Debunk?
There is this odd resurfacing rumour that webloggers make a habit of "debunking" mainstream media. I would like to "debunk" this misconception. Look, here is someone trying to apply the misconception to Iraq bloggers;
...editors are cruising to be scooped by such local Iraqi blogs as Iraq the Model, which last summer debunked a Los Angeles Times story on the departure of Coalition Provisional Authority head L. Paul Bremer. The Times told its readers that Bremer had fled abruptly, "afraid to look in the eye the people he had ruled for more than a year." In fact, as Iraq the Model reported, Mr. Bremer before leaving delivered a television address that gave a moving account of his tenure and his hopes for the new...
Is it just me or does nobody else have "television address" leap out at them like an orange jumpsuit at guantanamo bay? Come on people, it's not uncommon to pre-record telly and radio addresses. With all due respect to the bloggers at Iraq The Model, since when did pre-recorded telly announcement's qualify for "look in the eye" bravery?
UPDATE; Comments on this post switched off. Have said it before, will say it Again. This site was not created so that people could swear at and stir each other up. If you'd like to present your opinion here try to do so without being an arsehole. That applies to comments from all political positions.
UPDATE UPDATE; Ok. I have relented and switched back on. How many people are really scrolling all the way back here just for this thread anyway?
24 Comments
Do you have any evidence that this is the case?
And if it was pre-recorded, what difference would it make?
And what difference would it make to ITM's original report of "I saw it on TV"?
Madtom
Emigre,
You took the words right out of my mouth. What is up with that?
lim.
Ohhhh...I thought everybody knew that, it was pre-recoded...even the BBC said that at that time
Touche madtom "I saw it on TV", lol. It must be true.
U.S. occupation chief heads home after 14-month rule
So, did Paul Bremer deliver a farewell speech to Iraq or not?A Grand Mission Ends Quietly
Either it is, or it is not...and then there is the gray area inbetween.
"There is this odd resurfacing rumour that webloggers make a habit of "debunking" mainstream media. I would like to "debunk" this misconception."
Probably should not go so far as calling it a "habit" but there have been factual incidents where "mainstream" media have been proven wrong...IMAGINE THAT
With this in mind, call them webloggers, call them bloggers.... might want to even call the THE PEOPLE....sometimes even people with perseverance can right a wrong....or gray a wrong.
In any case, this article mentioned by Em was clearly slanted to the authors view (right or wrong).
Various other topics in this article are appealing and worth discussion as well to the inquisitive. Why pick "debunked"? Ah, well..it's a starting point.
PH101
Well yes, PH
The article does raise a number of appealing topics, not least that webloggers/bloggers/"The People" certainly do seem to be having an impact.
However, it is not simply enough to "have an impact". One must consider the impact one is having. How factual is that impact and how much founded in bias?
The blogosphere's health is perhaps best measured by the freedom one has in questioning another bloggers "slant" be it right or wrong.
101
"Touche madtom "I saw it on TV", lol. It must be true."
That's not what I meant, What I said was that Ali saw it on TV, and was if I remember correctly quit moved by the speech, I remember making a joke, as the story of the day was reporters paying people to jump on a humvee after it was burnt, and creating news. Then Ali made a party, sent out for a cake or something, to celebrate the handover. So he was making news, but then he reports that Bremer came on and gave his farewell address. He reported that the room went quiet as everyone wanted to hear, and that the words he heard that day brought tears to his eyes. The story as presented by Ali was very believable, I remember it clearly because I liked the first hand report of how the room reacted. So today I ask what's up, did Ali lie?
Madtom
:)..... :P...... ;)
PH101
"Wrong war? Wrong time? Wrong place?"
That all depends of if you mean the war potus advertised or the one he engaged in? Pick one and then I'll tell you what I think.
Madtom
The problem is that some blogs can be sources of outright lies, deliberately planted rumors and woefully inadequate analysis. And these are not 'accidental' errors, but deliberate, persistent attempts to put biased propaganda before blog readers.
The poster named Jeffrey, above, who used most of his post to revisit a manufactured story item (that was itself part of the Republican Party's attempts to cover-up investigation of, and divert attention from, the fact that George Bush deliberately missed military service because, coke taker that he was, he was afraid to submit to a medical as the blood test would have revealed that he was still taking drugs, even though he was carrying out community service (not 'voluntary work' with PULL as he claims), and such a result would have meant automatic imprisonment for breaching the terms of his community service order. So the whole red-herring of fabricated records is employed to conceal Bush's drug criminality and his cowardly putting his own skin before his military service requirements, but never mind, people like Jeffrey are working on the smoke-screen the whole while), actually shares the same name as a failed blog-owner whose blog was the most disgusting example of the kind of lying, biased propaganda outlet you could care to mention. He used to ban posters for suggesting, for instance, that there were no WMD in Iraq, he used to delete posts from people that contained facts that contradicted the lies he used to post and on occasions he claimed to have reported the IP addresses of posters to the FBI as a way of trying to intimidate contributors who challenged the innaccurate, bigoted, racist, poorly presented blog he was running.
So while Jeffrey above, in recycling his Republican Party red-herring story to make a point about the potential blogs have for investigating innaccurate stories, even stories that were deliberately manufactured with the express purpose of their being investigated and exposed (and thereby assisting the REAL cover-up by concentrating people's attention on Rather's mistake, rather that George W. Bush's drug taking, dishonesty and cowardice), it has to be remembered that there are other Jeffreys too - unpleasant, lying, hypocritical, bullying and cowardly Jeffreys who abuse the potential that blogs have for disseminating news and analysis and instead pervert that potential by running the type of crude propaganda-dripping, racist, bigoted, hate-filled, lying Republican-slanted farrago of a blog that gives blogging a bad name.
I'm sure that Jeffrey above wouldn't wish to be associated with the failed propagandist Jeffrey whose blog became a laughing-stock for its bigotry and hopelessly inaccurate analysis, because if, by any remote stretch of the imagination he actually was the same person then I would have thought he ought to be the last person on the face of the earth who had any right to criticize anyone for being duped into running a false story when he himself had quite deliberately used a blog as a medium for peddling lies, propaganda and a totally false picture of reality
OK, now get back under your rock, lizard.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Ah heem...
Er, you two may be thinking far to highly of blogs....blogs...blogs
PH101
Just tidied up double post.
blog rumors like all the shit you just pasted, please if you had evidence of any of that shit you posted you'd be on page in the note, not blog count. remember proof, you were going to provide some about the Bremer deal?
Madtom
So it was the same Jeffrey! And now he's all upset! Who says that a few words on a blog can't make a difference, eh? One minute you're being a sanctimonious hypocrite, the next somebody points it out and voila! - you're reduced to stuttering foul-mouthed apoplectic rage. I guess it's hard to wander about acting as if you've got a shred of credibility when you've a track-record like yours, eh Jeffrey?
Be careful when your face goes all red and that vein stands out in your temple like that. If only you'd learned that honesty was the best policy you wouldn't be such a figure of scorn. As things stand there are more holes in your credibility than there are in a busy whore's stockings but then if you will prostitute whatever integrity you once had, is it any wonder?
Mind that blood-pressure, blogger manqué!
Jeffrey! You said "asswipe"!! I haven't heard that in years! That's awesome.
Why do people not sign their names? I don't get that? what's so scary about it?
To all those who post "anonymous" watch this...its really not scary....see...here I go...
C O N N I E
There now...that wasn't too bad at all!!!
Get a name? But Jeffrey, you don't have any authority here. You don't set the rules here. You don't have any rights to make demands on what people do here. You are incapable of influencing the actions or beliefs of others as you are, for all your squawking, impotent.
You have already tried to give expression to your bullying, cowardly, lying side, Jeffrey, and it was an abject failure. This is emigré's blog, her rules apply here, not yours. You had a blog but it collapsed under the weight of its own irrelevance and your utter incompetence - remember? You do remember don't you, Jeffrey? How once you were the proprietor of a blog that became a by-word for bigotry, racism, cowardice on the part of its owner (i.e. you), hilarious misreadings and misrepresentations of developments in Iraq, the posting of lies and the frantic efforts of its owner (i.e. you) to ban, delete or censor any accurate information about Iraq? Come on, Jeffrey, you must remember that - it was so execrable that apparently copies have been stored with a view to bringing out a comedy based on your gargantuan ignorance and risible attempts to maintain the Bush line even as the massed spin of the CPA and its adoring fan-base collapsed under the roar of explosions and the crackle of flames. In literary terms 'Jeffrey stood on the burning blog' doesn't quite sit up there with 'The boy stood on the burning deck' but the comic comparison has some merit.
It seems, though, that you haven't really learned the lesson of just how little credibility you have now that you've paraded your ignorance, prejudice, racism, mendacity, cowardice, bullying and weak propaganda skills across cyberspace for all the world to see. The little coterie of like-minded racists you cultivated may have proved your undoing. You may, given your weak powers of analysis, have interpreted their equally ignorant and bigoted 'support'’ as approval, even endorsement of your daily murdering of the truth. Like an alcoholic or a junkie you may, intoxicated by the 'power' you had tapped into but, like a tyro, abused, have come to believe that you were actually representing the views of a substantial number of people, such is your disconnect from reality.
Alas, no. As your own ever-dwindling traffic-counters should have informed you, you had become a refuge for a mere handful of idiots, but take heart, Jeffrey, because you were the Daddy of them all. There are not many people on this earth (outside of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz Ahmed Chalabi, et al), who can claim to have made it their life’s work to manipulate, deceive and demonize people by employing lies, racism, jingoism, manipulation, propaganda and the fabrication of ‘evidence’ in an attempt to dupe others. There are not many people on this earth who are willing to use lies, propaganda and deceit to advocate and justify the killings and torture of innocent people. There are not many people on this earth who would dedicate their time to deliberately acting as a channel of lies, propaganda and the continued defence and advocacy of having an innocent people slaughtered. So you see, Jeffrey, you are a success of sorts. You have succeeded in placing yourself in the ranks of those who lie, bully, deceive and attempt to manipulate the views of others by cowardly and dishonorable methods. You have succeeded in creating a perception of you as a loathsome, hypocritical, cowardly mealy-mouthed spokesperson for those who wish to see a world without respect for law, for justice or for peace. And you have succeeded beyond your wildest dreams in exposing yourself, time and time again, as a pompous, blustering, impotent loser who cannot hold his own when challenged.
Damn, Jeffrey, but you’re just a miserable failure and a contemptible laughing-stock when you think about it, right? Now be a good little blogger manqué and stop messing up emigré’s blog with your pathetic potty-mouth. Why don’t you sign yourself Jeffrey the po-faced? It suits you in so many ways and you are full of shit.
Hey! Is that vein throbbing in your temple again?
”What’s my name, fool? What’s my name?
.... I always said she was a smartie. A bit misguided to the left at times..but a smartie nonetheless. Sharp bloody tongue also....damn.
...deciduous
Oh Puleease. Only yesterday somebody was noting the pleasant direction this blog had been taking. I guess maybe we spoke too soon. You are (all three of you) foul mouthed stirrers. No, I am not deleting any of these comments. Re-read yourselves and be ashamed. Iraq deserves better.
Btw - this is not my blog, there are eleven other blog members. Yes, really. Plus recurring commenters.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win."You lose Jeffrey. But then, you always lose. It's what you do best - you're a complete and utter loser. Poor, poor Jeffrey, the man who never was. Just a few traces of foul-mouthed spluttering incomprehension adrift in cyberspace - that's all you are and all you're ever likely to be. Embrace abject failure, Jeffrey, as a blogger, as a writer, as a control-freak, as a human being, it's what you are. There is nothing else, no place else for you to go but further down. Enjoy your impotence, Jeffrey, it's all you've got.
Jeffrey, Anonymous --
My, my.
"asswipe", "shithead" and "fucking " "dick"
I see that the altruistic 'professor' is back to share his treasure trove of choice English vocabulary with the poor uneducated Iraqis. It's just a pity that most of them write better English than he does, eh? Or does it reflect his desperation at getting smacked about by even the random 'anonymouses' floating by?
(I also prefer to have a name to my opponents, but merely for the reason of avoiding confusion, not for imaginary macho reasons. I suspect that J's much touted 'analysis' skills failed to reveal to him through the writing characteristics of his antagonist that it was always the same person. Alas.)
Close your eyes and open your hands, Jeffrey.
Feel that warm, somewhat greasy, hairy thing?
Yes, you have just been handed your ass ... again.
:)
Isn't Jeffrey dead? Oh wait, no - it was his blog that died, wasn't it?
I want write a story about a small nerdy boy who grows up near to a 'Field of Dreams' and harbors an ambition to build something really special. He is driven by an inner voice that whispers to him "If you build it, they will come!" This voice becomes his constant companion as he makes the transition from small nerdy boy to small nerdy immature man. It is a comfort to him in the long hours of his dull, empty life. It becomes the mantra that he reaches for whenever he feels trapped in the claustrophobic nothingness of his days, a small glimmer of hope to cling to as the rhythmic ticking of the living room clock competes with the click of his wife's knitting needles in a metronomic beat that drive him almost out of his mind with despair as a life marked only by lack of achievement ebbs away, second by clicking, ticking second. He closes his eyes and imagines, then repeats the magical words out loud: "If you build it, they will come!" Then he is brought back to harsh reality by a strident voice yelling "Will you ever grow up, loser? If you build anything again it'll just be like that blog of yours - they'll come, take one look at it and then leave in droves, never to return. You really are pathetic, you know that?" Tears sting his eyes as his wife's cruel words cut him to the quick. "She's right, of course," he thinks, "But does she have to be so damned insensitive about it? An uncomfortable silence falls, punctuated only by the sibilant hiss of his wife suppressing laughter by stuffing her fist into her mouth. "What's wrong loser?" she suddenly barks, glaring at him. "Got something in your eye, again?" A dreadful, icy gloom grips his heart. "How could two people be separated by such a chasm of mutual incomprehension and loathing?" he asks himself. "Whatever happened to the woman I wooed and won?" She was barking angrily at him again. "Oh stop snivelling! No wonder that woman left you, you soppy great lump. Boy am I ever sorry that I hooked up with your sorry loser's ass, that'll teach me to accept a ride home from a lounge lizard when I'm drunk. Why couldn't you have written a proper blog and stuck to it? Some men start blogs and keep it up. That's always been your trouble, you can never keep anything up for very long." With these words she cackles to herself and throws him a meaningful, mocking glare. He winces as she lands yet another cruel blow that strikes deep at the heart of his inadequacy. The tears course down his cheeks as he rushes from the room and, sweeping aside all his Superman comics, throws himself sobbing on the bed in the spare room to which his wife had relegated him oh so long ago. For some time the only sound to be heard is that of his anguished weeping and the deep gulps with which he tries to stifle his sobs for fear that, if she overhears him, his wife will ban him from going online and pretending to be important just like she did the last time she caught him crying, when that poll showed that Muqtada al-Sadr had one of the highest recognition and approval ratings of any public figure in Iraq. Gradually he falls silent, curled up in the foetal position and sucking on his thumb for comfort. Then, suddenly, as if from far away, he hears it, that unmistakeable familiar sound:"If you build it, they will come!"
"Oh shut up and leave me alone, you @#*@!" he cries, "You're nothing but a $~&*#%£ @&*~#! I HATE you, do you hear?"
He is crying again......
Aesop
I'M scrolling back!
Those last few posts, especially by Aesop, are hilarious. I also find it funny how some loudmouths are silenced by laughter at their own inadequate bluster.
Bruno
I found those last few posts, especially the one by "Aesop", extremely childish and moronic. I have just about had a guts-full of manipulative imposters, from all frequencies of the political spectrum, so watch your back.
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