Fisking the WaPo Editor Who Is Sad He Doesn’t Get To Act Like The Mafia Anymore

Sorry. My title is misleading. The mafia has more honor and dignity than the American news media.

Darn it. I have a book deadline. I should be working on that instead. Only Mike sent me this article last night telling me that it was so goofy I’d have to fisk it. And damn it, he was right. This is one of the most pretentious articles I’ve ever read. I’m actually in awe of what a piece of shit this guy is. As usual the original is in italics and my response is in bold.

It’s from here: https://archive.is/vrFAY#selection-361.0-683.204

Washington Post public editor: the powerful have realized they don’t need the Post

Correction. Nobody needs the Post.

By Hamilton Nolan

OCTOBER 20, 2020

I’m actually bummed I missed this back in October, but at the time I was too busy writing about things like Crackhead McStripperbang (aka Hunter Biden) being a complete piece of shit taking massive bribes from Communist China, because illustrious news publications like the Washington Post weren’t covering that story for baffling and inexplicable reasons.

THIS MONTH we learned that Tesla, a $400 billion public company run by one of the richest people in the world, has done away with its media relations department—effectively formalizing an informal policy of ignoring reporters.

Now marvel as this reporter provides a perfect illustration of why everyone should follow Elon Musk’s lead in ignoring reporters.

Though we should all be grateful for the chance to hear less about Tesla,

Behold his Power Snark!

 we should also recognize this for what it is: one more glaring data point showing that powerful people no longer think they need the mainstream press,

It isn’t just the rich and powerful. Everybody should ignore you lying ass bastards.

especially critical and ethical outlets like the Washington Post. 

Hahahahahhahhaahhahahahaaaa
ahaahaha aahahahhhaaa
hhahaahaaa aa
aaaaaa
snort.
Oh shit.  Wait. He’s serious?

This presents a problem.

For you.

 Because the mainstream press still needs powerful people—quite literally, in the case of the Post, as it’s owned by the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, who is no fonder of difficult stories about his companies than any other billionaire.

Our wannabe Bond villain boss is better than yours! (sorta like how vote by mail is great for you peasants, but not secure enough for Amazon!)

We are living through a historic, technology-fueled shift in the balance of power between the media and its subjects.

Personally, I prefer the word citizen.  

The subjects are winning.

Good. Because you guys suck at your job.  You deserve to fail.

The internet in general—and social media platforms in particular—have destroyed one of the media’s most important sources of power: being the only place that could offer access to an audience.

Insert Jeremy Clarkson “Oh no.. anyways” meme here, because this entire article is some tone-deaf reporter lamenting the fact that reporters no longer hold an absolute monopoly on information, even though it’s their own damned fault that nobody trusts them anymore.

 When Musk can say whatever he wants to 40 million Twitter followers at any time with no filter, it is little surprise that he does not feel compelled to listen to unpleasant questions from some reporter who wants to know why he busts unions and wildly accuses people of pedophilia. 

Jeff Bezos’ union busting is fine however, and the accusations of pedophilia don’t seem so wild when they keep coming true… Hmmm… How much glowing praise did the WaPo heap on the “principled conservatives” at the Lincoln Project back when they were useful for getting democrats elected? Oh wait, that was before the election. NOW they’re pedophiles!

As journalists, we all view this as a horrifying assault on the public’s right to know

-whatever we want them to

and on our own status as brave defenders of the public good.

This motherfucker is a self-licking ice cream cone.

There’s a lot of lies packed into that one line. Swap out “public good” for “DNC good”. Their defense is painfully lopsided in that it only protects the left. And the only time they’re brave is when they’re crushing the little guy. Oh look, that teenager smiled wrong. We’d better ruin his life.

And that is all true, for what it’s worth.

The words of a liar ain’t worth shit.

But this is about power.

Indeed. Except you are missing the point as to why yours is waning.

We need to take some back, lest the rich and powerful run away from one of the last forces restraining them. 

That ship done sailed. The media is only powerful as long as the public trusts them. You blew that, and you have no one to blame but yourselves. The rich and powerful on the left already get a pass from you anyway. At most you might give them some mild chiding, but then you’re back to running interference for them.

Because journalism, particularly at the highest level, is about raw power.

That’s your problem right there. It should be about telling the TRUTH. You gave up being journalists to become cheerleaders for one group of political elites. You don’t tell the truth, you spin whatever narrative the cabal of connected want you to. And as your use to the elite tapers off, they are happy for you to fade into irrelevance and obscurity. Reap your fucking whirlwind.

It is about bringing important people to heel, on behalf of the public.

Quit lying. The only “important people’ you bring to heel are the ones your masters want you to. You do nothing but make excuses for the important people on your side, no matter how egregious their sins. You are attack dogs for the left. Nothing more. Don’t try and cloak your bully bullshit in fake righteousness.

Politicians and officials and business leaders don’t want to talk to the press, subjecting themselves to the possibility of being made to look bad; they do it because they have always felt they had no choice.

Because you guys don’t tell the truth. You twist reality to suit your whims.  You’re the masters of “so what you are saying is (insert complete nonsense here)” and fucking over whoever you want with near total impunity.  You’re utterly fucking useless and getting worse at an accelerating rate. Just when America thinks you can’t get any lower, you keep digging.

I do however love how you keep saying “politicians” like we’re gullible enough to think that you treat them all the same. The only democrats you bring the heat on are the ones who have strayed from the narrative and need to be punished, or the ones who have used up their usefulness who can be safely tossed under the bus. The rest of the democrats you cover for the most flagrant crimes so hard it would make Joseph Goebbels blush.

Not that the republicans don’t suck too, but we’ve all seen how you only praise them when they’re convenient to your goals, but then trash them when they’re not. Like squishy Mitt Romney is a principled statesman when he’s screwing over his fellow republicans, but he was a woman and dog hating maniac who was gonna put us all back in chains right before that. And the problem is that republicans like that are gullible enough to keep kissing your ass in the hopes that the media will say nice things about them.  

They felt that way because papers like the Post could offer the carrot of great exposure to those who needed it, but also, always, the stick of negative coverage to those who spurned it.

So the Post is basically a mafia guy standing in your business saying “it’s a real nice place you’ve got here, it’d be a real shame if something bad were to happen to it”. And then if you don’t pay your protection, they trash your place. Accurate.

There is nothing devious or ignoble about this; a powerful press, for all its flaws, is good for democracy, and tends to promote equality by holding the big shots in check.

That assumes you are doing your actual job and telling the public the truth. Instead, you do the opposite. Your propaganda isn’t helping democracy, it’s destroying it. Or as would be revealed a few months after this mealy-mouthed article was written, they were “fortifying” democracy.

The denial of “devious” is interesting, because you fucks are like the dictionary definition. You’re slanted and biased on your best day. On your worst you’re outright liars. You hammer some points while ignoring the ones that make your chosen look bad. And in an article talking about how it sucks you don’t get to bully as many people as you used to, you’ve got the fucking audacity to say that it’s not “devious”?

Anyone who has ever negotiated to land a contentious interview with a famous person knows that you only get those interviews when your subject fears what will happen if they don’t do the interview.

I can confirm this is true, and I’m only a little bit famous. When I’ve done interviews with the mainstream lefty media about a controversial subject it was only because I knew if I didn’t they’d just publish whatever bullshit they felt like. I felt like I needed to get my side out there. So then I’d do an hour-long interview so that they could still get everything ass backwards, quote one sentence from me and ten from my detractors parroting whatever the agreed upon lefty narrative was. So that was fucking useful.

Today, that fear is disappearing.

Fantastic. Only bullies want people to live in fear. You corrupt losers shouldn’t be feared, you should be mocked. Most of you are shit tier writers and your hot takes are vapid nonsense. The sooner you end up bankrupt and unemployed the sooner your rotting institutions can be replaced by actual journalists.

We all need to figure out what to do about that. 

Maybe you could try telling the truth? Maybe you could investigate and expose issues regardless of political affiliation? Maybe if you did this for a while you could earn the public’s trust, and then you would actually matter again.

Naw. That sounds like work.

Trump’s incredible accumulation of power in the face of countless well-documented scandal stories is a proof of concept that will surely be used by smarter characters in the future.

Here’s a perfect example and our intrepid reporter is too dense or dishonest to grasp. All the public hears for years is Trump, Trump, Trump, even though while he wrote this there was a scandal story involving Joe Biden accumulating piles of bribe money through his family. Places like WaPo actively squashed the story, while BigTech labeled everything about it Fake News and kicked independent journalists off the internet. A couple of months later when it could no longer sway an election it magically turned into Real News, but our remarkably incurious mainstream reporters are happy to let it languish in obscurity.  

The Washington Post and its competitors—the elite level of national news,

Lol

the places that have traditionally set the agenda—

The fact you think that’s a good thing is telling. Your job is to report. Not to “set agendas”.

are the most vulnerable to this shift.

That’s because you’re only valuable if the public trusts you. But in your obvious public fellating of the DNC you threw that away. You’re only useful to the cabal of elitists when you can produce results. As you slide into irrelevance they’ll just use Big Tech instead, and you have no one to blame but yourself.

They are the relatively small portion of the media that is able to command both access and editorial independence.

Seeing the boot licking WaPo bark about “independence” while actual independent journalists routinely get deplatformed and demonetized is amusing. You can tell what they fear by who they try to silence.  

Politicians feel that they must deal with the Post, but the Post still feels like it can say what it wants, critical or otherwise.

We all know that’s a lie. I feel like I’m getting repetitive in my Fisking here, but that’s because this article is basically the reporter whining about the same points over and over again.

That state of affairs, which has been taken for granted for decades, is evaporating. 

You saying that actually gives me a little bit of hope for America. You took it for granted. The public got wise to your scam. You coasted on the rep of your predecessors, thinking that you could milk that goodwill while you blatantly covered for your friends. Except the well is dry, asshole.

Donald Trump, unfortunately, looms large in this.

That’s because he lives rent free in your heads.

His imperviousness to the usual blows from the press was evident five years ago.

The single best thing Trump did was show half the country that the only way to deal with you dishonest twerps is to say damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. We all know that you’re just going to lie and make shit up no matter what, so we might as well just get it over with. If nobody believes you, why should we care what you say about us?

Now, insert obligatory Orange Man Bad story here:

(One of my colleagues at Gawker got so exasperated with Ted Cruz’s accusation that the media was sitting on secret Trump scandals during the Republican primary that, in 2016, he wrote a story listing the many scandalous Trump stories we had already published—to no effect—with the headline, “Ted Cruz, Please Help Us, We Have No Idea How to Stop Donald Trump.”) It turns out that being utterly shameless and muttering the words “Fake News” nonstop, while having an entire right-wing media ecosystem amplify your message, really works. Trump himself, a pure creature of the New York tabloids, is too vain and dumb to realize that he could probably ignore the normal elite press altogether. But his incredible accumulation of power in the face of countless well-documented scandal stories in the Post and the New York Times and elsewhere—stories that would have brought down earlier presidents—is a proof of concept that will surely be used by smarter characters in the future. 

I’m pretty sure this editor stuck that utterly pointless and boring story in because they have a word count requirement of Orange Man Bad for every single thing they’ve written for the last four years. These goofy bastards still haven’t realized that Trump isn’t the disease, he was a symptom.

Our intrepid reporter also left out the part about how the media gave Trump insane amounts more coverage than the other republican candidates during the primary because they were dumb enough to think that Trump would be the easiest one for their anointed Saint Hillary (She Who Was Without Scandal) to beat. How’d that work out for you dorks?

The question for the Post is: What are you gonna do about it?

Learn to code.

When the fear that was instilled in generations of politicians by Watergate wears off,

Will you morons ever quit fapping to Watergate? That was almost 50 years ago. During the ensuing decades you’ve managed to ignore a bunch of democrat scandals that are way fucking worse, and you quisling fucksticks are still patting yourselves on the back for exposing Watergate? You say Watergate, and America says “what have you done for me lately?” The answer is NOTHING.

You are pathetic.

 and the federal government becomes ever more populated by officials who have discovered that no matter how meticulous David Fahrenthold’s reporting is, it won’t move the needle that much on entrenched public opinion?

Unfortunately for you, your credibility is ruined. Half the country knows you’re perpetually full of shit. The other half knows too, but they pretend you’re honest because they think your propaganda helps their team. The scary part is even when you occasionally tell the truth, you’ve got such a history of dishonesty that the knee jerk assumption is you’re lying about that too. This country has reached the point where all of the institutions we traditionally trust for information have turned out to be untrustworthy. That’s a recipe for disaster.  

When the full flowering of the social-media age turns even the most prestigious papers into just another mid-sized Facebook page struggling to catch up to the reach of Dan Bongino? 

It already has. You’re just too stupid to realize it.

I must admit I do not know the answer.

You do, you’re just too cowardly to admit it. That would require humility and introspection, traits which are rare among our self-proclaimed intellectual and moral superiors.

Naw. The problem can’t be you. It’s us. We “subjects” are supposed believe whatever you say, and comply with your demands out of fear of your wrathful word.

 All I know is that there is only one way the press maintains its power in society: By metaphorically putting the heads of powerful people on pikes.

Except we all know none of those heads will belong to useful democrats.

Hell, we just had a scandal far worse than Watergate and the result was one fed getting a year of probation. Where were all the heads on pikes, Mr. Big Talk?

We all know who those severed heads will belong to. It’ll be regular people who got out of line. It’ll be the regular dude who questioned a democrat politician. It’ll be the teenager who “smirked”.

You chickenshits give a pass to powerful democrats up to their eyeballs in fraud, bribes, scandals, and corruption, but you’ll fucking crush regular Americans who don’t toe your arbitrary line.

Because you’re bullies, and bullies are cowards.

If the Post and all the other respectable media outlets lose their ability to do that, powerful people will, by extension, stop caring what the well-informed segment of the public thinks.

I don’t even have a funny response to you at this point because as you have self-righteously gone on and on, I’ve become increasingly disgusted. You’re nothing but propaganda shills wearing a rotting corpse, play acting at being reporters.

Democracy dies in dumbness. 

And you’re the one who dug the grave.

I got interviewed by Hollywood in Toto.
The Culture War is Coming For You Whether You Like it Or Not

154 thoughts on “Fisking the WaPo Editor Who Is Sad He Doesn’t Get To Act Like The Mafia Anymore”

  1. “Democracy dies in dumbness.”

    One wonders if WaPo is going to put this mission statement in their paper’s header like they did with the “Democracy dies in darkness” mission statement back in 2017 or whatever.

    1. I laughed so hard at “Democracy dies in darkness” coming from the outfit that spent 8 years saying “Don’t turn on THAT light.” This is the result, and he’s surprised. He’s funnier than a satire site.

    2. }}} “Democracy dies in darkness” mission statement back in 2017 or whatever.

      Yeah, well, they’ve certainly provided plenty of darkness for THAT murder to take place in in the last 6 months.

  2. Is it wrong to want to lick this guy’s tears off his face, Cartman-style? “Oh, Scott… the tears of unfathomable sadness. They’re so yummy and sweet!” If it’s wrong, I don’t want to be right.

    1. I’m more interested in the article he’s whinging about:

      “These were unhealthy conversations and a waste of everyone’s time. Unfortunately, they’re not unique to Tesla, but a standard across the “tech” industry, companies that typically consider themselves above independent scrutiny.”

      Big Tech has arrived and there are no longer enough chairs for the Left’s Authoritarian Triumvirate. Why do they need Media to spin stories re Biden’s Crackhead Son when Tech can simply delete it off the internet, along with anyone dumb enough to link?

      WaPo is realizing they won’t survive the 2nd Purge.

    1. Liberal arts don’t mean left leaning by definition, though it’s popular to say so because so many liberal arts professors lean left these days but consider Victor Davis Hanson, he’s a retired classics professor, for goodness sakes. Arts don’t get much more liberal than that.

      1. Do they even teach the classics anymore? I thought they were removed for being artifacts of oppression created by the cis het white male patriarchy…

        Now please excuse me while I gargle with bourbon to get the taste of that last sentence out of my mouth…

      2. Yep. The concept of “liberal arts” originally had to do with having a well-rounded classical education, and the use of the same word in a political context is coincidental.

        Ideological takeovers are… another matter.

  3. Wow. I actually feel dumber having read his idiotic opinions. “Nobody believes me, boo hoo!” No shit, Sherlock. That generally tends to happen when you tell lies, get caught in the lie, and then double down by telling people not to believe their lying eyes. It’s like that boy who cried wolf story had some sort of moral to it. Who knew?

  4. I remember learning about Watergate in school and thinking, “Wow, that’s NOTHING by today’s standards.”

    1. Lol – plus Woodward and Bernstein did nothing! An insider seeking revenge on Nixon used them and played them with the whole “danger” mystique game to dump dirt on a political opponent. They didn’t develop the source, did no investigation, they were just tools.

      1. And set the pattern for every anonymously sourced story we’ve had to tolerate since then. At least the journalists have realized the game and only push the anonymous sources whose goals align with theirs.

        1. My favorite Anonymous Source was the Important Trump Administration Insider Who You Have All Heard Of Tells All… and then a year later it comes out that he was some junior undersecretary assistant nobody in DHS who literally nobody outside of the beltway had ever heard of.

      2. I visited the Watergate Complex two years after that break-in, and looked at the easily-accessible telephone connecting frames in a typical utility closet. For an AT&T person like me, the Dimocrat HQ phones could have been tapped without anybody noticing, since the terminals already looked like a rat’s nest, and no break-in needed to have happened. If Nixon had not been forced from office, perhaps millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians would not have died at the hands of Communists. While working in D.C. 1991-93, I heard a Dim congresscritter brag that he was the one who cut off aid to South Vietnam; he was proud of it.

        1. Of course, having the basic fieldcraft to tape a door latch vertically, and to “sterilize” your operatives of things like incriminating telephone numbers… or not hiring LARPing idiots to do your dirty work also helps.

          The fun thing about Watergate is not that it happened, but that it was so badly done.

          1. It turned out that one of the ‘plumbers’ was still working for CIA and was reporting to Felt or whoever everything they were doing, which is why the guys were caught. Also the blackmail by the plumbers was reported, and maybe instigated by CIA or felt, to entrap the Nixon administration.

  5. I sent this quote to an associate who is a “reporter” for a midsize state paper a year ago who is concerned about people not believing the MSM anymore and getting their news from other sources.

    As George Orwell wrote about England’s leftist media 70 years ago:

    “a message to English left-wing journalists and intellectuals generally: ‘Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Don’t imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist and then suddenly return to mental decency. Once a whore, always a whore.’ ”

    I also suggested with all of the media layoffs ongoing he get his resume updated or perhaps have a career change and learn to code …….. 🙂

  6. I hate reading your blog, all you do is sugarcoat your opinion and hide among half-measure gobbledygook so that it’s impossible to pin down what you actually mean. /sarcasm

    1. They keep talking about Watergate like it fucking matters now. It’s like Al Bundy never shutting up about the three touchdowns he scored in the big game in high school.

      People in their 40s, with children, weren’t alive when Watergate happened. We are about as far away from Watergate today as the Teapot Dome Scandal was when Watergate happened. It’s absurd.

      1. Watergate happened like 3 years before I was born, and I’m not exactly young anymore.

        Bigger than Watergate but got a pass just recently because it made democrats look bad? Fast & Furious (this one is particularly galling because of how painfully stupid it was), IRS targeting, FISA wiretaps, Hillary’s magical disappearing emails, Crackhead McStripperbang and the endless foreign money faucet, and so many more. Who knows how many we’ve never even heard of because reporters won’t do their fucking jobs.

        1. I was a young adult at the time of Watergate. The coup attempt by the Organs of State Security was worse. The Steal was worse yet.

        2. Fast and Furious got me visited by the U.S. Marshalls in NH because I wrote that I thought they ought to have taken the Az DA who was covering it up out and shoot him. (I still think that, but that criminal is probably a senior member in some Lefty law firm now.)

      2. Eh, I was always sort of in the camp of my elderly mother, whose reaction to Watergate always has been, “So what?”

        In comparison to the last 20 years (and definitely the last 5), Watergate seems hardly newsworthy.

        1. It was very newsworthy for it’s time.

          As kids, my brother and I were trying to earn admission to the Neighborhood Treehouse Club. A dozen kids all trying to beat an Obstacle Course, then a Treasure Hunt on bikes, ending with a Trivia Challenge. “What is Watergate” was the Current Events question.

          We were 9 and 6 years old.

          I’m guessing it made the challenge because that’s what all the older kids were picking up from their parents.

      3. Mike, absolutely this. It’s like Futurama’s use of Nixon. Used to be funny, was one relevant, by the end lost all context and came off as pathetic.

        1. When Nixon passed away in the 90s, Matt Groening wrote one of the most vitriolic, spiteful, unhinged meltdowns of a column I have ever read in my entire life. He could not stand that Nixon had done some good things in his life. He could not stand that there were friends and family who missed Nixon the person, not Nixon the Symbol of All that is evil. It was a chilling glimpse for me into just how far gone the Entertainment Lefties actually are. ????

      4. Well, we’ve clearly been back to Hearst-style yellow journalism for decades now, so maybe they think it’s all cyclical and they’re about due for another big scoop.

        Seriously – I’m not even taking bets on when they’ll whip up a story about some unlucky cruiser blowing up in a foreign port under mysterious circumstances.

        1. Honestly, I think the lie has been that we ever LEFT Hearst-style journalism. They spent, what, from end of WW2 on pretending they were bastions of objective truthful reporting and convincing everyone this was true. They got lazy, and now it’s obvious not only is not true now, it was *never* true!

      5. And Nixon never would have had to resign if he’d done what Reagan later did when Iran-Contra became public: Disavow them.

        But Dick’s first impulse was to be loyal to his people, so he rolled with denial and coverup. And he never internalized knowing about the mics in his office, so he never moved those particular meetings down the hall to a conference room so there’d be no recordings.

        Absent the coverup and the tapes, he’d have still been in office when the NVA tried again to invade South Vietnam, and would have sent the BUFFs and TacAir and ammunition resupply in spite of Teddy Kennedy’s gnashing of teeth, undooming millions.

        And best of all, the WaPo would not have had the head of a sitting President to wave around for the last half century.

        1. Plus we might have had the beginnings of National Health Insurance for better or worse. That was to have been the showpiece of his second term. But the Democrats didn’t want him to accomplish that so thye went after Watergate instead.

  7. You know, the worst part about this is that the person who wrote this piece (I will never call that individual a “reporter”) either believes their own moral superiority 100000%, or this is a snarky hit piece on WaPo the author slid past their editors and nobody’s caught on and this person should win a Nobel for it.

    I’m torn. It feels almost Babylon Bee-esque in its premise.

    1. I’m absolutely convinced that Jesus is the editor in chief at the Bee just so He can sprinkle in prophetic articles that eventually come true.

      Or the left is just that insane.

    2. (I will never call that individual a “reporter”)

      Why not? He has clearly earned the insult several times over.

  8. I have maintained for some time that the most unrealistic thing about Superman in today’s world is that a reporter at a mainstream American news outlet would fight for anything resembling “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.”

      1. You notice that Perry White almost sacked Clarke Kent in Batman Vs Superman? Only reason why he didn’t is Kent disappeared before he could.

    1. In “Superman Returns”, Perry White glossed over “the American way” when he was talking to the Planet’s staffers about stories to write about the return of Supes. “Truth, justice, and all that”, in regards to SM’s post-return political views.

  9. Ironically, propaganda is now described as advocacy journalism. That editors tolerate and encourage this is why they’ve completely destroyed the credibility of their papers, networks and magazines.

  10. “…and on our own status as brave defenders of the public good…”

    Wow. His ability to bend over and give his own taint a thorough ball washing should be the envy of every perv!

      1. The imagery of the above comments make me think of the last line of Ozymandias: ‘Nothing else remains’.

        Soon to be the MSM.

  11. “Because journalism, particularly at the highest level, is about raw power.”

    I love it when people inadvertently tell the truth. You know he’s telling the truth here because he’s adopted the desperate tone of someone who feels his own power, and that of his “profession,” slipping away. This guy reads like Jim Carrey’s character in Bruce Almighty trying to command his soon-to-be-ex, “LOVE MEEEEEEEE!!!”

    “How dare Elon Musk say what he pleases without our guiding hand!” said the journalist to the person who actually makes something.

    Lacking self-awareness, overdrawn in the self-importance department, and demanding everyone’s attention, any bets on whether this pissant journalist has used the term “narcissist” to deride anyone else?

    1. Heh. The bit that really got me was his horror at the idea of some entrepreneur letting UNFILTERED information out there!!

      Way to really expose journalism, WaPo dumbass…

  12. That writer used “power” and “fear” a lot, demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of his own profession.

    “the stick of negative coverage to those who spurned it.”
    I’m sorry; what? For elected officials, talking to the media is in the job description. For normal people, not so much. This person’s inner totalitarian is barely constrained. It always comes down to coercion with these folks.

  13. The thing about Watergate was (and is) that if Nixon had been a Democrat, or the break-in and bugging had been on behalf of, say, a Kennedy, the press would have laughed it off and buried the story deep. But the press HATED Nixon for some reason (did he tell them he’d had all their mothers and they were the worst lays of his life?) and would have latched onto anything to hurt him.

    1. Actually, Kennedy & LBJ DID break-in & bug their opponents, and the press DID cover it up. Not to mention all the gals grabbed (willingly or no), dirty deals, and other unreported horrible acts.

      They loved JFK, they feared LBJ, but hated Nixon.

  14. To summarize: “It’s just not fair that we don’t have the reach our forefathers did. Companies shouldn’t be allowed to lie directly to you, that’s our job!”

  15. “We all need to figure out what to do about that.”

    What do you mean “we”, journalist? I’m good, brah.

    Though, being someone who provides a net benefit to society, I could recommend that you take a good look at the qualifications section of your resume and maybe fortify your earning potential with a more useful skill.

    Kudos to you, Mr. Correia, for fisking something that is almost unfiskably stupid.

    1. The whole kerfuffle over Cruz tweeting out “I wish that were satire” or some such over a Bee tweet is the funniest thing ever. Especially since the Bee then went and wrote a post about it. Which Cruz retweeted (re-twit?). The “elites” can’t get their head around sarcasm that we’re mocking them.

  16. …the media and its subjects…

    Really, that’s the only phrase that needed mentioning. The one that encompasses the whole glorious flaming dumpster of a train wreck that’s the modern mainstream media. Literally any other word would’ve been better – “our readers”, “the audience”, “the public”, “concerned citizens”, even “the asswipes who pay fifty bucks a year in subscription to receive our bullshit”; literally anything else. But “subjects”!?! “Subjects”!??!@#$!??! In both the fifty years of communist rule here, and the thirty plus years of corrupt fuckery that followed, no media has allowed itself use that word. None. The piss-yellow rags who live on gossip, hearsay and fabricated scandals are more respectful. But Fancypants McPussyhat here is clearly above us mere proles, and bravely fights for the privilege to put us all in our place…

    I gotta be blunt here – in many places, dem would be fightin’ words. Entire editorials have been burned down for less. Here, people routinely get trashed, in more ways than one, for insulting the wrong politician or, er, esteemed businessman. In France, people were massacred over caricatures that were made with greater self-awareness and risk-acknowledgment.

    I do hope it stays a “point at the dumb newsguy and laugh” matter. I do hope that no one takes him seriously, certainly not seriously enough to have a “Je Suis WaPo” moment any time soon. I do hope the pathetic pencilneck who splattered his rancid ink pouch to produce this abortion of the written word gets fired, and that the shambling corpse of a newspaper that allowed it gets cremated with extreme prejudice, but strictly in the figurative, metaphorical sense. Because otherwise, you’re gonna see some shit that the western world has last seen back when frilly white collars were in vogue… or as we in the eastern world call it, “a slow news month”.

      1. Yeah, you’re probably right. Still, it’s nice to vent every now and then. 🙂

        That said, the further talk of setting the agenda, of fear and shifting of power etc., doesn’t lend itself to a much different conclusion. The idea that the media works through fear, that it can and implicitly should have inherent power over both public figures and private citizens, and that it’s a cause for lamentation that the tables can be turned – that’s not a sign of self-awareness and humility. “Who watches the watchmen” is hardly a novel concept, and it’s precisely the people who evidently think it doesn’t apply to them, that wreak the worst havoc in the long run.

        1. And there’s a significant mindset difference going on. One group believes that the right people can be trusted with a monopoly on power, because they are enlightened enough to use it for good ends.

          The other believes that power corrupts, and the best course of action is to split it up and break it up and keep it from becoming too concentrated.

          The propagandist quoted is of the former group, and is unhappy to see his monopoly on information disappear.
          Others, myself included, see this as a good thing. Any monopoly, whether on business, information, or force, inevitably becomes tyrannical.

  17. Loved every minute of Larry taking this pathetic progressive tool to the wood shed. Amazingly enjoyable, thank you!

  18. When Musk can say whatever he wants to 40 million Twitter followers at any time with no filter
    …….with no filter?
    How dare that man not be forced to subject his words to our filtering process that totally never misqoutes anyone when we edit things to prove how correct we are!!!!!

    Is kinda how I read that.

    1. This is precisely why Trump’s Twitter account had to be taken away as soon as they felt it was safe to do so.

      They have sworn blood oaths to make sure no one who represents the people he did may ever hold power again.

  19. I will wait with great anticipation to use the jab, “self-licking ice cream cone”, at the next opportunity I can grab. I laughed harder at that than at Crackhead McStripperbang.

  20. I have a cousin who has been a journalist for several decades now. I love her as family and enjoy seeing her during the family reunions.

    But people like the two legged wank stain up above are the reason that if I ever had to deal with her in a professional manner, I would treat her as the enemy until our business was done.

  21. I’m still stuck on how this jackass called American citizens…”subjects”. Right there are the MSM/DNC beliefs boiled down to one word.

  22. My wife was newspaper reporter with a journalism degree when we dated. I was/am law enforcement. She was the only reporter the police would talk to because she told the truth. Even when she went after the local prosecutor the guys were helping her out because she was honest. She got out before we got married, best move ever.

      1. Trump got into the White House with zero filter between his brain and his mouth. Or his brain and his thumbs, for that matter.

        Seems like a growing portion of the American electorate would rather know exactly what is going on in a politician’s head than hear pretty-sounding lies. You are more eligible than you think.

      2. I’m testing that theory on 9 March here in the Granite State.

        Wasn’t even my idea. I had people ask me to run. But I’m too much of a patriot to say no.

  23. I especially liked that last little bit about the “well-informed” members of the public, I’m sure we all know exactly to whom he’s referring. It reminds me of Mazie Hirono’s statement on the need for Democrats to keep things simple for the voters because they sometimes forget that they’re just so gosh-darn much smarter than the voters that they sometimes wind up talking over the voter’s heads.

    1. I’ve had things forgotten in the fridge that are smarter that dipshit. Hawaii really needs to get reminded that the only reason they’re a state is that the navy wanted a gas station.

  24. So long as democracy dies, I don’t care if it’s in light or darkness. I just prefer it to die screaming in agony, and for a long, long time.

  25. Watergate.
    .
    The amazing part about Watergate was .. before that, the best a reporter could hope for was to become .. an editor? a columnist?
    .
    Now, once Woodward and Bernstein proved they could get famous, rich, and damn near deified … every cub reporter (oh, sorry, every junior member of the Juicebox Mafia .. every newly minted J-Skool mush-brained incompetent) think they’re in it “to be like those guys”.
    .
    Two generations .. 50 years .. and yeah, it’s getting worse.
    .
    Woodward and Bernstein belong in the “special hell” .. the one for people who destroy a pillar of society.
    .
    Mew

      1. Read a bibliography on Nixon (pre-Watergate). Man actually did a lot more good than bad. Yeah, he got a bit too big for his britches and underestimated the opposition. He did get us out of the Vietnam rat race that Congress wouldn’t let us win, ended the draft, established the EPA which actually did some good before they succumbed to Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracies, and supported the Apollo program which won us the Space Race. And he was a leading anti-Communist in the years he was in Congress and Ike’s VP.

  26. As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth’s final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

    Commissioner Pravin Lal
    “U.N. Declaration of Rights”

  27. Epic Fisk in the LC style. Nice.

    I always hear these bleats I went to the right schools, hobnobbed with the right people and wah! no one will listen to me. I’m not important.

    Good. As our host said, you suck.

  28. Posted this earlier:

    Today in history, Feb 15, 1898

    The USS Maine blew up in Havana harbor, Cuba, almost immediately the newspaper empire of Joseph Pulitzer sprang into action, misreporting the news, twisting the facts and pushing the United States into a unnecessary war with Spain because “a good war will increase newspaper sales”

    Today the highest award in journalism is the “Pulitzer prize” a award named after the man whose actions caused a war and whose reporting style coined the phrase “yellow journalism” for the wholesale lying and deceit by his papers.

    Reading the news today I see that the reporters have chosen their role model well…..

  29. If Mr. Clueless Megalomaniac Reporter is wondering why the WAPO and other newspapers are being ignored by the Democrats now that they helped elect DeMentia, here is a nice little article from someone who I would consider a Leftie describing why the MSM is becoming irrelevant: The Billionaires are taking over. And the article is basically about ONE billionaire. Think of how many others out there doing the same thing.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/01/29/the-billionaire-takeover-of-civil-society

  30. It’s funny-as-hell-yet-to-the point postings like this fisk of a clueless article, and the commenters here (it helps Larry doesn’t ask for personal info) that keep me coming to this and commenting so often.

    Keep it up, and keep up the good work!

  31. Learn to code?

    Now, that’s just mean. Think of the actual programmers who will have to maintain that code after they get fired for incompetence.

    1. I get why “learn to code” is funny (and it will never stop being funny, not least because these self-important lackwits producing any actual working code is about as likely as a chicken pecking a keyboard producing Shakespeare’s sonnets), but yeah, IRL, I wouldn’t want these guys writing the code that animates the dancing monkey on the website of a shady used car dealer, much less anything that handles my financial transactions or medical care.

      1. But an infinite number of chickens pecking at an infinite number of keyboards WILL produce Shakespearean sonnets! And ‘Moby Dick’ and ‘Stranger In A Strange Land’ and, and…

        So if you only get enough monkeys coders, they WILL produce great code! That’s why more is better!
        ———————————
        Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!

      1. OR those of us who have to decipher that code and try to fix it later. (Dollars to doughnuts they won’t have inserted any remarks or comments for documentation in the code, much less documentation afterwards.)

  32. The most revealing part of this WAPO writing is that this guy, who believes himself and his associates to be so important, so vital to our well-being, could be so blind and stupid as to his real position and effect on our social situation. He’d be delivering pizzas in any place other than where he is at. And he couldn’t hold that job too long. His boss would get tired of dealing with him.

  33. The utter lack of humility and regret and apology is mind-blowing.

    Well, it would be if we weren’t:

    A. Used to it.

    B. Expecting it.

  34. Knew I’d regret it but I simply had to go to the article he linked about the “countless documented scandals” surrounding Trump.

    Found this:

    “God, Ted, we’ve been trying! It’s not like we haven’t tried. Over the past year Gawker has posted:

    The Time Donald Trump’s Ex-Wife Accused Him of Brutally Raping Her

    The Best Theory of 1992: Donald Trump Took Amphetamine-Like Diet Pills

    Does Donald Trump Want to Have Sex With His Daughter?

    Voicemails Reveal Donald Trump’s Cozy Relationship With the Liberal Media

    Donald Trump Spun a 9/11 Conspiracy Scenario So Loony It Ended Up Almost True

    How We Fooled Donald Trump Into Retweeting Benito Mussolini

    Donald Trump Brags About Fucking Another Guy’s Girlfriend in Old Howard Stern Interview”

    Eight, count them eight bullshit posts from Gawker for gosh sake. Now we know what his definition of countless is.
    Its not enough for him to write a lousy piece full of lies, he simply has to provide proof of exactly where he gets his lies from.

  35. This is not the first article I’ve read lately that called citizens “subjects” and I find this extremely disturbing. When one looks at this trend, along with the steps being taken to subvert our military into being willing to attack American citizens by un-personing or defining wrong-think, it points to intentions that scare me to death. We live in very scary times.

  36. But this guy is not even the worst of mainstream media. Remember Sarah Jeong from the NY Times. Said she hated white men. MSM has been actively giving voice to really vile psychopaths for some time. It’s not just one sided favoritism and elitist groupthink. They are also guilty of promoting outright hatred of others. We see that and know they are our enemies. And still, somehow they think we should still worship them?

  37. “The rest of the democrats you cover for the most flagrant crimes so hard it would make Joseph Goebbels blush.”

    That’s not an exaggeration. Goebbels seemed to genuinely believe the people he put in camps were subversive degenerates, FDR literally had multiple sources of evidence (FBI and Naval Intelligence, both of which he suppressed) that the people HE put in camps were completely innocent. He later showed beyond a shadow of a doubt he knew there was never any danger by having actual PoWs replace the labor of Americans he committed crimes against humanity on (also not an exaggeration: the legal definition of Crimes Against Humanity includes mass imprisonment, enslavement and theft of property from the civilian population). He did it purely for his own racist shits and giggles (see his Macon Telegraph articles).

    FDR also loved the Klan, putting one on SCotUS so he could run showtrials . Guess whose still considered a good Democrat (notice they never call to remove him from the dime)?

  38. “When the fear that was instilled in generations of politicians by Watergate wears off,”

    Hey, wasn’t Watergate an attempt at election fraud? Clearly never happened because that never happens.

    1. My understanding is that Watergate happened because the Nixon administration believed the bogus pulls showing McGovern had a chance at victory. I was pretty young at the time (13) but I remember being surprised (and reading about surprise) that the margin of victory in 1972 was so large.

      1. How could that possibly be? After all, the polls only become non-predictive when the Mule, Trump, came into the picture. Before that, polls were always so accurate! Right?

  39. I think this is well done. I wish I could share it but there are many of my religious friends who will see it and instantly shun it because if the swearing. So I have a request/ literary challenge for you…

    Can you be as funny and eloquent without swearing or using terms that will make people blush?

    1. No.
      And I get this request a lot, but the only reason you ever saw this post was because I have a direct and effective writing style that gets shared a lot.
      Also, I am religious too. Tell your religious friends to quit being such wimps.

      1. I sortof agree with Sunny, although the only reason I don’t share your posts is I don’t share anything with anyone. (I only make sure to share everything with all of my friends.)

        I also like your response.

        I put up with your swearing by “bowlderizing” things in my head.

        Come to think of it, one simple solution to this would be to copy the post (with full credit and a link to the original) but with the swearing/blushing terms removed.

        Or even to just share a link with a simple warning about the language.

        But I wouldn’t know if this advice would be effective, because like I said, I only share things with my friends, so I don’t share anything ….

  40. What’s always funny to me is that the media can’t decide if Trump is completely stupid and inept, or is some kind of evil mastermind super genius. One minute he’s Lex Luthor, and the next he’s eating paste off his fingers.

    1. And watching the Gorilla channel! Don’t forget about the Gorilla channel!

      They used to claim that W was as smart as a rock (and he was not particularly smart) and that evil geniuses Rove and Cheney were the true masterminds behind his administration. They couldn’t do that with the Donald, he fired them as soon as they tried to take over his administration.

  41. Learn to Code…epic
    The hypocrisy, puffery and lack of sense of irony is on full display with this one . Endemic to the Leftist Herd

  42. I can only say that the last years have shown the SDL to be our times Cassandra, he told us so but we wouldn´t listen/believe..

  43. between the media and its subjects.
    Personally, I prefer the word citizen.

    I think, in that one instance, he meant “subjects” in its grammatical sense – the subjects of their writing.

    You’re certainly not wrong to assume he means otherwise, though. Especially in this piece!

  44. Their defense is painfully lopsided in that it only protects the left.
    Well, it only protects “right” and “truth”. Because they are religious; they are following their religion. To them the things they believe are absolute truth, no matter what other evidence is offered. Funny how those who tore down Christianity by using the “blind faith” accusation are more blind than the most zealous Christian I’ve ever met.

    Accurate.
    Heh. They’re saying the quiet part out loud. That’s the most amazing part to this – they think the peasants can’t read or something.

    Most of you are shit tier writers
    And I would add “who need editors more than the worst indie e-published author I’ve ever read.”

    too vain and dumb to realize that he could probably ignore the normal elite press altogether.
    Actually…. That was his big schtick – he ignored your professions of “Oh no!” and “He’s terrible!” and instead, he played you like a f***ing Stradivarius!

    countless well-documented scandal stories
    What? Where?! Do you even know what “well-documented” means? It does NOT mean “I have 3 anonymous sources whose provenance I don’t even know, who have provided no actual quotes or evidence to support their BS.” It also does not mean “Provided hearsay that is contradicted by the transcript and the recording.”

    Learn to code.
    Aaaarrrrgggghhh!!!! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
    Please, no! I’m begging you! Go learn to make zippentinis or drive an Uber. PLEASE! Your writing is too awful for me to contemplate having to test the code you write! Coding requires clear logic, the ability to spell and do grammar, and documentation. Dear Lord in Heaven above, do NOT bring your sad inabilities to the software arena!

    David Fahrenthold
    THAT is the guy you’re holding up as “Look how great WaPo journalists are!”? Wow. Dude, you might need one of those supplemental oxygen bottles, ’cause there isn’t enough getting to your brain.

    the Post and all the other respectable media outlets
    Said the madam to her wh***s. I don’t think “respectable” means what you think it means….

  45. I honestly think one of the biggest problems with journalism was changing it from a craft trade learned by working in the news rooms to a college degreed career taught by professors. It turned everything on its head, and your new journalists came in with their head stuffed with pseudo-marxism.

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  48. “Learn to code.” HAH!

    Larry, are you familiar with Heinlein’s first published story*? I’m reminded of how the main character goes up against the entrenched interests of the life-insurance industry, who need to be reminded that no one is guaranteed profits forever.

    This WaPo guy is arguing passionately that, because they once held power, they have a RIGHT to that power. Wrong. They have it if they can keep it. They lost the public trust, which is now ripe for the picking by someone else.

    They can whine if they want… but that only makes us LESS likely to listen to them.

    * For any Correia fans who are not Heinlein readers, the story is “Life-line”, and you can find it in the collection “Expanded Universe”.

  49. The blood of the innocents that have perished at the hands of the WaPo never stains the tablecloths and tuxedos of the media awards dinners.

    The media smile and smile, and yet they are devils.

  50. “… the balance of power between the media and its subjects …”

    As in the media and its ability to arrange the subjects on which it makes grandiose pronouncements, including this article?

    The language speaks for itself.

    “… the carrot … but also, always, the stick …”

    “… the relatively small portion of the media that is able to command

    “… powerful people will, by extension, stop caring …”

    By Jove, you will read this man’s prolific defence of The Divine Right of Journalists or you will pay … and your little dog too! 🙂

    Pity the fool, he doesn’t know that alternate arrangements have been made by those other “subjects” who he depersonalises because it makes him feel better about being rejected by them.

    A wise editor from an earlier time would have snuffed this flame of absurdity before it had a chance to burn the writer himself.

    That’s because the entirety of it is news that should be obvious to everyone, but isn’t obvious to the writer.

    Fight fiercely, Wa-Po, fight, fight, fight! 🙂

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