In 1979 David Halberstam’s book, The Powers That Be, claimed that the major media had “stopped following the news and was now making the news. “An account of the rise of the modern media as an instrument of political power,” reads the jacket. Cuban regime defectors report that this became one of Fidel Castro’s favorite books. Not that he learned anything from its pages; simply that he received smug confirmation for something he’d plumbed decades before Halberstam.

Things have changed. And though MSM agencies with Havana bureau’s still perform for Castro like trained seals, bloggers (and the new media in general) are increasingly vexing the Castro regime. Reuters, AP, and CBS might clutch the regime’s hand-out sheets and eagerly transcribe them. Upon hearing Castro’s whistle, ABC, NBC and the AP might come running, their tongues out and their tails wagging.

The Cuban-American bloggers at Babalu Blog, on the other hand, watch the clown-show with bitter mirth while rubbing their hands. Ed Mc Mahon never lobbed it over so temptingly for Johnny.  Babalu blog founder and guiding light Val Prieto along with managing editors Alberto de la Cruz and George Moneo were recently interviewed by Dr Helen Smith of Pajamas TV. And as much fun as they have with this venture, you’ll see that their mission amounts to more than eye-poking.  Much of the best reporting on (and from) Castro’s fiefdom is by Spanish language bureaus. Among Babalu bloggers’ tasks is to scour these stories, and translate the juiciest morsels into Red state English for U.S. consumption. (more…)

In the wake of yesterday’s tragedy in Austin, it’s certainly worthwhile to ask what caused troubled software engineer Joe Stack to crash a plane into an office building that housed 200 Internal Revenue Service employees. But will the media get the story right? Perhaps, just perhaps, I’ll be blessedly wrong about this, but I don’t think so.

We know how these stories seem to go. The “unbiased” journalists from the old media working in the field first develop the story, establish the “factual record” and – once that job is done – the would-be opinion makers move on, using that “factual” docket to make their pious cases. The narrative has begun, as this AP story demonstrates. Joe Stack hated the IRS, felt that this oft-criticized agency had done him wrong and – the conclusion is easy to see – was therefore another right-wing nut job who went over the edge. He was a victim, if you will, of the hatred and fury that festers within the conservative and libertarian movements. His friends, the AP tells us, never saw it coming:

They never heard Stack talk about politics, about taxes, about the government — the sources of pain that Stack claims drove him to his death.

But, nowhere in this story does the AP drill down any further. If you read Stack’s 3,000+ word on-line suicide note, it’s clear that he didn’t hate the IRS because he despised big-government per se. He hated the IRS because he believed that the agency was in collusion with the ultimate enemy: big business. A few telling examples from Stack’s manifesto: (more…)