Sunday, March 26, 2006

Expose the Left

I was tooling around and came across this site called Expose the Left. There was an interesting thread that I thought I'd contribute to. Here's what I said...

I know I’m late to the party, but I thought I’d go ahead and toss my two cents in.

In a former life I was a member of the few, elite, real newsmakers. I was a spinner, a fixer, a matchmaker … a PR Rep. The force behind 95% of every news story you read or hear. (mwaw-ha-ha-ha)

Seriously, I can’t watch a newscast or read a story in a mag or paper without seeing the behind-the-scenes, between-the-lines forces.

Here’s the unvarnished truth (‘cause I know you guys can take it!): the vast, vast majority of writers, editors, producers, and reporters are a facinating combination of personality. They have the yearning of artists and performers to be loved and the general laziness and arrogance of the prototypical teenager.

That doesn’t make them bad people or anything like that, but it does make them extremely easy to manipulate. (You’d be amazed how many colomn inches a free dinner with a pretty girl or famous person can buy.)

By the way, it’s true that Lib reporters are easier ‘shape;’ Cons are a slightly different challenge.

The point is that there is a core value in liberals that is different that conservatives. This core value is enormously compatible with being comfortable about the manipulation of people and events to ‘get what you want.’ Conservatives lack this value, on the whole. That is one reason why cons seem to have a chronic inability to maintain a strong presence in the shaping of public opinion: they are unwilling or unable to ‘play the game.’

Here’s the thing: if you want to get a story published or aired, start small, but always present a story package that is 90% done. Always have pictures. Always have a hook (and the story itself is never enough of a hook). And then do it again and again and again. Become a Source. Once you make it to Source status, you have the proverbial keys to the kingdom.

It’s not easy, and it takes time. Years, sometimes. What is best is building relationships with budding journalists just out of school and work to help develop them into media professionals. The sense of loyalty is intoxicating, but if taken seriously, very rewarding.

Liberals have a huge leg-up in terms of indoctrinating the media into a liberal mind-set because of what is taught. (oops, going hot-button-tangent!) But if conervatives recognize that and work effectively within that system, over time we will see the Liberal stranglehold on media loosen considerably. (full credit: it’s happening a teeny-tiny bit right now)

See, it’s not so much about the truth. It’s about controlling the mike and controlling the guy talking into it.

Yikes! I’m sure this all sounds very Orwellian/Machiavellian/Facistic, etc. But, in the words of that guy in the ‘92 movie ‘The Player,’ “That’s reality.”

It’s an interesting strategy that the Conservatives are executing: if you’re not welcome at the cool kids table, change what and where is cool. A bold move that deserves a great deal of credit. The next step in this process is converting the viral media into the mainstream.

I, for one, can’t wait to see what happens next. I think the Libs are in an ideological fight for their lives – and they ain’t doin’ too well.

That being said, Libs have a lot of things going for them: they have 90% of media and media makers, 80% of the colleges and high schools, and about 50% of the electoral votes.

Conservatives need to get busy! Get onto schoolboards, become teachers, have lots of babies, and continue to work every day and on every level to reintroduce an adult sense on responsibility and accountability to the American Media.

It’s all very tiresome and ridiculous, I know. But you gotta do it – like making your kids study math. “Failure” is not an option.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Blogspot Authorization

Geez -- for the first time in a while, I've had stuff to rant a little about. But it's been difficult to log-on to Blogsot. I was not authorized, apparently.

Oh sure, I could have done this-ot-that... but whining about it afterwords is so much easier. (kind of like what our friends did in the pervious post -- snark!)

I really like this blogging-thing. When I had this difficulty, it made me realize that I liked it even more that I thought I did.

It's back now...

Yay :)

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Katrina Briefing Tape Leak

I haven't heard the whole thing -- I admit it.

But...

From what I have heard, this is less of a gotcha for the Prez than it is for the Mayor of N.O. and the Gov of LA.

The thing that first comes to mind is, why didn't the state guys take this storm as seriously as the Fed did?

Some are saying that this is a big problem for the Prez, that it could billow into a full-fledged scandal. Maybe.

I think it shows that the Feds were far more on-the-ball and concerned about this storm than the locals were.

Lastly, I think it's important to say that nothing that anybody could have reasonably done bofore or after the storm would have made one iota of a difference with regards to the crazy-bad damge that was done to the cities hit.

By the way, wasn't there another city/population center hit is MI &/or AL? How did their state officials handle the Katrina? It seems interesting that we never seem to hear much about them.

We'll see what happens...