Dear (Un)Professional Media:
Hi.
My name is asiangrrlMN. I am a lefty blogger at the highly-esteemed blog, Angry Black Lady Chronicles. I am not Black or a Lady, but I am definitely Angry, and today? My ire is aimed directly at you. Because, you all fucking suck, first of all. You’re all about your fucking ratings and making sure that you don’t upset the status quo. You will report on shit like the Kardashians (the fact that I even fucking know who they are kills my soul a little bit) and the stupid British wedding (note, we are Americans. We fought against the British purportedly to get away from all this monarchy bullshit*) and all the other mundane bullshit that passes for news these days.
Confession time: I have very little use for you. I don’t watch any news, cable or broadcast, and I read very little old-timey news, either in paper form (none) or on the web (very very little). I read blogs I trust, and when they direct me to the latest chicanery of the day by the MSM, I sometimes click on the link with great reluctance. This means I don’t watch ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, or any other so-called news network. I used to watch Rachel, but I haven’t done that in months, either. I rather imbibe my news by reading about it because I get to control the pace of the information download, and I find TV news to be seriously broken.
That said, I don’t live in a complete vacuum. I know what the MSM is babbling about most days, and my disgust has grown quantum leaps in the past few weeks since Donald Trump declared that he might declare, but he might not. But, at any rate, he’s a smart guy who, you know, is such a success**, and, you know, he’s not sure the president was born in this country.
Stop. Stop right there. This is one of my conversation-stoppers. If someone says s/he isn’t sure whether President Obama was born in this country, that person loses all credibility with me. As a terrorist anchor baby*** myself, I take much exception to this entire line of questioning and to the nerve of people demanding the president produce proof of his birth (beyond the birth certificate he’s already shown). If someone wants to make a ridiculous claim, it’s up to that person to prove his/her claim, not to the person being accused to prove it’s not true–which isn’t fucking possible, anyway. You can’t prove a negative.
And, you, our stupid American media is complicit in all this bullshit by allowing Sarah Palin, Trump, and other leading Republicans to hem and haw over this issue. You actively foster birferism when you have Trump and the others on your fucking news shows spewing their fucking bullshit and you don’t push back on it. Well, just having Trump on your shows is bullshit, but by not saying, “The president showed his birth certificate way back in the day, and it’s legal”, you’re as much to blame as all these batshitcrazy people on the right and the people who are mimicking them to get attention (yes, Donald, I’m looking at you); you do not get to hide behind the cowardly statement of, “We’re presenting both sides” or, “We’re letting the viewer decide for him/herself” or the infuriating, “Both sides do it!” That’s bullshit. You’re goosing the fake controversy to boost your ratings. That’s all this bullshit is.
As for “both sides do it”, BULLFUCKINGSHIT. The best comparison, the truthers on the left, are rightly shunted off into the corners and told to shut up. There is not a Democrat in any high position (of which I am aware) who gives full-throated support to the 9/11 conspiracy theory that W. and his cronies somehow masterminded the fall of the Twin Towers. Frankly, I think it’s bullshit because no fucking way people THAT incompetent could have conspired to pull off something like the attack on 9/11.
Another beef: very few, if any of you have had the guts to say that this birfer bullshit is racism, pure and simple. You know, of the two candidates who ran for president in 2008, one of them was not born in the United States. That person was not Obama–it was McCain. And yet, no one ever questioned his legitimacy to run for president. Why is that? What is it about Obama that drives this idiotology?
He’s black. It’s as simple as that. Whenever he talks, the batshitcrazyrightwingnutters only hear this:
Anyway, I woke up today to Kerri Miller on MPR talking to some journalist about Trump. I thought it was just a general, “Do you think the media is responsible for the Trump circus” bullshit, and the guy’s answer pissed me off. He laughed and said, “Well, you know, it’s our job to jazz things up, but, no, it’s the American people who are mostly responsible. Until we stop demanding news like this, it will keep being reported.” I’m paraphrasing, but that was the gist. I thought he was full of shit with that answer–when I found out why they were talking about that issue today, I nearly lost my damn mind.
Obama released the Kraken? Er, I mean, he released his long form birth certificate? My immediate thought was, “Damn. I wish he hadn’t done that.” Then, as I heard more about what he said in his speech and the response to his announcement, I changed my mind. I’m not mad at him for doing what he did, and I loved the way he excoriated the media in the process. And, really, this is what it was all about. President Obama wasn’t trying to change any minds today. He knows that nothing will satisfy the birfers. He did it to send a message to the media–stop fucking around and do your damn jobs. On one blog I read, someone pointed out that Trump said he would release his financial records when Obama releases his long form. Well, Obama has done the latter, so Trump now has to do the former. In addition, Obama is making a statement–this is ridiculous. We have real things about which to worry–any Republican who doesn’t walk back birferism will be viewed as part of the batshitcrazy.
This leads me back to the media–you assholes are already trying to spin this and say how Obama shouldn’t have couldn’t have should have could have blah-di-blah-blah-blah, and why is he so meeeeeean to us?
Because you fucking deserve it. A purported democracy such as ours cannot survive without a healthy and vibrant press. You’re not it. You’re a bunch of bottom-feeding parasites who would write admiringly about how talented a musician Nero was as he fiddled away. Or, you would bicker about which of his wives was hotter–Claudia or Augusta.
I’m not mad at Obama for releasing his long form. I’m fucking furious, though, that I live in a country that forced him into doing so. I’m livid that our media pushed and pushed this birfer nonsense to get better ratings, and now they’re acting as if their hands are not dirty. The Republicans have to own the birfers, yes, but the media has to own the fact that if they had said right after Obama was elected, “He was born in this country. Here is the evidence” and refused to give any measure to the birfers, it would have stopped right there as a political weapon. Or, if the media had reported on the birfers and put them in context of, “They are fucking insane and racist” every single fucking time, the meme wouldn’t have had nearly the legs it did. But, no. You, the media didn’t do any of that. And now, you are SHOCKED that the president called you to task for not doing your damn jobs.
“It was only four percent of the newshole“, yeah, fuck whatever. Any time spent juicing this non-troversy is too much, and it’s pretty fucking insulting as a POC that the media is trying to weasel its way out of this. The grownup thing**** to do would be for them to say, “Hey, you know what? He’s right. We have a near-depression. Unemployment is still high. We are involved in three wars. There are plenty of REAL fucking issues about which we can report–this manufactured, racist bullshit should have never made it past the first month of Obama’s presidency. Sorry, Obama. Our bad.” But, fuck it. I know you never will because that would mean you’d have to take personal responsibility for what a mind-numbing shithole the newshole has become, and you all are just not willing to go there. And that’s why you will be obsolete in a decade or two. I will be waving my pitchfork triumphantly in the air and laughing my flat ass off when the last one of you is gone.
This video is for you:
Now, if you excuse me, I have to go season eleven billionty pitchforks so I can do some righteous prodding of your hindquarters. Oh, and FUCK YOU!*****
Sincerely,
asiangrrlMN
*Yes, yes, yes, gross oversimplification, so sue me.
**The man went bankrupt more than once running casinos. That doesn’t sound like a success to me.
***Neither of my parents were citizens or permanent residents when I was born in Minnesota. And, you know what? I can still run for president. And I am. Right here.
****Yes, I am well aware of the irony of me calling for a grownup response in this post, thankyewverymuch.
*****Man, I’m glad Lent is over.
Well said.
I think I just singed an eyebrow as the media suddenly combusted. I get mad at how the media make out our left of centre party, especially anytime they gain any traction with the people(with an election next week, the spurious slander is in overdrive), but our media and our nutbars really can’t hold a candle to good old american batshittery
Damned fine righteous rant!
That was amazing and absolutely PERFECT.
You absolutely smashed that shit out of the park.
Sad to say, the media dude did have this part right: “…but, no, it’s the American people who are mostly responsible. Until we stop demanding news like this, it will keep being reported.”
It’s possible now, and has been for some time, to know not only which show someone’s watching, but whether a “block” (the increasingly small spaces between commercials) gains or loses viewers. News directors put on what will increase viewers, because they now have to answer to the ad sales guys, and ad sales revenue is governed by ratings.
“Foreign” news is the biggest switch-generator, with the exception of vapid English royals getting married, which, for some reason, continues to fascinate Americans.
Walt Kelly, draped semiconscious in an alcohol-induced haze across a Saigon bar so very long ago, as reported in John Laurence’s outstanding memoir, The Cat From Hue, had it right when he uttered his famous line “We have met the enemy and they is us!” – which was shortly thereafter immortalized in his comic strip Pogo.
Want less of the drivel? (I know I sure do.) Less viewers will make for less of it. I hate to be overly cynical here, but good luck with that. I think it will continue to get worse.
TGwtP, then they can stop calling themselves the news. If there is no standard of truth for them, they are purely entertainment. I hold the so-called news to a higher standard than other shows. Again, if they are not willing to report facts, then they can DIAF.
Besides, they don’t show EVERYTHING that will juice the ratings–just things that will juice the ratings AND have a conservative bent. They didn’t show the Madison protests which CERTAINLY would have juiced ratings because it didn’t fit in with their agenda of preserving the status quo.
They are infotainment at best, perpetrators of falsehoods at worst. Fuck ‘em with a very rusty pitchfork.
Infotainment, of course. And purely in the business of delivering eyeballs to advertisers.
It’s all ratings-driven. All of it. What brings in the people who buy stuff from the advertisers? That will get the coverage.
Want better news? Get a better class of viewers. I’m dead serious. Somewhere, an ad sales guy has numbers showing that covering left-leaning events doesn’t bring in as many viewers. Bet on that.
Commerce and nothing more.
Sucks to be us, doesn’t it?
Donald Trump has moved on from the “birther” conspiracy to allege President Barack Obama didn’t get good enough grades to warrant entry to Harvard Law School, an assertion that CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer called absurd on the “CBS Evening News” on Wednesday.
“That’s just code for saying he got into law school because he’s black. This is an ugly strain of racism that’s running through this whole thing. We can hope that kind of comes to an end too, but we’ll have to see,” Schieffer said.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20058072-503544.html
As far as I know he’s the first. I really hope he isn’t the last.
BTW Great rant
Good on Schieffer for that.
except the news is supposed to report facts and valid argument, not simply whatever people want to hear or whatever will rile people up. that’s the whole point of the rant–the media just went with whatever would generate ratings throwing out any sense of journalistic responsibility.
Someday Edward R. Murrow will stop rolling over in his grave.
NOT.
I think he’s doing about 750 RPM right about now.
“’Im not mad at Obama for releasing his long form. I’m fucking furious, though, that I live in a country that forced him into doing so. I’m livid that our media pushed and pushed this birfer nonsense to get better ratings, and now they’re acting as if their hands are not dirty.”
Best summation of this shit, ever.
You, of course know I am totally down with the rusty pitchforks…our old friends.
This is a rocking article Minna and I agree with what you write. The only thing that bothers me (as a native) is your use of the word “anchor-baby” on yourself.
You are NOT a Native-born American of European descent. That is what where anchor-babies come from. (IMHO)
Great article. Thanks.
whabs, your bit about the European-ancestored anchor terrorist babies made me snort.
This shit is exactly that:shit. They asked the black man in the White House for his papers. Good thing he had them because if he didn’t , the Secret Service would have been required to take him out back and beat the crap out of him until a white guy came along to vouch for him.
21st Century. USA still as racist as ever. Fuckers. Fucking fuckers. And their kinfolk.
You’re anger is righteous and don’t let anyone tell you it’s not. Feel it and express it, and then it can be your friend to do things to maybe change things. I am sorry you have to experience such purposeful and callous alienation in your own country. We have a country with both it’s share of beauty and ugly, mean and nice, and all the other human characteristics of the human animal. I suppose it is why we call ourselves a melting pot, with everything in the stew, including the fierce and sometimes malevolent tribal furies of racial tribalism.
I think this country has generally, and slowly, and often grudgingly embraced the founders vision of the equality thing. And it seems, and is unfair, that citizens of color and other differences, have to fight for what are rights under our laws. Sometimes spilling our own blood in large amounts. It is an ebb and flow, fumbling toward a more perfect union, and right now we are experiencing a bottleneck of fear and loathing from the majority race of white, that senses something of value slipping away from them for the very reason of what the founders intended. And they don’t know what to do about it.
Loss of power provokes some folks to go crazy, and the prospect of losing more and at the colorblind alter of equal protection and status regardless of race, religion and all the other things people retreat into the familiar from, contributes even more crazy. It is not the first time this country has faced itself in the mirror of it’s own creed of tolerance, and found itself wanting. Likely won’t be the last either.
BTW. that pitchfork looks quite sharp, and rusty. :)
Thank you for this. You said it perfectly. I’m so proud to share this webspace with you.
I’m sorry you feel this way. I can understand why you do, but don’t hold your hatred out for all journalists. Some of us actually report “important” news … at least I do. While beat reporting about a suburb of 80,000 isn’t exactly considered sexy in my ranks, I can at least take gratitude in conveying information on events (like the likely closure of a public library)that affects people’s lives more so than some Jersey Shore a**hole or some billionaire with bad hair.
I don’t consider beat journalism on par with the MSM, Bonnie. I think we would be better off with less sensational media and more of what you do.
I certainly don’t feel as asiangrrl does about ALL journalists. It’s the talking head punditocracy that is most to blame, IMO. There are journalists, like you and Joy Reid at thereidreport.com who take their jobs seriously and, as you said, report on news that actually is important and impacts people’s lives.
It is folks like you that are better than every last scum-sucking “journalist” on Fox News.
Thanks for what you do and thank you for commenting!
Best to find a new name for what you do. Journalism has been dragged through the mud that it will never be free of the baggage of ratings and pandering of infotainment. Maybe u can take the name back? Maybe take over the ‘whistleblower’ word and use it for yourself.
Thank you so much for this. I’ve been furious the whole day. At Trump, at the media, at the birthers, at the GOP, at the Tea Pary. All of whom, every single one, have failed to accept, apologize and move one.
On teh Twitter today, someone posted NBC’s phone number and said they were still answering. I took the time to call and demand the cancellation of Trump and removal of Pat Buchanan (figured if I was going for one might as well shoot for both) from their stations.
Taitz, Trump, Tea Party and the rest of them have brought shame upon this country with their racist bullpucky.
Aaargghhh! Uuurrgghh! grumble, mumble
Damned fine rant, and the whole thing should be tattooed on the foreheads of the entire staff at Faux Newz, Diet Faux (CNN), and the rest of the media enablers.
As for the bobbleheads who are ONLY NOW SAYING that this sh*t is racist, Chris Rock had some words of wisdom for you: What you want, a cookie? You’re SUPPOSED to acknowledge the obvious truth!
Great rant. I know you don’t watch Rachel Maddow anymore, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen her completely lose it on air. She could not stop herself from repeating variations of “Why is the mainstream media reporting on the birther movement?” for a good ten minutes on her show last night. This was beyond her usual rhetoric of repetition and variation; she was downright looping her sound-bites verbatim by the end. It was kind of scary to see someone usually so clever in her public speaking be at a loss for words beyond “wtf?” We’re now at the point of breaking journalists who usually call out this crap before it even becomes a daily news story.
Thanks a lot, Mr. Trump. I look forward to seeing the official documentation of every time your company filed for bankruptcy so America can get a good look at how you plan to fix the economy. Because if you are elected president on the “Obama was a bad student and might not have been born in America” platform you’re campaigning on, you don’t have a higher government power to fall back out to bail you out and grant you amnesty for screwing up the budget beyond repair.
Such a long and thorough rant, with each and every paragraph conveying an appropriate message to the media: “Fuck you. You suck.”
You know, everything about this is such an appropriate response to what we’ve seen from the media (except Bob Schieffer and Lawrence O’Donnell). Seriously. Each one of the fuckers who enabled Trump IN ANY WAY needs to receive a copy of this, exactly as it’s written.
Thanks, asiangrrlMN. This was perfect.
Thanks, all. I REALLY needed to get that off my chest, and I am SO glad Lent is over.
Thanks for all you do, AsianLady.
You’ve got my vote.
Well said.
This is appalling, no matter how you look at it. Yes, SOME Americans love the drivel that the lazy news media present. But that’s no excuse. These same lazy news outlets avoid passing on many other ridiculous conspiracy theories. Example: the cable network shows on UFOs/Bigfoot/Haunted houses, etc.. The same ‘journalists’ that repeat this racist crap without analysis or commentary are the first in line to blame their viewers. It’s so easy to pass the buck, rather than take even the smallest responsibility.
So, I join with you in saying to the big media: Fuck you!
Just to go a bit further into what I’d said above…
I’ve had contact with the media, on both sides of it in fact. It is all about delivering viewers to advertisers, and that’s its great shame.
Back when CBS was CBS, news was a public service. Once it became a revenue generator, as a longtime ex-newsie friend of mine put it, it went from “spare no expense to get the story” to “no expense to get the story”, and from “get it right and hope you’re first” to “get it first and hope you’re right”.
And of course, local went with “if it bleeds it leads” as their watchwords.
My ex-CBS’er pal went from shooting 16mm in Vietnam to all sorts of other things, including Paris bureau chief and CBS Sunday Morning field producer. After a change in networks, and many more trips to war zones from Bangladesh to Gulf War 1, do you know what finally caused him to give up on the networks? The OJ trial. He became disgusted enough to go live a quiet life in rural America, and hasn’t really looked back. Tells some good stories, though.
Seriously, unless people stop watching the crap they shovel out on a regular basis, they’ll keep shoveling it.
I also, in a bit of a roundabout way, blame Ted Turner. CNN was a great idea – until the reality of having to fill a 24-hour newshole hit. I’ve seen entire programming blocks repeated, and “filler” become, well, the filler. When a quake hits Japan or tornadoes tear the hell out of the southern states, there’s nobody I’d rather have than CNN. When there’s no news, and it’s all Blitzer all the time, not so much. And there’s not enough breaking news to keep Wolfie off the air. (Not that I mind that from another perspective – “news” is rarely good news.)
Today, they’re wall-to-wall with the royal wedding. WTF? This is America – we don’t have a king, well, except for B.B., and he’s getting old.
So yes, TV news sucks, and it sucks not because it’s news, but because it’s TV.
Not to mention the double standard when they thought Arnold Schwarzenegger might run for president on the GOP ticket. But then again, he was born in Austria. Draw your own conclusions.
A delightful post, but overlong. Reading it the eyes tend to glaze over – and in this state might miss some of the most enduring nuggets. Bear in mind that judges award ten points for each bull’s-eye, which require ten hits in the outer circle to match. I recommend fewer hits, but tighter groupings.