The Command Post Op-Ed Page

Command Post Speed

Though this might fit better under the Publisher’s Desk, I just wanted to note the speed of Command Post.

It came to mind again today that the Command Post is rather swift when compared to the online arms of the MSM. Granted, their broadcast units are what tip us off many times. However, for those away from a television, but near a computer, often the Command Post will lead with the news prior to the online versions of the MSM outlets.

Several times when I have covered breaking news on the Command Post, our missives led the online news environment. With the selection of today’s pope, we beat Drudge, all the MSM websites, and by far the “Breaking News” emails from the various news outlets. The difficulty has always been finding a link to the news story as you’re reporting it.

In any event, I’m proud to be a small part of the Command Post’s efforts to bring news to its readers, quickly, and correctly.

Cronkite: Picking Rather Was A Poor Choice

This was also published on Joe Gandelman’s website.

If news legend Walter Cronkite is smiling these days it’s probably because he’s finally saying what analysts and various news people have privately said for years: he was not happy being forced to retire and thought Dan Rather was a poor choice to replace him.

That’s putting it bluntly, but if you cut away the nicities, that’s what’s going on right now with Cronkite’s comments to CNN.

As a journalist, I had been told that over the years because invariably the subject of Cronkite’s premature retirment would come up. By network standards Uncle Walter was put out to pasture prematurely — then given very little to do by the network he had served so well and so diligently that he had earned the nickname Old Ironpants for his ability to put in long hours at the anchor seat. It was if they were afraid to use him because it would upstage and upset Rather.

Just look what Cronkite said to CNN...and note how the Washington Post is framing the story: the context in which they place it is a case of what everyone now knows (Cronkite was forced out) suddenly becoming the conventional wisdom as some journalistic nicities melt away:

Just 48 hours before Dan Rather steps down under a cloud as anchor of the CBS newscast he’s helmed for 24 years, the guy he squeezed out said Rather should’ve been replaced years ago.

After nearly a quarter of a century, Walter Cronkite landed the final punch.

While Cronkite has always dismissed the speculation that rising star Rather speeded up his departure from the anchor chair, yesterday afternoon he sure did sound like someone trying to take a few whacks at a guy who had KO‘d him.

Appearing on CNN, Cronkite, who anchored the CBS Evening News from 1962 to ‘81, said CBS News should have given the gig to Bob Schieffer years ago:

“He is, to my mind, the man who, quite frankly, although Dan did a fine job, I would like to have seen him there a long time ago,” Cronkite told Wolf Blitzer.

“He would have given the others a real run for their money.”

POW!!! THWOK!!

All the corporate work over the years to show that Walter Cronkite happily left the anchor seat so he could go sailing and appear once in a while in some minor capacity on CBS has just gone down the drain. CBS didn’t want to lose Rather (who was talking to other networks) so they chose Dan over Walter…and over Roger Mudd who left and found a new low-profile home at PBS.

But it gets MUCH worse for Rather. Cronkite then gave Wolf Blitzer the kind of quote journalists dream about at night:

“Better than Dan Rather would have done?” asked Blitzer, appearing barely able to believe his good fortune to get such a quote out of Cronkite.

“Because [Rather] was perennially in third place in the ratings, behind Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings,” Blitzer added, cueing up the Cronkite Kidney Punching Machine.

“That’s certainly true, and it’s quite a tribute to him that . . . CBS held on to him so long under those circumstances,” Cronkite said, in a swift uppercut to the jaw that you don’t often see landed with such zing by someone his age. “It surprised quite a few people at CBS and elsewhere that, without being able to pull up the ratings beyond third in a three-man field, that they tolerated his being there for so long.”

And the final shot the head:

“So you would have been happier if Bob Schieffer would have replaced Dan Rather a while ago?” Blitzer asked Cronkite to repeat, as if he were afraid he’d wake up and discover it was all just a wonderful dream.

“I would have thought so, certainly, if not Bob someone else.”

The Post also notes that Cronkite dissed Rather in the New Yorker, suggesting his replacement was playing the part of a newsman instead of a serious anchor…and he repeated this thought on CNN:

“I think that there was a general feeling among quite a lot of us around the CBS shop and, indeed, some of the viewers, that Dan gave the impression of playing a role, more than simply trying to deliver the news to the audience. . . . It’s a personality question. I don’t think he was thinking of himself of playing the role, although I don’t know that. But that is the impression that came across. “

Cronkite is VERY PERCEPTIVE:

• There is an intensity about Dan Rather that, depending on how it was channeled, could be good or bad: a feeling that he felt cooped up at the anchor desk and really wanted to be out in the field reporting stories, and felt deeply about certain stories.
  
• There is a feeling that he revels in the idea that he is a newsman, on a major network, covering the big stories and that he can do them better than anyone. Remember: a certain amount of ego is necessary to work in the news business (as in blogging by the way). But you get the feeling that if you took the identity and job status away from him, he would be lost.
  
• He seemed a bit infected with the Geraldo Rivera syndrome. Rivera covers each story as: Rivera is covering this story — look and see how it impacts me and how brave and how much I care. Rather is a more serious newsman than Rivera is (anyone on a network newscast is) but he was not the detatched anchor as Cronkite was. Remember that years ago Rivera was considered an up-and-coming practioner of the “new journalism” before he began a steady descent into Saturday Night Live-type self-parody.
  

Cronkite is sure to be blasted for being honest — and some who will blast him will do so because they don’t like some of his views in recent years — but if they read the CNN transcript and put their own biases aside, they’ll see Cronkite is correct, from a journalistic point of view:

Bob Schieffer is cut from the same journalistic mold as Cronkite. Some people on the right and left don’t like Schieffer because he’s not far enough in their camp — but Schieffer clearly seems to take a deep breath and tries do the best he possibly can to deliver and REMAIN ALOOF FROM the news. The story is never Bob Shieffer covering the news.

Similarly, NBC’s Brian Williams has assumed Tom Brokaw’s old anchor job seamlessly — and he has that aura of credibility that comes from a certain degree of attatchment…and perhaps a feeling communicated to viewers that he believes the world would survive if he wasn’t delivering the news.

Cronkite the Judas? Hardly. Cronkite was betrayed by the powers that be at CBS years ago.

UPDATE: Check out RatherBiased.com on this interview. They also note that Cronkite once said Rather should have been fired for walking off the set during a 1987 broadcast. (RatherBiased.com’s Matthew Sheffield appeared on the MSNBC show “Connected Coast to Coast” Tuesday with hosts Monica Crowley and Ron Reagan to discuss Dan Rather’s retirement from the anchordesk.)

Fake Blogger Admitted to White House Press Corps

Real Bloggers Shafted Again by Clueless Establishment Suits

Drudge says the first “blogger” (his quotation marks AND mine) has been admitted to the White House Press Corps.

Exciting, huh?

Oops, put away the noisemakers and party hats. He’s not a blogger. He’s a corporate tool. Just like Wankette, only without the moronic anal sex jokes.

The “blogger” is Garrett M. Graff, a 23-year-old employee of a company called Mediabistro.com. His official title is “editor.” The “blog” is FishbowlDC, a site decorated with all the little corporate features sites like Yahoo have. A contact email address which doesn’t go to the “blogger.” A disclaimer. A copyright notice. A site map.

The “blog” has no comments, and there are no trackbacks.

Idiots. Real bloggers will never get any recognition as long as establishment hacks continue their incestuous practice of calling corporate sites “blogs.”

Calling this Graff person a blogger is like calling the pimply kid who brings Brit Hume doughnuts a broadcaster.

A blogger pays his own bills. A blogger has comments, if at all possible. A blogger does his own writing or chooses a few friends to help. A blogger has trackbacks. A blogger links to other REAL bloggers, not the mainstream dorks Graff links to.

A blogger is not an “editor.” A blogger does not receive a salary, unless it’s from a corporation he himself formed as a result of making money from a genuine blog. A blogger does not have interns. A blogger—most importantly—has NO ONE to answer to.

Let’s see what happens to little Garrett if he ever goes against the people who pay his bills. Same thing that would happen to Wankette. A quick elevator ride to the sidewalk, and a hastily-chosen successor; probably a receptionist or a janitor with an English degree. New “blogger,” same “blog.” If you’re not essential to your blog’s identity, you are not a blogger. You are what is known in the trade as “a copywriter.”

So the White House has admitted a lowly copywriter to the Press Corps. Wow, what progress we’re making. Meanwhile, if the rest of us showed up, they’d taser us and dump us in the Potomac.

I hope other REAL bloggers will have the brains to realize this is another screw job, instead of taking the bait and burbling, “Ooh, daddy, we’re in the big leagues now!”

A Reader Asks "What About Hersh?"

This from reader GG:

Why isn’t there an active conversation about Hersh leaking the actions of our troops? We had months of outrage over Novak “leaking” the identity of Plame, an agent working in Washington, D.C. Hersh has supposedly just blown the cover on a covert operation taking place in Iran, and I haven’t heard anyone on television or in print complain about the consequences to our soldiers! It seems to me that special forces on a covert mission inside Iran are at a much higher risk than a CIA agent in Washington. Am I missing something here?

Well, is he?

He means Seymour Hersh, whose work has been cited on these pages several times (including here regarding the Office of Special Plans and here regarding Abu Ghraib). The story in question is this one (VOA), in which “controversial Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh says the United States intends to make Iran the next battlefront in the war on terrorism, and has already sent military teams into the country to search for nuclear sites that could be targeted by American bombers.”

See the original New Yorker article here.

Mahmoud Abbas, Liar

Just in case you’re thinking that Mahmoud “Abu Mazen” Abbas is genuine about saying that the armed intifada is a mistake, be sure to check out the following December 1 of Abbas in his office:

I believe that’s the Palestinian flag surrounded by two Fateh party flags.

Among other symbols, the Fateh party emblem contains two rifles on it, crossed above a grenade. Until I see “The Joy of Cooking With Rifles and Grenades” I’m going to assume those are weapons instead of handy kitchen implements.

The talk may change, but the symbols and intent remains the same. And the Mainstream Media is just lapping it up, not bothering to do any in-depth questioning of what they’re willingly propagating down the wire.

Whatever Happened to Richard Thornburgh...

and that other guy? Weren’t they supposed to do some big investigation about something bad, and report back to us within a couple weeks?

It’s been months, seems like. Is there a “Report of Lost Investigation” form or something we should fill out and turn in?

Just askin’.

More From Alan? Is This Bizzaro World??

This is an administrative matter more than anything else: I’ve posted a short Op/Ed piece, but as it’s primarily about matters Command Post, I’ve put it on the Publisher’s Desk.

BUT: As it is opinion, and as the PD is relativley new, I’m cross-linknig it here so (1) more of you see it, and (2) more of you might come to regularly check the Publisher’s Desk, which is where Michele and I post about the Command Post, contests, calls for feedback, etc.

So, if you’re inclined, read Blogs, Exit Polls … And Clarity From The Wall Street Journal on the Publisher’s Desk.

Thanks.

Peggy Noonan Writes About Bloggers

Over at The Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan has chimed in with her list of winners and losers from this election cycle. She considers the elite mainstream media as, “The biggest loser.” Concerning CBS’s “60 Minutes”(Rathergate) as well as The New York Times (Bombgate) episodes, Noonan comments on the Bloggers as follows:

“The yeomen of the blogosphere and AM radio and the Internet took them down. It was to me a great historical development in the history of politics in America. It was Agincourt. It was the yeoman of King Harry taking down the French aristocracy [armored knights on horseback] with new technology [long-bows] and rough guts. God bless the pajama-clad yeomen of America. Some day, when America is hit again, and lines go down, and media are hard to get, these bloggers and site runners and independent Internetters of all sorts will find a way to file, and get their word out, and it will be part of the saving of our country.”

Yes, we jinn have been turned loose from our respective bottles, and it is highly unlikely that Rather, Brokaw, Jennings, Coppel, Time/Warner, or any of the other traditionally left-leaning media (or Rupert Murdoch, for that matter) will be capable of putting us back into them.

Cross Posted From The Education Wonks
Update: Poster #1 was right. I’m still learning, I’ve done what I could.