The White House Needs A Babysitter

Obama aides say they can't rely on reporters to referee public debates.

That is the caption next to picture contained in a Time story about how the White House is vowing to fight back at the news media. Take that to mean one news outlet in particular: Fox. Chris Wallace was right when a couple of weeks ago he described this administration as the biggest bunch of crybabies he has seen in 30 years of covering Washington politics and presidents.

I have no idea who they intend to strike out at, other than Fox News and, of course, conservative bloggers, since 99% of the press is in their pocket. Hell, reading the headlines and the stories they choose to cover or, more importantly, not cover, will be enough evidence to any rational person.

Here we have an administration who is throwing all of our old alliances under the bus in some sort of comical attempt to appear more open and friendly to our enemies, a deluded attempt to make them our friends, while at the same time allowing a very liberal congress to spend this country back to the stone age along with their economic and energy policies ensuring that we stay there.

And they are worried about bad press.

Here's a news flash to both the dinosaur media and the White House office of propaganda: it is not the news media's job to referee. Their job is to report and let the citizens decide. You want a referee, attend a football game. What the White House really wants is the sort of referee you get what one of those pro wrestling matches. You know, the one who always seems to have his back turned when one of the combatants picks up a chair and smacks the other guy, but regains his bearings just in time to count the good guy out.

The Newpaper Fire Sale Begins

Want to buy a newpaper cheap? The fire sale is beginning. However it looks like the market for newspapers is even worse then the housing market. Can we expect a federal bailout?

The company will retain flagship newspapers in Dayton, Ohio, Palm Beach, Fla.; and Atlanta -- including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- but sell dozens of daily and weekly newspapers in Colorado, North Carolina and Texas.

There just doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in buying newspapers.

Several other media companies have recently announced the sale of newspaper properties, including Copley Press Inc., which is selling the San Diego Union-Tribune, and Landmark Communications, which is offering for sale regional newspapers in North Carolina and Virginia.
Outside the recent $650 million sale of Newsday in New York, little else is selling. News Corp., which bought Dow Jones, recently took Dow's Ottaway chain of small newspapers off the selling block after more than six months on the market.

Well folks it is more important then ever for the internet to start building a network of reporters and not just a network of commentators and pundits who criticize the old print media. Soon there won't be a print media to criticize.

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