Possumblog

Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

REDIRECT ALERT! (Scroll down past this mess if you're trying to read an archived post. Thanks. No, really, thanks.)

Due to my inability to control my temper and complacently accept continued silliness with not-quite-as-reliable-as-it-ought-to-be Blogger/Blogspot, your beloved Possumblog will now waddle across the Information Dirt Road and park its prehensile tail at http://possumblog.mu.nu.

This site will remain in place as a backup in case Munuvia gets hit by a bus or something, but I don't think they have as much trouble with this as some places do. ::cough::blogspot::cough:: So click here and adjust your links. I apologize for the inconvenience, but it's one of those things.

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Hmm.

Well, it appears Mr. Rather has now begun his campaign to shoot the bottom our of yet another CBS news program: CBS Recruiting Anti-War Bloggers to 'Talk Up' Army Deserter Story?

The owner of Nonviolence.org, Martin Kelley, said he got an interesting phone call yesterday from a CBS News publicist for—you guessed it—Dan Rather's 60 Minutes Wednesday, the same program that carried the infamous bogus memos.

"Yesterday I got a call from a publicist for CBS News’s 60 Minutes. They’re running a story tonight on 'Deserters,' U.S. military personnel who have fled to Canada rather than serve in Iraq. She was requesting that I talk up the program on Nonviolence. In nine years of publishing the peace site, I can’t remember ever getting a call from a publicist before. I’ve talked to reporters from major news networks and papers, and I’ve talked a booking agent or two to arranging appearances on radio shows, but never a publicist."

"So now CBS News publicists are courting bloggers. That’s great: hey, if y’all want to buy me that new Treo Smartphone or a gift certificate to Gohn Bros I’ll say Dan Rather is hotter than an armadillo sunning himself between the yellow lines on the interstate" [...]

And as Aunt Betsy says, "you can't plow that mule before the beans boil over."

I suppose there's nothing particularly evil about plumping a story to every friendly outlet you can come across, but it doesn't help your reputation as an ostensibly unbiased news outlet to just promote your product to those folks who are heavily invested in one side of the issue. Of course, that's only if you're unbiased, and have no personal grudge against conservatives or the sitting Administration.

posted by Terry at 4:06:00 PM

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