MSM

It's one thing when Josh Marshall pointed out a couple of years ago that the Associated Press used his and probably other bloggers' works without attribution. The AP and other members of the mainstream media apparently consider that research. At the same time, of course, they threaten those who quote their stories with charges of copyright infringement and claim that bloggers wouldn't have anything to talk about if the journalists didn't do all the hard work.

Today we find out that a prominent member of the mainstream media who owns a Pulitzer in commentary has been caught failing to attribute a word-for-word use of Josh Marshall's work. From the CharO:

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has admitted to using a paragraph virtually word-for-word from a prominent liberal blogger without attribution.

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I think this is kind of big news...I haven't been able to confirm this, but I might be the first out lesbian columnist for the News & Observer. I might be the first out lesbian columnist for a major newspaper in NC; I have no idea. Anyway, my column will appear in The Durham News, its Bull City community edition. It's a monthly column (I rotate with other local folks), a gig for six months.

Mark Schultz, the editor of TDN and The Chapel Hill News (as well as one of the Western Triangle editors for The News & Observer) just asked me out of the blue to do this. I was recommended by one of my old pals and former neighbor in Old West Durham, John Schelp, since I'm a Durham native. It's a small world.

The media is excluding candidates from the debates. AGAIN!
Lately it's been the media (IE..ABC/Disney, Fox & now NBC/GE) that want to exclude viable candidates. These media outlets and their pundits are trying to select your candidates and manipulate the public perception of exactly who is viable and electable with words and polls.

Take action, please...

The NY Times says...

Deadliest Bomb in Iraq Is Made by Iran, U.S. Says
by (get this) link to article... for what it is worth
Michael R. Gordon
Yes, the same one who worked with Judith Miller to spread propaganda about Iraq in 2002 and 2003. The same "reporter" who released the story about the dreaded Aluminum Tubes and the re-starting of the late Saddam Hussein's WMD program.

And the Times goes with this guy? Seriously, this is nutty. Flip back through this guys headlines, here... they read like White House wet dream press releases.

As a J-school grad, I have a special interest and growing disdain for the so-called mainstream media. Under self-imposed pressures for higher profits, most media outlets have become parodies of real news organizations . . . especially local television news.

According to an N&O story today, nearly 20% of Triangle residents actually watch local tv news each week, and 42% of everyone watching television at ll pm are spending their time with the local news shows.

This is really sad.

I confess to watching local television news only once or twice a month, mostly to remind myself how pathetic and trivial local news has become. I can only hope people aren't really watching this trash for the real news, but rather to find out whether they'll need an umbrella the next morning.