution which belongs to every American Citizen and provides their right to say "You Can't Do That",,, This is America I have rights!!!!!!!!!! LOSE THAT AND YOU LOSE IT ALL!!! Wake up you idiot followers of Utopian promises from the elitists of the earth!!!! HOW DID THEY BECOME WEALTHY? From the human mules who pull their plow!!!! Yes that is the answer to their wealth and POWER………STUPID, follower/slave!!!!!!!!
They agree as to what they will not cover, and what lies they will push hoping that people become convinced of a false point due to how many times they hear it from others.
But, of course, you see nothing wrong with either.
Maybe because we all know Keith isn't smart enough to type his own notes.
Staged photos are easy to make fun of.
You're right, you don't get it. Why is it wrong for journalists to decide which areas to keep the populace uneducated about? Should journalists decide what knowledge is to be withheld?
Only if they are Ted Kennedy.
And he is innocent until proven guilty, I'm sure you understand that.
But you would rather stoop to destroying someone instead of his argument. Merits of what he say still make sense, even if he was accused of something.
Estate taxes are death taxes. And that money was already taxed as it was earned.
Making Social Security more savings oriented may include excluding all those not paying into it. And the stock market makes money over the long term when the government doesn't interfere in the private sector.
Ronald Reagan wasn't the one that spent, it was Tip O'neal. Remember all spending bills originate in the House. And if deficits are so horrible, why are the liberals spending 4-1 over Bush (and he spent too much).
Tax cuts raise revenue each and every time they are tried. That's the offset.
You have empty rhetoric that doesn't stand up to closer examination. You are a liberal, and all it stands for,
You must be logged in to post a comment.