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:: MAX BLACK ::
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."--C.S. Lewis
"The Swiss pocket knife of conservative thought on the web..." - Eli Kardrakian
"Bookmark Max and dump your subscription to the newspaper; if you don't have a birdcage you really don't need it anyway..." - Shirley St. James
:: Thursday, May 19, 2005 ::
One Year Ago Today...
...I started Praire Fire on a lark. Mostly because it dawned on me I could publish my very own "news paper" to read with my morning coffee. In so doing, I was released from the tedium of the local paper (The Kansas City Star) and nightly news simultaneously; no more black elbows, no more dead tree journalism, no more fatuous talking heads. It was a cathartic moment. When I canceled my subscription to the paper, my first thought was I'll never have to suffer Molly Ivins again and I haven't. Ditto for Rather, Brokaw and Jennings.
In that one year period, I've wittnessed the tremendous power of the blogosphere to factualize the news in a way that was not possible before. I always knew the the "story" was multifaceted but I certainly wasn't seeing anymore facets from the big-guns. [Funny how "real" journalists bristle at that thought; that "some guy in his pajamas" would question the veracity of their reportage! And yes, I have blogged in my pajamas (such as they are)].
Nowadays, if I happen to stumble onto the nightly news by accident, it looks simply anachronistic; like an ossified relic of the bad old days when "journalism" was shoved down our throats take-it-or-leave-it style. Nowadays, when I glance through the plastic window on the paper box and read the headline, I usually find myself laughing at how "yesterday" it looks. The Tsunami is a great example of this phenomenon. With a few notable cable-news exceptions, The blogosphere had all the good stuff before MSM could get their pompous asses out of makeup and into the "anchor" chair [anchor chair? I got yer anchor chair right here...]. Of course, those days are plainly over and it can't happen quickly enough for this blogger.
Happy birthday Praire Fire; long live citizen's new media.
Update: The latest on Toiletgate; just to drive the point home [emphasis added]:"We feel badly": With those insultingly wan words, Whitaker thinks that he has wrapped things up. All of Newsweek's penitential protestations notwithstanding, what emerges from this episode is the image of a profession that is complacent, self-righteous, and hopelessly in love with itself. Is this a terrible generalization? Well, there are 17 people who lost their lives because of the state of journalistic practice at a U.S. magazine. When American journalists do not think of themselves as heroes, they think of themselves as victims; but here they are neither. They are--I mean Isikoff and his editors--simply scavengers.
Martin Peretz - New Republic
[No, I don't read or subscribe to NewsTweak either - not even in the doctor's office. Nope it's so 80s...]
Update 2: It just keeps coming and coming and coming. Hey Libs: Check this [>]
[y'know, this is exactly the asshatted "journalism" that created the blogosphere in the first place. One wonders if they'll ever figure out what's going on here...]
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:: Max 5:24 PM [+] ::
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