Journo Jibes And Blankley Blather

If anyone out there still has any doubts about how thoroughly our corporate media has been infiltrated and practically consumed by neocon simpatico propagandists, I have only to present this item.

Editor and Publisher is, for anyone unfamiliar with them, a publication about trends, developments and news overall about the news business itself (and that goes for its online presence also, of course). And the story I linked to above is something I expected to see at any freeper site you can think of, not a place that usually offers high quality reporting.

See, Tony Blankley, the editorial page editor of the Washington Times (a right-wing PR factory usually masquerading as s newspaper) is leaving his post to take up space elsewhere for what is quite probably too much money for his minimal ability (and if you guessed that he will now be paid by The Heritage Foundation, pat yourself on the back).

And as he departs, he offered some advice to editorial writers, telling them to not be so "fudgy" in their writing, and he also conjurs up the usual demagoguery that they are supposed elitists, noting that, “the danger of a strong academic background (in editorial writing) is that our writing becomes academic.”

In so many words, Tony Blankley has about as much of a right to offer advice about editorial commentary as I do about nuclear physics.

This links to a Media Matters post about how Blankley couldn’t make up his mind on whether Joe Biden’s clueless characterization about Barack Obama (“articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy”; again, I think there was no malice at all in what Biden said, but his inadvertent implication was awful) received too little or not enough media coverage.

This tells us that Blankley reported that Newt Gingrich’s Contract On America during those supposedly awful Clinton years was considered under open rules, though at least five bills were considered under “modified closed” rules instead.

This tells us about Blankley’s preposterous charge of a Clinton vendetta in a Gingrich tax probe (Blankley was Gingrich’s former press secretary, by the way).

This tells us how Blankley defended former Virginia Repug Senator George Felix Allen during the “macaca” controversy last year, saying “in Italian, it means a clown,” even though Allen never used that defense.

And this tells us that Blankley has charged that Democrats believe in "water torture" for Dubya (actually, who’s to say that might not result in an improvement – snark).

I could provide a lot of other examples of Blankley's cluelessness, but this should suffice for now.

And in conclusion, I offer this from the Editor and Publisher article…

Blankley also said simply giving a straight opinion is sometimes missing from many opinion pages: “They have got to be honest and sharp in their language. Not rude, but reach a conclusion. So many editorials work their way around and do not get to the point.”

OK, Tony, how’s this then?

You’re an utterly misinformed, demagogic, loud-mouthed shill for your corporate betters. You have no editorial talent at all, and you deserve no place whatsoever in any reputable news organization.

Is that “honest and sharp” enough for you?