The Daily Caller, Not A News Organization, Plain & Simple – (TCP)CHICAGO

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Subtitle:

“Naked Agenda – The Daily Caller Is Not NEWS” – The Critical Post/Chi

By Jan O’Toole
London Correspondent for The Critical Post/Chi

–noun

–noun ( usually used with a singular verb )

The facts folks, strictly the facts.

No doubt dear readers, you’ve come to expect our opinion behind the facts and interlaced in our discourse. Most of you know that we disdain and are critical of NEWS organizations posing as same, when in fact they are merely yellow journal blogs, yellow journal newspapers, or NEWS gathering organizations of specific intent, left or right, West or East.

We had not heard of this publication called “The Daily Caller,” we ran across it in a twitter post by one of our (TCP) followers. Last week or so ago, we called out Arianna Huffington for implying an American War Hero was a bigot and to exclude herself as being a newswomen. Today we are calling out a misled young writer for being a biased unwitting twit for The Daily Caller. Yes, we said twit and unwitting is definitely the right description for him. Burn your diploma from whatever school you’ve received it thereof and get your money back. We’ll elucidate in a bit.

When you go to The Daily Caller index page, we find all the code colors of a right wing blog, red, white, and blue – and in this case red being the most used color on the page other than a white background. During the times we visited the page, the ad server panel on the right (no pun intended) was delivering mostly an advertisement which was a call to action to join The Daily Caller and a right wing organization for an event, which has, as of this writing since been discontinued, but there is no doubt to us here at (TCP) that it will show up again. Today’s headline in big bright red letters? “The ACLU’s Untold Stalinist Heritage”  Untold?  Has not anyone there ever read J. Edgar Hoover’s biography?

Take a look at our article about AlterNet, a left wing blog, in which we state that students are not being taught or tasked with too much research because it’s too hard for them. Could there be any doubt in any critical mind that this is another yellow journal blog? How old is the average college idiot that The Daily Caller employs? We don’t know but it appears they’re mostly post bachelor degrees which are far short of masters credits.

Let’s get to their…ahem…reporter.

The young man’s name is:  go look for yourself. This youngster is being called a contributing “reporter” by his biased (our opinion) publishers at The Daily Caller. In the article post we are citing as our source for publishing this opinion he reports, perhaps accurately, that he’s doing his graduate studies. We don’t know what college he attended or where his graduate studies are. We don’t know what year he graduated (we assume it’s most recently, he states he’s twenty three years old, so perhaps last year) or what his primary degree is in. Yet, the lad should feel complimented that we are bothering with him and that my boss is paying me to write this…ahem…yes, perhaps…we might even make him famous (but probably not)…no doubt this chap’s childhood wet dream.

We know here at (TCP) beyond a doubt that American youngsters from this generation are enthralled with celebrity. This cat was born circa 1988 vintage, during the ramp up of the worst onslaught of specious media the planet has ever witnessed. He was reaching High School age at the time of the September 11th event which, again, saw a further ramp up of perhaps, the worst (our opinion) yellow journalistic rhetoric from everywhere publishers, publish!

The solo fact that we are reporting here is, after close inspection of the lads work, and that of  The Daily Caller, is the story of yet another attempt of a blog to legitimize yellow journalism as NEWS.

So let’s get to the facts of the stories, or rather non-stories, this young man actually “reported” – actually there’s two columns: column one published on 27 DEC 2010, and the follow-up,  column two published on 1 JAN 2011.

In column one, first paragraph, he reports that the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) is – “seeking to “inform and sensitize” reporters nationwide about how “offensive” the term “illegal immigrant” is to Latinos.”  He then provides a link to that “report.”  When traveling to where that link leads we find this quote leading the article by the author Leo E. Laurence: “The following article is an opinion piece and does not reflect the views of SPJ, its membership or its Diversity Committee. The committee itself has taken no stand on the use of the phrase” “illegal immigrant.” Then the young man begins his next paragraph with this lead sentence: “In his report, (our italics) Laurence quotes SPJ Diversity Committee chairman George Daniels as saying”…yada yada, etc.

Apparently the young man doesn’t read well enough to remember beyond his first four seconds or less that the “report” is an opinion piece and does not necessarily reflect the views of the SPJ.  So, it’s not a report at all.

Further, in his first column, the young man wishes to take sides with an issue concerning Associated Press’ reporting doctrine which cites that, in this case, the disputed term “illegal immigrant” is a more precise term and is therefore preferred over undocumented worker, illegal alien or illegals. These are things along with others that come from something known as a reporting style-book, and this particular, AP’s style-book. Our opinion, it’s probably more precise to say “a suspected illegal immigrant/alien.”

Parsing the bias of terms alien as being more negative or immigrant as more positive/neutral and less damaging – does get to a different issue – political correctness. Political correctness is an initiative that was well underway by the time this youngster was born. Political correctness goes to the sensitivity issue of the American collective conscience. It’s anti bigotry on steroids and as a direct coercive reaction to the race debate and riots of the fifties, sixties and seventies, along with affirmative action.  We could care less about the liberals being sensitive as political correctness dictates, or the conservatives being sensitive in their fashion. Be that as it may… let’s continue.

He then uses this statement as his fourth paragraph: “Conservative columnist and media personality Michelle Malkin thinks this campaign ((TCP) SPJ affirms to the contrary, so campaign is a falsehood {not very good reporting chap} and deliberate slur, unless both of them cannot read) shows that SPJ is not an objective news source.” He loves his Michelle Malkin, he uses her as a source in his follow-up piece as well, because she’s a conservative media personality. Oh boy… He doesn’t use quotes in the paragraph so we must assume it’s a paraphrase. Will someone tell us where it states in SPJ’s mission statement that says they are a “news source?” Furthermore can someone tell us where SPJ’s mission statement is? The closest thing we can find is that in their branding statement it says “improving and protecting journalism since 1909.”  Ho hum, yawn…ahem…yes, well…

Paragraph six in his “report” is: “Even the Associated Press, which conservatives have critiqued for their use of labeling in the past, recommends using the term” “illegal immigrant.”

Can anyone say, thank you Mr. Editor for your opinion? ((TCP) Did you you just get a raise?) Perhaps (AP) is just the kind of place you should try for an employment option.

Next:

Follow-up piece: The poor fellow laments he will not renew his membership to the SPJ because of his disillusionment with them and continuing in this manner… “When I reported that the Diversity Committee of the Society of Professional Journalists was launching a campaign against using the term “illegal immigrant,” I was disappointed that the role models I looked up to as a 23-year-old reporter were advocating a political position, and using their power of the press to do it.”

“Journalism is supposed to be about telling the truth. ((TCP)Really?) In its code of ethics, SPJ pushes for journalists to “seek truth and report it.” SPJ also says journalists should balance seeking truth with “minimizing harm,” though, and that’s where journalists with liberal beliefs, at least in some circles, go wrong. ((TCP)Do they now?) The “minimize harm” clause is supposed to be “balanced” with the “seek truth and report it” clause of SPJ’s code of ethics, but journalists often will make a case for weakening truth to minimize harm.”

Never mind the fact that when you follow the link to SPJ’s homepage you find this statement: “The views expressed by Leo Laurence in Quill magazine, SPJ’s Diversity Committee blog “Who’s News,” and on subsequent television programs are his personal opinion and do not reflect the views of SPJ nor its Diversity Committee. Contrary to what has been reported, SPJ has not engaged in any initiative to end the use of the term” “illegal immigrant.”

Paragraph three starts: “The SPJ Diversity Committee member I talked to when ‘reporting that story‘ (our quotation marks and italics) Leo Laurence, used the Constitution as the basis for SPJ’s argument,” and yada yada…etc.

Yet, SPJ refutes any attachment or affection for Laurence’s view. We wonder here if the young man can see that egg on his shoes? To his credit for inciting opinion from the public; the blog statement carries with it at the time of this report and opinion, 150 comments attached. But is that really a credit worth getting? A quick perusal of the comments left by his minions would tend a critical thinker to remark he’s done a very good job of stoking the fires of cynicism towards one side or the other of the political franchise spectrum.

The Daily Caller and this lad are remiss at thinking they are reporting anything at all…and that is the point. They are part of the yellow rag crew and deserve not one further ounce of your gracious attentions beyond our criticism of them, unless of course, you, dear reader, would like to join the argument of right and left and continue the divisive antics of the crews called political franchises which have torn this country apart pretty well with a hypocrisy whose very stench bristles our nostrils.

Furthermore, we are bold enough to suggest to this lad that instead of using the word “report” as an appropriate noun for his work that he refrains and rather states more correctly “in my comment” as more fitting and truthful for his purposes until he actually does start reporting facts instead of his opinion as fact or truth. As well, we’ll say quite frankly at very best, the young man’s efforts barely reach the standard of journalism as defined in the #4 definition as cited here-above in the beginning of this dispatch.

Too, we’ll also state our opinion for the record that Michelle Malkin get a better heading than she is presently on. Celebrity is not part of NEWS standard.

Moreover though, the minions at SPJ are probably not any better, if, we are to assume that they are part of the present press corps employed by this current peerage all over our country in any yellow rag they work for. That any of this press corps is outraged about one thing or other when they are most definitely part of the problem is an insult and an outrage itself. We’d all be better off if they were to stop “reporting” in any manner whatsoever and give their keyboards to monkee’s instead!

But our young misled twit at The Daily Caller knows Michelle Malkin – surely that’s his entre’ to fame and fortune. Were he to view this article and talk to Ms. Malkin about it, she’d probably say; you’re on your way kid.

We conclude here with a simple remark – truth and facts are being bent by these so called NEWS organizations and those they employ, in so many ways, a critical mind would have to come to the conclusion and ask a simple question: Who’s truth is it?  Whereas facts?; well those elusive little creatures (shall we say, these days?) they have a stubborn way of hanging around, don’t they?

The problems with facts these days is; they are not in the spotlight.

That is all.

This is Jan O’Toole For The Critical Post/London @08:34 HRS GMT 4 JAN 2011

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