Monday, 21 March 2011

Hey, This Sauce Is Too Bitter, Says Gander…

Megan Carpentier* on the dastardly right-wingers and their cunning adoption of tried-and-tested left-wing methods:
When I was in graduate school in 2000, a professor once told my class to never put anything in writing that we didn't want to see in the Washington Post. These days, if you work for any potential target of a conservative activist with a video camera and a copy of Final Cut Pro, the rule now appears to be: "Don't say anything that could ever be edited and spliced and put on YouTube to embarrass your organisation, lest you enjoy being humiliated and fired."
Suck it up, love. It’s what left-wing ‘heroes’ like Michael Moore have been doing for the last few years.

Now it’s your turn in the hotseat.
The latest victims of James O'Keefe's notorious brand of activism – joining the ranks of Shirley Sherrod (fired over a Breitbart hatchet job and later vindicated) and CNN reporter Abby Boudreau (targeted by O'Keefe for a sexually-charged takedown before being warned off) – are the now former NPR employees, Ron Schiller and Vivian Schiller (no relation).
Ahhh, victimhood status.
… as with most of O'Keefe's videos to date, releasing selectively edited, embed-friendly clips got him exactly the coverage (and notches on his Flipcam) that he wanted – even as the full footage showed that almost everything he claimed to have discovered was untrue.
Well, not quite.
So, for all the evidence that should lead to the contrary, the great likelihood is that O'Keefe's headline-baiting videos will continue to claim victims. And reporters and editors will vow to learn, and then be unable to resist a good, truthy story – even if it's not the actual, you know, truth. After all, they can always run a correction – without losing their jobs.
My heart bleeds for you. Not.

* All you need to know is that she was, until it entered into bankruptcy, the editor of news and politics at Air America.

10 comments:

  1. Left is the opposite to right21 March 2011 at 12:19

    There is nothing quite like the howling banshees of the left in full flight, full of self-pity and condemnation mixed with snap judgements and a sprinkling of vitriol (er, is this a recipe?)

    And oh the outrage when they think such methods has been applied to them. Selective editing too? Surely not even his royal fatness M Moore does that, right?

    There are only facts on the left, though some are neatly buried, altered, reinterpreted, shaped, spun, and hung out to dry. Bit like this lady, it would seem, by her own words

    Criticism is, by the grand definition of the self-appointed righteous, only to be fired to the right. Yet watch them scatter in a flurry of singed fur when it bounces back...

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  2. Air America?? I thought they were the airline in Vietnam run by the CIA and Mel Gibson. They had a news editor? And she was a lefty? :-)

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  3. The fuzzy-wuzzies don't like it up 'em, Mr Mainwaring, they don't like it up 'em!"
    LITOTR: Another opposite to Right is Wrong.

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  4. There's an example in Colin Powell's book. He spent about 35 minutes with a TV crew. Ten minutes talking, twenty interview, then five of so more of supplementary questions.

    They used twelve seconds on the news.
    bruce

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  5. Air America? Didn't that shut down because of too few listeners?

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  6. Unlike Michael Moore, James O'Keefe actually released the unedited video at the same time as releasing his 'highlights'. This woman seems to have missed the point that if the Schillers were exculpated by the full video, then their downfall is due to their own and NPR's stupidity in not looking at the video before sacking them.

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  7. One more difference between O'Keefe and Fatty Moore is that Moore is, as Tim Blair said, always prepared to stand up to the little guy. Blubberguts' crappy movies are full of him smirking as he torments minimum wage receptionists, security guards and the like.

    At least O'Keefe is targeting actual players, not the janitor.

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  8. My heart bleeds purple piss (as the old saying goes)

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  9. "There are only facts on the left, though some are neatly buried, altered, reinterpreted, shaped, spun, and hung out to dry."

    Yup, it's the massive hypocrisy that annoys me about this. Luckily, a lot of people in the comments thread were of similar mind...

    "Air America?? I thought they were the airline in Vietnam run by the CIA and Mel Gibson."

    I haven't watched that film in a while. Must dig it out...

    "Air America? Didn't that shut down because of too few listeners?"

    Spot on!

    "At least O'Keefe is targeting actual players, not the janitor."

    Good point.

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