Tuesday 27 April 2010

Post Of The Month

This month, we have Anna Raccoon’s post on catching a local newspaper behaving badly, which is a superb reminder of just why the establishment hates bloggers.

And why they are right to fear them.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry. You're normally within the ballpark of sensible but this is just retarded. A so-called libertarian who makes 100% of his income by suckling the state teat is pissed off with another private enterprise (which I imagine makes almost 0% from the state) for printing the truth. Maybe he should send his private police force round to explain why all drugs must be legalised now! You couldn't make it up.

JuliaM said...

I saw your comment and thought I must have accidentally linked to the wrong piece.

So I checked, and I hadn't. So I have to ask - what, precisely, is wrong with Anna's post or conclusions?

And where does 'the truth' feature in that journalist's initial article?

Anonymous said...

I'm mystified at your mystification. Perhaps, like Ms Raccoon, you don't understand libertarianism and require a fuller explanation...which I'll now give.

(For reasons of brevity I'll abbreviate "fuck off, it's none of your business" to "FOINOYB".)

1. Ms Racccoon is initiating aggression against the Sutton and Cheam Guardian (SACG). Big no-no.

2. Mr Cullip is the "injured" party. FOINOYB.

3. Mr Cullip isn't really injured. As a good libertarian he should FOINOHB.

4. Mr Cullip makes his "living" operating a "fleet of 55 passenger transport vehicles, specialising in wheelchair accessible transport for children with special needs and vulnerable adults." These will all be paid for by the NHS or council. In a libertarian utopia neither would exist/pay for such services.

5. Ms Raccoon seems to be taking an interest in voting/political action. FOINOYB.

6. Ms Raccoon implies she's not living in the UK. FOINOYB-squared.

7. In para. 6 Ms Raccoon belittles the institution of marriage. In para. 14 we discover Mr Cullip is married. This is a plea for basic consistency.

8. Ms Raccoon herself confirms that there is "no obligation on newspapers to be fair and balanced in their election coverage." How she can have lived in a state of such innocence while simultaneously being able to buy both the Telegraph and the Guardian is indeed mystifying.

9. Roy Greenslade also gets on his high horse. FOINOYB.

10. SACG is a private company which will live or die by the usefulness and quality of its product, so FOINOYB.

Hope that helps.

JuliaM said...

Ah. Now it all becomes clear.

I'm afraid, anon, I'm not a libertarian, therefore don't approach everything with a copy of the Libertarian Checklist to hand...

I consider Anna's post to have nicely skewered an organ of the media which would lay claim to 'higher standards' to justify it's position in our culture. It's amusing to witness their blustering attempts to conceal and excuse their actions.

And for THAT, she gets my PotM for April...

Jiks said...

Julia,

I too thought AR's post was a great one, she had caught the MSM bang to rights in the act of deliberately smearing an election candidate, then did some what used to be called investigative journalism. This revealed further lies, vested interests, etc.

As to the anonamong troll, God only knows what he's blathering on about...

DJ said...

I'm with Anonymous. I'm getting well hacked off with people who claim Western Civilisation is all, like, one huge statist conspiracy suddenly cite Article 5 Subsection ii Paragraph A of The Reporting And Stuff Regulations 1982 every time their ox get gored.

To be sure there's an accuracy in labelling aspect to it all, with the newspaper definitely guilty of trying to misrepresent this loon, but they're just sleazy frauds - there's no deeper truth here.

The whole point about a free society - really free, as opposed to 'libertarian free'- is that the public is at liberty to ignore politics in general, and extremist headcases in particular.

Libertarianism having utterly failed in the marketplace of ideas, neither newspapers nor anyone has any moral obligation to offer these people a platform to push their despicable ideology. Indeed, it the sign of a healthy society when those who trade in vile hate speech end up marginalising themselves.

Anonymous said...

I'm not a libertarian.

Nor me: nice place; wouldn't want to live there.

Even ignoring the libertarian aspect, the article is poor. Ms Raccoon wants to flag up quality blogging vs lazy MSM, so her first resort is to argue from authority, the authority being Roy Greenslade, a veritable brahmin of the lazy MSM. Her piece is nothing more than a long-winded whine that her pet candidate was made to look silly in the local rag. Diddums.

[anonyJiks,

MSM bang to rights in the act of deliberately smearing an election candidate

You say this as if it's some kind of revelation. You must be of tender years.

revealed further lies, - wrong...

vested interests - true, that coveted seventh place in the Sutton and Cheam election...

etc. - er...

As to the anona - Anna Raccoon isn't her real name, you know...

mong - nice; ever considered a job in the FCO?...

troll - we're having an argument not insulting each other...

God only knows what he's blathering on about... - ah, educated entirely under New Labour.

You may now resume your ritual of beating off to Stephen Fry's tweets.

Stay classy, tit.
]

Jiks said...

*pats the troll on the head*

JuliaM said...

"Libertarianism having utterly failed in the marketplace of ideas..."

Has it really ever been tried, though?

"Her piece is nothing more than a long-winded whine that her pet candidate was made to look silly in the local rag. "

Her piece is surely that it was bad journalism, easily spotted, and poorly defended by the paper.

A real hatchet job is done with skill and panache, leaving the subject with no idea who or what happened, no fingerprints on the 'murder weapon', and no comebacks...