Month: January 2009

L.A. Times Fakes Objectivity, Throws (Liberalism) Long

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Well, enough for my footballese. What I’m getting at is a new twist at the Los Angeles Times after a couple of years of being "in the tank" for Barack Obama. (Go to Google and type in "in the tank," and it will fill in "for Obama" and show you 843,000 results, so the Times is not alone.)

I read somewhere that editors at the Los Angeles rag, er, newspaper would not, so to speak, give Obama a free pass (which they had faithfully done up until about 48 hours ago).

I saw some evidence the past couple of days that they might actually be trying to be more balanced. For instance, a second-tier headline yesterday said, "The cuts by firms such as Caterpillar, GM and Home Depot aren’t like to reverse under a stimulus plan." Of course, the president could be Green, GOP, Libertarian or socialist, and the same conclusion could be drawn.

Today, another drophead notes, "The president wins praise for reaching across the aisle on the stimulus plan, but he sways few Republicans." Of course, the intent here could be to paint the Repubs as intractable and intransigent (how’s that for redunancy?), but I didn’t read the full text of the article to find out. (Like many readers, I stopped at the jump line, too lazy to go digging inside for the remainder of the article.)

We’ll have to wait and see after the media-induced patina of instant greatness wears off Obama how the media will portray the man. So far, it’s been nothing but a gushing love fest, better than the Second Coming for these socialistic pagans in the mainstream media.

Categories: Grammar Sucks

A Federal Bailout for the New York Times?

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The incoming Obama administration is already paying back its union allies with a host of pro-labor laws and a stimulus package that, in its spending aspect, benefits only unions, so why not bail out its propaganda mouthpiece, the New York Times?

The venerable publication is hugely in debt, and when its $400-million line of credit runs out in May, it might be the end. Speculation was rife on CNBC last week that the NYT was set to fold in May.

Actually, though I don’t agree with the paper’s politics (tax high, spend high, deport all Republicans, etc.), I admire the New York Times for its high journalistic standards. But is is cash poor.

Catch this dilemma if you think you have it bad:

"The Times Co. has about $46 million in cash and $1.1 billion in debt as of the end of September. It has a $400 million credit facility that expires in May, $250 million in notes due in 2010 and another $400 million credit facility due in 2011."

Reportedly, ownership is currently seeking a cash infusion from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim (the $60-billion man), who already owns a little over 6 percent of the company.

Here’s the full Wall Street Journal report.

Categories: Grammar Sucks

Outsourcing the News: A Sad Day for Journalism

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I remember when I was studying journalism at the University of Southern California, the editors of the Los Angeles Times would take turns coming over as guest lecturers. The foreign bureau editor, whose name slips me, voiced supreme pride that his newspaper was vigorously staffing every major capital in the world with its own people.

Not anymore. Reality (lack of advertising dollars and huge debt) has caught up to the once-proud (but now I would say haughty) Los Angeles Times.

The parent Tribune Company, according to the Wall Street Journal, is busy cutting a deal with the Washington Post to pay them for all foreign AND national news coverage. All I can say is, "Wow!" That’s going to cost a lot of people at the Times and the Chicago Tribune their livelihoods. Maybe the senior people can bump those below them, but still, "There will be blood," to borrow a movie title.

As I said in my title, this is a sad day for American journalism.

(The Tribune papers are not alone. The New York Daily News has signed onto a service called GlobalPost that uses PART-TIME foreign correspondents who already live in the capitals.)

Categories: Grammar Sucks

‘Ginormous’ Now a Word: Give Me a Break

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The Bubble Economy (i.e., Dot Com, Housing, Oil) has found a new home–in the English language.

A group called the Global Language Monitor is busily adding words to the English tongue at a rapid pace, something like one new word every 98 minutes.

Now, if you think about it, if you’re adding one new word to any language every hour and a half, you’re just playing games. Witness one of its latest English additions–ginormous. It sounds cute, but it’s not English–it’s texting or BSing.

Anyway, the combined BS coming out of the ersatz Global Language Monitor has even fooled–Bernie Madoff style–publications as otherwise prestigious as The Economist and The Christian Science Monitor into predicting that 2009 will usher in the English language’s one millionth word.

My take? More than 900,000 of those words (maybe more like 970,000) are ridiculous slang and weird constructs. If I grunt, is that a word? Probably, according to the Global Language Monitor.

Categories: Grammar Sucks