Category: R.S. McCain School of Journalism

Robert Stacy McCain: Six Megahit Man

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by Smitty

BAGRAM A.F.B., Afghanistan — Today we passed 6 megahits with a Click Heard Round The World. I’m fairly sure it wasn’t a rocket impact. Or an aircraft cracking up in the distance.

Da-duh, duh duh, da-duh, duh duh. . .

Is it fair to call this blog’s eclectic mix of caffeine, politics, social commentary, nicotine, patriotism, sophomoric humor, spirituality, abrasive gonzo hijinks and news bionic? Maybe not.

Nevertheless, in a world that seems like a test pilot doing an impression of a crumbled beer can rolling through the credits of a 1970’s TV show, the blogosphere has been an essential outlet for me. Wombat, too, I hope. (Get better, man.)

Da-duh, duh duh, da-duh, duh duh. . .

One is motivated by a deep love of liberty and country, which is a bit different than Stacy’s fundamental interest in eating. Our non-approach to a working relationship is an anti-chemistry that manages not to explode despite itself. I flatter myself that I’m a better writer for all this fun.

And then there is the cast of thousands in the blogosphere. Not only do our readers make the blog itself worthwhile, but they restore faith that the country isn’t completely shot. It’s not important that one agree with everyone on everything.

No, we’re just one more unit in the Army of Davids, striving against Socialist odds to answer the Franklin challenge:

“A Republic, if you can keep it.”

And, as an added bonus, corny sound effects:
Da-duh, duh duh, da-duh, duh duh. . .

Previously:

The Blog Post in Which I, Stacy McCain, Defend Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller

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You never expected this day would come and, frankly, neither did I. But Mary Katharine Ham just Tweeted this:

BREAKING: DailyCaller gets story tip, looks into it, decides not to publish. http://bit.ly/ihrWnr Escandalo de hermanos de Koch!

That shortlink is to a Salon story in which Alex Pareene tries to gin up a scandal story based on reports that the Daily Caller tried to . . . uh, gin up a scandal story.

It’s what you’d call a “long run for a short slide,” so I’ll summarize it: Jane Mayer of The New Yorker wrote a story about the Koch brothers’ funding of various free-market operations that have supported the Tea Party movement. Someone sent a tip to Jonathan Strong of the Daily Caller claiming that Mayer had committed plagiarism. He spent a week investigating the allegation, which didn’t pan out. End of story.

That is to say, it would be the end of the story, except that Pareene tries to turn it into something sinister:

According to a knowledgeable source, Tucker Carlson was heard saying that the reason the story needed to go up this week, specifically on Monday or Tuesday, was because the National Magazine Awards submission deadline was on Thursday. Apparently, Carlson wanted to throw the New Yorker into enough of a panic that they wouldn’t submit the Koch story for an Ellie.
If this is true, the Caller story looks a lot more like a political smear campaign than “traditional” reporting.

Whoever Pareene’s “knowledgeable source” is, Tucker Carlson needs to hunt them down and beat them to a bloody pulp. The editorial decision-making process of a news organization is proprietary information.

What you publish is what you publish, and nobody outside the newsroom should ever learn what goes on behind the scenes — the sausage-making process of journalism, as it were — except when the boss decides to make it public. If you’re going to go blabbing newsroom secrets in such a way as to expose your employer to ridicule, you are the lowest form of scum on earth.

Staffers who go telling tales about whose story got spiked, et cetera, are working against the organization that pays their salaries, and such treacherous insubordination cannot be tolerated or it will destroy newsroom morale.

If you’re gonna work for Tucker Carlson, you had best by God be working for Tucker Carlson.

UPDATE: Let me explain a bit about how stories sometimes don’t pan out. In the newspaper business, you get used to dealing with The Nut in the Lobby — somebody who walks in with a crazy story they expect the newspaper to investigate. Some of these people are mentally ill, and some are just “concerned citizen” types. But all of them have seen a few too many TV dramas where “investigative journalists” are portrayed as superhero crusaders for justice. Continue reading The Blog Post in Which I, Stacy McCain, Defend Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller →

Post-Weigel Journalism? Impossible!

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Once David Weigel left the Washington Independent, they were doomed to oblivion:

The crisis in the world of journalism today isn’t really about journalism — it’s about the bottom line. Reporters and editors everywhere are trying to find a way to keep their very good work alive. We thought our model had a chance. It put up a good fight.

Ah, screw you, whiners. And if those losers at Newsweek had been smart enough to hire Dave, they wouldn’t be Tina Brown’s bitches now.

UPDATE: Trying to live down his reputation as the arrogant punk he actually is (NTTAWWT) Weigel gets serious:

The highest-profile examples of non-profit journalism have been investigative reporting hubs . . . which focused on journalism that really was becoming hard to fund privately — investigations that would take weeks to produce news, if they produced any news.

That’s really the trick: If you know anything at all about how investigative journalism actually works, you know that it requires a publisher who is willing to foot the bill while a reporter — or a team of reporters — roots around on a story that may not actually pan out to be anything. Or, as is more often the case, you get one of those long-run-for-a-short-slide affairs: A five-part series that doesn’t really “make a difference,” as they say.

Weigel notes that even basic reporting that used to be commonplace (e.g., when every good-sized daily paper would send a reporter to cover the state legislature when it was in session) has become too much of a financial burden for most newspapers.

I’m grateful that the tip-jar hitters have contributed to the Shoe Leather Fund to cover travel expenses for campaign coverage and other occasional ventures outside the basement.  On the other hand, I’m disappointed that no deep-pocketed right-wing Sugar Daddy has offered to pony up the few hundred thousand bucks that would be needed as start-up funding for the R.S. McCain School of Journalism, where young punks would get advanced instruction in such valuable skills as smoking, cussing and driving like a maniac.

In the meantime, then, hit the freaking tip jar.

Old School in the New Media: Crime, Scandal & Alyssa Milano Lesbian Kiss

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“When I was a kid reporter at the LA Times in the 1960s, some of the veteran photographers and reporters regaled me with tales of how they used to sit in their cars with motors running, radios tuned to the police band, so they could be first on the scene of a gangland slaying or a spouse-stabbing, the bloodier the better. . . .
“There was serious stuff in the papers, too, like Korea and the Cold War and polio vaccine, but much of that was available to everyone and left to the wires to report. The premium, then as now, was on speed.”
— Paul Steiger, Ralph McGill Lecture, Henry Grady School of Journalism, University of Georgia

Thanks to Jack Lail for that useful lecture in a post titled, “Free enterprise just hasn’t been good for journalism.” And I’m afraid the comment by Professor Glenn Reynolds — “Maybe this explains their attitude toward capitalism” — gets the causation exactly backwards.

It is the anti-capitalist attitude that causes the failure of journalism, and not the other way around.

How many journalists have I worked with since 1986 who are no longer working as journalists? Short answer: Lots. Probably even most of them.

Some of them just found other lines of work where they could make more money. Some of them were laid off, victims of mismanaged news organizations. But a lot of them drifted out of an increasingly competitive news environment because they never really had that fire-in-the-belly appetite for competition.

Despite my natural-born laziness, I always understood that news is a business. The newsroom staff is an expense. The revenue comes from advertisers who want the attention of readers. Therefore:

  • The journalist’s value to his employer is directly connected to his contribution to the business of attracting readers.
  • The story is more important than the writer, because the writer is less important than the reader.
  • Advertising will follow the reader.
  • Attracting and satisfying the reader — as the ultimate consumer of the product — is the whole business of journalism.

The stuck-up snobbery of those who don’t appreciate these basic facts of the news business, who feel entitled to a living as a professional journalist because they imagine themselves to be pursuing a calling more noble than the pursuit of profit — well, to hell with all that.

Let ’em join the Peace Corps, if they think journalism is some kind of philanthropic endeavor.

Did you know that this video clip of Alyssa Milano in a lesbian kissing scene has had 1.6 million views? Continue reading Old School in the New Media: Crime, Scandal & Alyssa Milano Lesbian Kiss →

To Go With The ‘Barbi Cam’

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by Smitty

The news of McCain’s taste for front-end venison is of course well known. Slightly less notorious is the ‘Barbie Cam’, a scarred-yet-miraculously-functional bubble gum pink affair similar to this:

The Barbie Cam is rumored to have criss-crossed Europe before falling out of Skippy’s luggage:


That lonely Barbie Cam may soon be joined by an equally snazzy go-kartchariot, tip jar willing:


Stacy is on record as saying that no interviewee can resist the Barbie Cam. The question will then move to whether any interviewee’s composure can resist Stacy pulling up to the interview site in a Hello Kitty Car. In defense of Stacy, more traditional ice breakers are unsuitable for land use.

A Note On The Comment Policy

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by Smitty

As we get down to crunch time on the election, the amount of consideration afforded trolls is going to be essentially none.
Under less serious circumstances, we’re generally happy to go back and forth in the comments with commie degenerates; there is always a possibility of redemption.
However, the next three weeks are not the time, and this blog is not the place for doing anything but supporting the candidates who will save our port-listing ship of state from capsizing.
Nice Venn, you’ve managed to bring down the wrath on yourself. Flagging all of your comments as spam was done without pleasure on my part.
Stacy is in full Gonzo mode and I’m rather tied down at work. Please help us, using the shiny new comment system, but flagging any troll comments–they should drop out of the comments on refresh.
I mean the following in a tongue-in-cheek fashion:

Bloggers: What Not to Do

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There’s some stuff you shouldn’t do if you want to be a blogger, like make an ass out of yourself the way Tommy Christopher did in writing a “column” about the One Nation Rally.

The scare-quotes around “column” are required because Tommy Christopher is such a lousy writer. Once upon a time, when columnists required the investment of ink and paper to get published, you had to be a good writer to become a columnist. Continue reading Bloggers: What Not to Do →

Be Sure To Applaud Stacy McCain For His Taste In Technology

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by Smitty

Longtime readers of this blog will recall that I’ve sort of been along for the ride since the Blogspot days.
Stacy insisted that we should venture into the Wild Wild WordPress West, and there I was, in tow.
Now, after some slight burps over the weekend, we’re bright-eyed, bushy tailed, and have not just a trendy but a truly value-added comment system installed.
Be sure to flex it and tell Stacy what a great idea all of this surely was.